Perspective

One of my oldest** friends was running the Boston Marathon this year. Before the deadly attacks I had suspected that she was a participant, she usually is, but didn’t know for certain until a few days after the chaos. She is home safe and sound now having crossed the finish line just 25 min before the bombs were detonated; I know she is extremely thankful. It was a bizarre turn of events that prohibited her family from attending the race to cheer her on, and to the bizarre, I am very thankful. I know of 260+ family and friends that were not as lucky that day.

The morning after the attack I was chatting with an OMFS Resident in the EMD. We were making small talk about the horror and senseless nature of the attack, as I suspect most of you were, when he suddenly became quiet.

He then went on to explain...“I don’t understand why the government says ‘we are looking into this to determine if it was terrorism’. Somebody detonated a bomb – that is terrorism”. He continued, now with more fury and frustration in his voice, “and when entire villages are slaughtered for no reason, no discrimination, that is genocide. You don’t need to investigate. Investigating means many, many more people will die. Why does the government always come on the news and say, ‘we need to investigate?’”

I had no answer for him. I shared in his frustrations...except it was different for me. I was raised in Canada. My family are all well and living in Canada...we are probably like most of you reading this. We are lucky – and except for tragedies like Boston we lead a fairly secure existence.

The man I was talking to is named Simon. His entire family was slaughtered in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. When he finishes his residency here in Tanzania, he will return to be the only OMFS surgeon in the country, and the only member of a family. Simon apologized for his outburst and said that for the most part, he is okay. Not angry or bitter at the past, just frustrated when he sees “ignorance repeating itself”.

He is an example of resilience, forgiveness and determination personified and a good perspective check for me. 

**for the record...when I say oldest I mean in the length of time we have known each other, not age. And she ran Boston in 3:24.

...and the photo from the top is the Genocide Memorial Wall at the Museum in Kigali.  I had a chance to visit there in 2010 - quite a moving place.