Today is "
Ruination Day", the 14th of April, the day Abraham Lincoln was shot 148 years ago. An incomprehensible act, like the ones I mourn today.
Today, like every day since last Sunday, I am so saddened by the death of
Rehtaeh Parsons: saddened,
angered, shocked, aggrieved. One look at 17 year-old Rehtaeh’s open-hearted, beautiful face, captured in the
many images so generously and lovingly shared by her family, is all it takes to know what a sensitive young woman she was, what
a big heart she had. The stories of her compassion and love for all living things are hardly necessary additions. But those stories abound.
By now, I am just one of
millions who feel pain and
sorrow at Rehtaeh’s death, sharing a fraction of what her family is going through, so my feelings are nothing special. And in this age of
information, or should I say, disinformation, it’s nothing particularly special
to say that I too know what it is like to be bullied and harassed. Perhaps not
for the same reasons, to be sure, but certainly for a prolonged period of time,
as she was, and based on misconceptions and lies, as she was. In fact, I've known it for more than four years, and it’s still going strong.
Please don’t get me wrong: I am not saying the triggering experience was
similar at all, nor the aftermath of the photo circulated. High school is hard enough and few ever want to relive it. But I do know a little of what it’s like to have your identity trashed over
and over until you don’t know who you are anymore, you've become unrecognizable to yourself, you've internalized the abuse so much. I know something of the humiliation that
comes with it, compounded by more humiliation following disbelief and disappointment at the response of the authorities. "It's just 'He said - she said'" must have felt like a slap in the face and I can't think how anybody trained in public relations would make the mistake of repeating it for the media nearly two years later.
I have been spared that horror without a doubt. It was certainly traumatic enough to be a newcomer in the area, have a contractor cheat me and go bankrupt, leaving my house up in the air, and then have my beloved dog seized for
such minor things, go through agonizing months to win a case and have her still held and not released until an unthinkable two years later - and then seized
yet again, held for another three years now, I think - all for incidents that
don’t compare to dozens of others where dogs were never seized or even muzzled,
not infrequently, the owners were not even charged with an offence. Held in a
cage, despite pleas from hundreds and maybe thousands, and among them, vets and
trainers – none of whom appear to support what this municipality has done, is
doing, still very much wants to do, that is, kill Brindi.
Rehtaeh was a girl who lived not far from me, a girl I never met, but who met someone I love very dearly. I am doubly saddened and angered because I know that Rehtaeh, who, like her mother Leah, loved animals, and because I have good reason to believe that she loved Brindi as well. It’s an
easy guess, frankly, since many of the SPCA volunteers fell in love with her. Everybody who meets Brindi does, really (even the tough trainer who assured me she never gets emotional towards dogs she is training) - with the exception of the former bosses of Rehtaeh’s mom Leah at Animal Services, where she used to work as an animal control officer.
That’s how I know
that Rehtaeh met Brindi, a few times, apparently, because Leah once told our good friend Bob Riley how she and her children saw
Brindi several times when she was locked up for two years at the SPCA shelter
(the one that was limited to 30-day stays). Leah confirmed this to me last
fall, before she left her job. So I suppose I can say this, now that I'm told she no
longer works there. Also, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that I am pretty sure Rehtaeh
had a heart for Brindi, or that she, like so many others, would have loved to see her live free; that maybe she knew how wrong it was to seize her to be killed and then lock
her up for years on a pretext and a fictional law. No, I am not going out on a
limb here, I don’t think. And knowing that makes me no less sorry that I was
not able to stop HRM all this time, and though I managed to stop them from killing
her so far, I would apologize to Rehtaeh if I could, though I have a feeling, I hope anyway, that she’d understand what I’ve been up against, given that she had to have some
knowledge of things behind the scenes. And Rehtaeh had a heart for all animals,
even earthworms and rats, according to her family.
And as if that most pure kind of unconditional love wasn’t
enough, her parents say that she left a gift of her heart and other organs so
that human lives could be saved – a total of four people, evidently. A person
with that kind of compassion would have to feel for Brindi. And to know that
such a person was handed official excuses for inaction, on top of what happened to her at a stranger’s house, then
relentlessly bullied and harassed – that such an aware, sensitive young person
was treated like a liar and made to feel worthless, maybe even like a criminal herself, to the point that the pain canceled out the love from family and friends, the point that she chose death over more pain – that’s just too much to bear. Really too much.
