fear, grief and forgiveness...

The weak can never forgive.

Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I write this post with a heavy heart

but i am writing it anyway.

I live near Shediac, a small coastal town in Eastern Canada.

The nearest city is Moncton, about 15 minutes away.

This week was a crazy week for Moncton

and the kind of week we're not used to in this small, friendly,

peaceful place we call home.

A young man of 24 went on a shooting rampage

and killed 3 Mounties and injured 2 others.

For 30 hours, the city was in lockdown

as the RCMP searched for the gunman.

These brave souls had just lost 3 of their own

and grieving would have to wait because

they had a job to do.

People were asked to lock their doors and stay in.

They were also asked to keep their porch lights on,

to help with the search in the darkness of night...

People did leave their lights on

and in a show of solidarity,

others across Canada and elsewhere in the world

left their lights on as well...

You can see some of them here:

http://globalnews.ca/news/1379152/social-media-lights-up-with-lightsonformoncton/

Whenever something like this happens

i'm reminded that there are FAR more good people in this world than bad.

At 12:10am on Wednesday, June 4th,

the shooter was caught and taken into custody.

We all breathed a sigh of relief...

and then of grief.

The next day,

people began to bring flowers at the RCMP headquarters in Moncton...

by 7pm last night, about a thousand people had gathered
to pay their respects to the fallen...

My heart goes out to everyone -

including the young man who did the shooting - and his family.

No parent raises their child

hoping that he or she becomes a mass murderer.

It broke my heart when i heard people wish him dead...

it doesn't mean i want him FREE,

but i think it's wrong to wish the death of another,

regardless of what they've done.

As much as i understand the anger and the fear -

I also believe there are far more people

on the brink of a mental breakdown

than we may think

and I believe in forgiveness more than i do hate.

I have decided to stick with love.

Hate is too great a burden to bear.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

And soooooo....

when the time came to paint,

although my heart felt heavy,

I wanted to paint something light...

so I started with this - on canvas, about 2 x 2ft

from a photo of my uncle who loves to bake. :-)

 at first, it didn't look too bad...

as i went along, i was more and more uneasy with it...

by the time i got here, he looked like a man
who had lost his arms... 
or like he had lobster claws for hands... hehehee.

 So i tried fixing it by showing more of his shirt,
lowering the pan,
widening the arms,
lightening the background...

Then i decided to put one of his arms
under the pan completely...
in the photo, he's holding it with his 2 hands -
but i'm the artist, and that means i can put his hand where i want!
giggle.

 I also decided to stretch his head right out of the canvas
rather than try to squeeze his whole body AND the pan inside the canvas.

Certainly not done yet, but I'm a lot more comfortable with it.
At a certain point,
i came so close to painting over the whole thing.
I sat and stared at it for about 5 minutes
wondering if I could really salvage the lobster claws... ;-)
We'll see where it ends up after the next sitting,
but i already like it more than i did, so it should be ok.

When the palette starts to look like this,

it's time to take a break!

And something I thought you'd all appreciate...
i definitely relate to some of this.
Much of this.
ok, all of this. 

thanks for being here Munchkins.
Be kind to one another.
Be grateful for what you have,
where you are,
WHO you are.
xx