Tuesday 3 June 2014

“If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.” Mark Twain



It makes for a great quip at parties or an attention-catching headline, but the reality in our country and in our province is that every vote makes a difference. I could give you all sorts of philosophical reasons why it is your responsibility to educate yourself and vote as a member of a democracy, but I am sure you have heard it all before and your cynicism remains intact. 

There are many common complaints and reasons why people choose not to vote. I would like to address only one of them here because it is one I have heard often and it has an easy answer… and that is fun. Very rarely do complex issues have easy answers.

Common opinions I have heard lately include:

“My vote doesn’t matter. The candidate I like best in my riding has no chance of winning and I don’t like the other options, so I am not voting at all.”

Or

“The candidate I really want is too small to matter and I don’t want to throw away my vote, so I am voting for whoever is going to win anyway, or not voting at all… we’ll see how I feel on June 12th.”

Your vote matters even if the candidate you want to vote for has no hope of winning in your riding. How is that? In Ontario Provincial Elections, a political party begins to receive money back to reimburse their election expenses if they win only 10% of the popular vote. Winning at least 10% also means candidates receive a refund of their candidate's deposit. The candidate also gets public money if he or she receives at least 15% of the vote. Every vote counts, even for minor candidates. 

What is that money good for? Running again. Having a stronger chance in the next election. Growing the political party. Public funding plays a huge role in Canadian politics and in the amount of power each of the major parties control. Public funding is determined by a breakdown of the popular vote in each election. Cut off some of the funding to the parties you disagree with and channel it toward someone you DO agree with, and your vote will have counted in a big way. As long as you vote properly without spoiling your ballot, you have not "thrown away" your vote. 

In this election people may say that it is more important to vote for whoever has a chance of beating each riding's conservative candidate. All power to them. That is also an election-day strategy that I could get on board with. But in my riding I happen to disagree with the platforms and principles of everyone who has a real chance of winning. "Everyone" being the Conservative, NDP and Liberal candidates. If your riding has a strong candidate from a party whose platform makes sense, then I am happy for you. In mine, I have decided the Green Party candidate is by far the strongest, and while I suspect (strongly) that he will not win, I am happy to give him my vote of confidence and contribute to the strengthening and funding of the Provincial branch of the Green Party. Their platform (mostly) makes a lot of sense on issues that I care deeply about. What more can you hope for, really? I would encourage people to check out EVERY candidate running in their riding before making their choice at the polls.

But, for the love of all things holy, please make a choice and go to the polls. Perhaps your strategy is bringing down the Conservatives because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" or bolstering the strength of someone you actually agree with. Whatever your strategy in the next week as the polls continue to collect Ontarian votes, please come up with one. I would like everyone to vote in agreement with me. Obviously. And just as obviously that isn't going to happen. But as long as you have a reason for voting as you do, I can respect that. I can respect anyone's informed decision. You still have over a week. Please, if you haven't already, read up on your candidate options, party platforms, and make a decision. 

Please.


“A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.” Theodore Roosevelt



Further Reading:

  1. How your vote is worth money
  2. How and When to vote: Elections Ontario 2014


Thursday 15 May 2014

"When You Lose Something You Cannot Replace"


“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
Voltaire


I am pregnant.
That may be news to you, or you may have already known.
I have been pregnant before.
That will be news to the vast majority of people.
I have been pregnant twice before. This is my third time.

Life is not always straightforward. And not always wonderful. But I expect that will not be news to anyone. I expect you have all been there before, in one way or another.

Miscarriage is a silent grief. My pregnancies were still a secret between my husband and I when they came to abrupt ends. The first was over a year ago now. The pregnancy was unexpected, although not unwanted. And its end brought me disappointment I had not seen coming. It opened a hole in a place inside me I hadn’t known existed. It brought an ache and an emptiness. 

The second pregnancy was planned and infused with excitement from before its beginning. It was Christmas: a season of gathered family, gifts kept secret until their major unveiling, and Jesus born as a baby. Everything around me heightened my excitement at the secret we had inside me. I exchanged glances with my husband and the enjoyment of our shared secret was doubled.

In mid-January when the pregnancy ended it felt like it destroyed me. So much hope and joy and planning and dreaming… extinguished.

When the physical pain passed, I tried to return to my work. But I sat unmoving before my computer screen or notebook and my brain couldn’t form sentences, couldn’t find any words. I sat staring blankly at words on the pages of books trying to force myself to read them, understanding nothing. My brain could process only shock and pain and emptiness and grief. 

A month passed.

And then another.

And with that month came the knowledge that I was pregnant again. Intellectually, I was pleased. We had continued to try and so this was success. Emotionally though, I was extremely distanced. We humans are created with an almost supernatural resiliency within us. But with that comes a certain amount of instinctual safeguarding. I could not be excited again. I was excited before and the backlash of it ending had tried to kill me. My psyche would not allow a repeat experience. And I was grateful. I am grateful.

My growing child is loved and wanted and planned for and highly anticipated. Nothing about my experience detracts from any of those things. If anything, this child is more cherished because of what has passed before. The difficulties I have faced in trying to give this child life.

But the joy will come when my labour is complete, and not before.

Pregnancy is a different experience entirely when you know firsthand and intimately that it does not always result in a living child. 

The experience of losing children is life changing no matter how old the child. And my pain has shaped me.

Most profoundly though, I have been impacted by the silent nature of miscarriage and the grief that follows. It has changed the way I see people and their arrogance or vagueness, their rudeness or conceit. How many of them bear silent griefs? How many are vague because specific words will bring them to tears and they are tired of crying? How many appear rude because I have just unknowingly asked them a question that knifes down into an unhealable wound in their hearts?

I will now be very careful with my words in certain circumstances. I will never ask a pregnant women if she is excited. I will never tease a couple, young or old, about having children. I will never expect a woman to hold my baby and be glad. I understand that she may be happy for me, but have her heart too filled with pain to have her arms filled with someone else’s joy. I will never tell someone the loss of their child is part of a greater plan.

These are things I understand.

But how many kinds of pain are there in this world? I imagine an unknowable and uncountable number. How many careless words on some other topic will I speak and cause silent wounds to ache again? How many people will I and have I accidentally grieved? 

An unknowable and uncountable number, I imagine.

So just as I must learn to extend grace to those who have insensitive questions or expectations for me bringing pain to wounds they cannot see or understand, I have learned through this the importance of finding grace for the people I encounter who are rude or dismissive or don’t seem friendly. Because I know that when my hidden wounds have been struck by someone’s accidental or inappropriate prodding, I am rude, dismissive or come across as unfriendly. 

Now I understand that you can never know the reasons, the pain and experiences, behind someone’s eyes.

We judge reactions when we are ignorant of motives. We can never know what silent grief lies behind those unfriendly expressions, what unhealed wound we have driven our thoughtless words into, what kind of pain haunts that person’s life. Even if they explained it to us, we wouldn’t understand.

So please, all you aching hearts, find grace for us who wound you unthinkingly. We mean well, we just don’t understand.

And please, all you unthinking speakers, don’t judge our unfriendliness toward your jovial or irreverent remarks. There is a pain in our lives you cannot know, just as we can never fully know yours.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
– Wendy Mass, The Candymakers


Further Reading:
  1. The Story I Will Keep On Telling: Why Talk About Miscarriage?
  2. A Father's Perspective
  3. What is Miscarriage? And what is Normal?