And the great barge sank and the okies fled
And the great emancipator took a bullet in the head
In the head
Took a bullet in the back of the head
It was not December and it was not in May
Was the 14th of April, that is ruination day
That's the day
The day that is ruination day
They were one, they were two, they were three, they were four
They were five hundred miles from their home
From their home
They were five hundred miles from their home.
When the iceberg hit, well they must have known
God moves on the water Casey Jones
Casey Jones
God moves on the water Casey Jones
It was not December and it was not in May
Was the 14th of April, that is ruination day
That's the day
The day that is ruination day
If you think I’m exaggerating or a bit out of line when I say that I
know something of the pain, if you don’t think fighting for your dog’s life
could attract stalkers and bullies and compare in any way to the horrors of
that poor young girl enough to drive a person to want to die, go ask
Jeff de la Rosa’s family. Jeff was an intelligent, well-educated man about my age, who had
a good career in the film industry. He killed himself on January 31, heartbroken after years of struggle and sacrifice to save a dog he loved, years of
hell that left no part of his life undamaged. I met Jeff at a distance, on the
phone and online, but we shared a special closeness, because he was one of the only
people on the planet who could relate to what I was going through, and warned me about what I
didn’t even know I was about to go through - not just the loss of friends and family bonds, the loss of income, of security, but betrayals and swindles by the very people entrusted to rescue my best friend. I now know his hell all too well, I
am sad to say. The bullying and cyberstalking (and real stalking) are just a
part of it, but a very toxic part indeed. Jeff tried very hard to help me and I owe him a great debt that I am devasted to realize I can never repay.
Jeff’s dog Stu was seized in 2004. He had been bitten and wounded by Jeff's other dog Maeve, then Stu, frightened and cornered (rather stupidly, it has to be said) by a caregiver, bit her in the arm. Dubious motives led to both dogs being seized. Thanks to Jeff's efforts, Maeve was returned quickly, and soon Stu was
cleared of the “dangerous dog” label in a hearing, and slated to be released. But somehow certain L.A. officials just
didn’t like the idea of letting him go. Despite all Jeff’s hard work, victories
at hearings and in court over several years, poor Stu passed away in
2011 – in captivity. His teeth were ruined after the first year, a
fate Jeff warned me about back in 2008. (I was incredulous, and then just a few months later agonized to learn it was happening to my own dog despite my own efforts, chronicled in this blog along with the damage and the feeble efforts to "rinse" daily...).
By any measure, Jeff’s ordeal was unbelievable and unforgivable. It never seemed to end. Around 2010 some misguided self-appointed "advocates" set him up for arrest on false assault charges, timed so he would conveniently be in jail when they trashed his house and - incredibly - stole his other dog Maeve. He never saw her again and I could hardly bear hearing him tell me about it. It all went far too far, and the consequences are irreversible. I can't discuss much more of it right now. I
hope he will forgive me for now.
But suffice it to say, Jeff was a good man, and he should not have gone through
any of that, not a bit of it; he deserved to be enjoying his life today instead, just as Rehtaeh should be enjoying an April Sunday with her two- and four-legged friends, right this very second.
But a lot of people let them down.
Rehtaeh's dad says she wasn't bullied to death, as much as
“'disappointed to death' by people she felt let her down, including police, her school and friends. She felt an entire community had turned its back on her, and she sought suicide to end the pain."
Jeff de la Rosa felt let down, and I kind of know how it feels to be let down by the community, too.
People tell you to ignore it, but they don't know how bullying and harassment takes its toll, or that over the years it inevitably affects one's ability to get things done, even things that are the biggest priority, like saving a dog's life. There's already not enough time in the day to cope with misinformation in the media and inaccuracies and discrepancies in the official "record". At several junctures it became too much, though, and I had to turn to the RCMP for help, devote time to prepare the information, do research on offences, etc. - only to be let down by the same sort of excuses they told Rehtaeh. I had
reams of evidence, including emails full of obscenities and hate, photographs taken on my property by stalkers, and so on. Facebook and blogger even found cause to remove some of this material, but the RCMP weren't moved to act. They somehow couldn’t fathom how online stalking and bullying actually fits the offences of “criminal harassment” and “intimidation” as defined in the
Canada Criminal Code. To them, the hate blogs, facebook groups, and twitter messages (which were actually directed at me, with my handle in them) were merely “free speech” or “opinion”.
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