I am numb.
   Actually, I am sickened by Monday’s developing news about four pedestrians killed by a truck Sunday evening in a city not that far away from me. Then it was reported a fourth person, a boy, who also suffered serious injuries.
   It was later reported that all victims were three generations of the same family, who were hit when a truck jumped the curb at an intersection.
   By Monday night, it was reported that it was not an accident, but a premeditated attack on a Muslim family.
   The nine-year old boy has lost his father, mother, sister and grandmother: targets of a 20-year-old man who deliberately drove onto the sidewalk and mowed down this family.
   He did so because they were Muslim.
   It was a racial attack.
   It was mass murder.
   The driver has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. Police have said other charges, including terrorism, are possible.
   We’ll learn more as the week progresses, even more when the driver, barely out of his teens, appears in court Thursday.
   The investigation continues and the news spreads – like sadness, grief, fear, and anger – across this country; across this globe.
   It was an act of terrorism, said Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
   My heart and soul reverberates with each piece of news from every broadcast I hear. My eyes tear up as I read newspapers and points of view on social media.
   I can make no sense of this.
   I don’t think like that.
   This was a family out for a walk together on a warm spring evening, one of the few things we can do, as a family, in these COVID-19 lockdown days.
   They were attacked.
   They were killed because of what they represented to one man.
   I don’t like thinking about it, can hardly write about it, and don’t want to talk about it; but I must.
   We all must talk more openly about racism and hatred in any form.
   We must talk with family, friends and strangers.
   We must speak out against hate. And discrimination. We must speak out against violence, in action and intention, against others.
   We must do this together.
   We are all human.
   Speak out against hate
   Speak up for others
   Speak up for your self.
   Speak up for this family.

© 2021 j.g.lewis