By the time I got to the scene, the bodies had already been covered by police and most of the victims had been rushed by ambulance to the trauma unit at Sunnybrook hospital. My car, which I had earlier left parked on the street, had become part of a crime scene. People were milling about, forming small clusters. What had just happened an hour or so earlier was already making international news.
Tragedies like this are not supposed to happen in Toronto. But when they do, they teach us. Old, young, from all parts of the world, all people were for a moment the same, saddened by the senseless vehicular destruction.
But ultimately it wasn’t just this that brought the crowd together. It was an awareness of our own finitude. People wanted to connect with those around them, to exchange words, thoughts and feelings that would confirm their humanity mattered. A silent understanding seemed to pervade the area: “We need to get through this together. And I am here for you because I’m afraid, like you.” Awareness humbles us.
We want to be this understanding always. But it’s difficult. We have a tendency to lose perspective quickly.
And that happened, too, at the scene of Monday’s tragic van attack. As time went on, fewer people seemed to be interacting. Curiosity took over compassion. Some took photos on cellphones. Others, selfies in front of the object of the destruction, a white Ryder rental van that had torn a bloody two-kilometre path up Yonge. A strange emptiness filled the numbing void of hours earlier.
Toronto had been hit by something that looked like a terrorist attack – at that point there was no news of a possible motive – and yet it didn’t take long for people to get on with their day, as if nothing had happened. Where did that spontaneous sense of community of hours earlier go? This is not what neighbours are supposed to do.
Perhaps it was the shock. Perhaps it was the fact the rampage wasn’t the product of a terrorist attack after all, but the rage of a lone driver, with a deep-seated resentment toward women.
I want to put the camera down, and commiserate with my fellow Torontonians because my heart tells me its the right thing to do. Yet I continue to document the terrible sadness around me – because it’d be easier to forget it if I don’t.
But a makeshift memorial that springs up nearby at Olive Square Park for the victims reassures me. Its many messages of sorrow reveal that, even within the metropolis, humanity need not disappear. It’s nicer to be together – remembering that pain is human.
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