Taking a Risk …Part 1 …Cocooning for Safety

It's dangerous to exist in the world. To exist
is to be threatened. We must live with threats.
—Adam Levine

I never used to be fearful—went through thirty years of normal living until one fateful day when my older brother Si, an RCMP officer, was gunned down. He was on canine patrol and just executing a search warrant, and the next moment, was gone.

A sniper bullet tore through his heart. That’s how I inherited Jules, his tri-color Australian Shepherd dog.

Jules is special. He took a bullet trying to save Si. Now, he protects me.

In the months after Si’s death, I tried hard to wrap my mind around the tragedy, but nothing made sense. I recall experiencing a sense of dread about the time Si was killed, but couldn’t figure out why I was given some preternatural warning.

Four months passed, and I thought I was getting things under control and coming to terms with Si’s loss. I actually drove to the Eaton’s Centre in downtown Toronto to take in a newly released horror film.

The film was cool. I remember all the technical wizardry they used to monitor the haunting—the video cameras, microphones and motion detectors. I was feeling vulnerable myself at the time and seeing the movie made me want to purchase some security devices to protect my house out on the Bluffs overlooking the lake.

Living alone without neighbors was daunting enough, but Si’s violent murder caused me night terrors, and drove me to see a psychiatrist.

But I was coping well, or so I told myself.

So, that night after the movie, I stopped by the food court to eat before heading home, but I could feel myself succumbing to a sense of dread. It reminded me of the way I felt just before I learned Si had been gunned down.

I sat in the food court sipping coffee and observing my feelings. Suddenly, everything around me exploded in a roar of deafening gunshots.

I hit the floor—Si drilled that maneuver into me until it was second nature, and miraculously, on this occasion it saved my life. One man near me wasn’t so lucky, and half a dozen bystanders were seriously wounded.

The mall shooting was a watershed moment. I came within inches of being killed—and spent the next eighteen months being treated for posttraumatic stress.

I’m still struggling with anxiety and seeing Dr. Martin Wallace, a psychiatrist who helps me with coping strategies as I try to put back together the pieces of my life.

It’s hard though—everything seems like a giant jigsaw puzzle where the pieces don’t fit.

For instance, the other day, I was going through Si’s personal belongings and found a small piece of paper wedged behind a plastic picture window in his wallet. The scrap of paper had a Bible citation scrawled on it: Prov. 26:2. That was strange. Si never went to church and as far as I knew, never read the Bible much.

I looked up the verse.

As a sparrow by wandering, or a swallow by flying, so no vain curse shall come upon any.

I had no clue what that meant.

I Googled the verse on my laptop and found a commentary. As I worked through the passage, I began to make sense of the bird references.

Apparently, sparrows wander, flying here and there and don’t settle—but swallows fly back directly to whence they came, and make their nest in houses where they come and go without fear.

So, I concluded the Bible verse meant whether you’re careless or careful doesn’t matter—God will protect you. Curses will fly over your head and not harm you.

I chuckled bitterly at that.

But the strange thing is, Si always said he was a gypsy wandering around, but I was more a homebody—in fact, that’s why I bought the Cape Cod house. I wanted security—and ironically, that’s the one thing I now lacked.

Si was the sparrow and I was the swallow, but staying near home didn’t make me any less vulnerable.

And one side effect of my anxiety was becoming apparent. My world was getting smaller and smaller.

To be continued...

Photo