25.5.17

Crowded places, kids, and fear

I'm off up to London with DD at the weekend. I'm meeting up with my brother and his family at Comic Con and I am really looking forward to an excuse to wear my Morphsuit and dress as Deadpool again, I even bought some plastic ninja swords to add to the look.

But after the Manchester attack and the tragic loss of life at the Ariana Grande concert on Monday I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, maybe even scared. Obviously I'm going anyway. As daily news stories point out, I could just as easily die on the drive in to work as in a terror attack, and terror is of course what these evil people hope to cause.

The whole thing has upset me, as I'm sure it's upset everyone. I sway between tears as I read about the beautiful people who died, on a night where they were with friends and family having fun, and then laughter as social media does it's best to snark at terrorists and fight light in the darkness. (see more on the hashtag #BritishThreatLevel on twitter)

I take great solace in reading of the things people did, and continue to do to help others, from kind words, free taxi rides, helping the injured, donating to help with hotel bills and funeral costs.

It is in the aftermath we see the truth of people, many will say we see the best of people, sadly we also see the worst of people, the vile and the racist and the spiteful, this sort of event displays the best and worst of humanity, so I hang on to the images of love and kindness, I look for the helpers.

Talking to DD about London, among my quips about dying wearing a Deadpool costume (oh the irony if that happens, but at least the blood won't show) I talked to DD about plans for us if there was a terror incident, I said that she should use me as a shield, that if we couldn't get out she should lay under me to stay safe, she looked into my eyes, her own eyes wide in surprise, saw my sudden seriousness and nodded, "yes, OK" she said, "but if we are OK, if other people are hurt, we are going to help, I'm going to wear an extra T shirt in case we need bandages..." and there it is, the best of people. I'm proud and heartbroken in equal measure. Not all super heroes wear capes, not even at Comic Con, some wear an extra T shirt.


So I fully expect a fun day out, and I'm trying to keep fear to the back of my mind and keep love and kindness to the fore.

I'll be sharing Comic Con photos after the weekend. Stay tuned.

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