Dear Jasmina

This post was going to be entirely different, but I’m a bit shaken…

Do you know when something tragic happens and you are shocked and a little part of you is perhaps grateful you weren’t involved? That’s how we felt for a little while last night. In the evening phone call with Christian’s mom, she asked if we’d heard of the terrible accident in Toronto. We hadn’t. Some little boy that fell over a railing… Not many details. We warmed our leftovers and ate supper while watching the news. It was the top story. So, we listened. And suddenly, “recently moved from Winnipeg to Ontario” and “15 month old son” whose name was “Lucca” all came together, and by the time they announced the parents’ names I had shivers down my spine and was saying to Christian: “We know them! It’s our neighbors! Our neighbors across the street! Veronica and Flavio…”

CBC’s The National had more details… the family was travelling to Argentina for Lucca’s baptism. He has an older brother named Maximo. They had moved to Ontario only 9 days ago… I saw them leave. I’d talked to them a few times… they were friendly and kind… I didn’t know them more than that. We didn’t even know their last name was Romano. The boy was in his mother’s arms close to the railing and as she was looking at her other son, he squirmed, fell over the railing, to the ground, 15 meters below.

All night I’ve been thinking of them and how terrible – beyond words – it would have been if it were our own. You think that people you only know by chance, with whom you exchange little before you drift apart – you think you will never hear of them again in this big world. I’m so sorry for them, because from the little I knew of them, I can imagine a little more vividly their pain… because they are not faceless strangers who will only be recognized by their tragic photograph. How helpless we are when there is such pain and yet how much we’d like to do to ease it.