A Canadian kid, Yumna made Canada search for its soul.

 

A Canadian kid, Yumna made Canada search for its soul.

The Canadian nation is going through what Catholics call an examination of conscience. Jewish people also do the exercise and others also set time to ask, have I done what I should, or do I need forgiveness. Show me a human that has never done something he or she is sorry for. There was one clean from sin, but they crucified him.

Two weeks ago, we were mourning the poor First Nations children who were taken from their families, stripped of identity, and “made better.” As we were talking, a new act of violence arrested the media’s attention. A Canadian family was mowed down by a truck driven by a young man. His co-worker, who knew him well, said, I can’t believe that Nathaniel (Veltman) did that. He was such a good home-schooled Christian.

Nathaniel admitted his guilt at intentionally killing the family who came here from Pakistan years ago. He singled them out by what they were wearing. Others were passed by because they stripped themselves from national identities and wore regular attire. Canada faced another shock, and it forced us to face reality. We hurt others by not doing enough to rid ourselves of prejudice. It is we who need forgiveness.

One victim, dead on the scene, was fifteen-year-old Yumna Afzaal. She came to Canada as a one-year-old and was a regular Canadian kid. One minute she was going for a walk with Mom, Dad, Grandma, and a nine-year-old brother, and the next they were all broken bleeding on the sidewalk a short distance from home. She could see that they were all irreparable and knew that death was here.

Dying mostly is not instant. I know. The body fights and minutes can feel like hours as they do in a dream. Probably the girl had a chance to see before tears filled her eyes and they glazed over forever.

She was at the age when a girl turns into a woman. From the picture, we can tell that she was pretty and on her school wall she left a mural that includes her image. Now she faced finding out if a dying person really sees their whole life flash before their eyes. A dream sometimes lasts less than a minute but you wake up realizing that your mind covered a complete story.

She may have seen her brother’s broken body trying to move and people rushing out to help. She knew that most Canadians are good, peace-loving people, but she was the one who babysat him all his life. Trying to move… her body would not obey. Who will look after him now?

An old Jewish prayer, “shma Israel” says that when the heart stops the soul is screaming. Yumna’s soul was hollering to God, Allah, they call him. She realized she would not hold her brother again or her own children. She had a tender feeling towards some young man in school, but never. In some corner of her mind, she dreamt of a wedding dress and her parents happy at her future wedding, but never. She wandered how they will dress her for the funeral.

The terrible pain was giving way to numbness. She was a young woman now and remembered that she never had her first kiss. They didn’t talk about sex at home, but she was a Canadian kid and knew what it was. There will be no awkward loving boy and girl exploring each other and no grand moment of ecstatic joy. God is calling over a dark chasm, and she trusts him, but she is so scared. He always favoured boys, she knew. Or was it people did? There was no chance to run away. What if He is like the driver and doesn’t like people like her? She didn’t wear a hijab, her mother did, but God knows everything. What if He is like the people in Quebec? Every human wears something that forms their identity.

Yumna wasn’t sure if her heart is still beating but felt that it was silently crying. God can do all things and Allah is great, she remembered. She felt alone. Time stopped all together. She didn’t want to go. She saw the white young man who killed her holding the steering wheel aiming for her and didn’t feel hate, only sorrow. Her arm jerked and her legs trashed, like an animal that a hunter has shot, and her beautiful long black curls were soaking up the blood from the pavement.

Let it be over, a whisper in her mind, and ”I am so tired.” Sirens came closer, but she didn’t hear. Dead on the scene said the news. Yumna felt, not heard, the voice of God. “Be at peace angel, all is within.”

So many people, like me, left life somewhere else to emigrate to Canada, since it’s known as a place of peace. The USA is the melting pot and Canada is the mosaic. It’s not the oil or wheat and minerals that draw people to Canada, it’s the image of good kind peace-loving people that attract newcomers. Humans who want to compete, hoard, and win go further south. Here is where the runaway slaves came for shelter. Here is where the young soldiers who liberated the Netherlands and kept the British Empire free came from. We are polite but we are not pushovers. All of us coloured little pieces make the great mosaic.

Our heaven is now under assault by far-right ideologies we fought against. Our sins of the past are being exposed and there are a new kind of people here wanting to change us into the place we run away from. It is tempting but we must resist.

The day after Yumna’s murder, thousands from all faiths came out to march. The next day her coffin draped in the maple leaf flag was wheeled with the coffins of her beloved family to be buried. Did she change our beliefs?

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.