why weren't you my friend?

I just learned that there was another school shooting, this time in Montreal, Canada. True, it's very far from where I am but still, I am affected. After all, I am a mother.

I worry about what's happening to the world because I have a lil one who will in a few years time, venture out into the world. True, he's just gonna be in pre-school but isn't it that everything starts in school? Take for example, bullying.

There have been way too many incidences of bullycide to make me uncomfortable. I keep thinking that with the colonial mentality that we have and our fascination for high school and college life in the US that it will not be far in time that we will follow suit.

I wonder ... why are cliques so important to people? Why do we need to group ourselves together according to certain things? Can't we all mingle and learn from one another? If we can't, why can't we just accept other people for what they are then? What about the people who do not belong to a group? Should they really be outcasts? Invisible? Wallpapers?

I read this article about a 14 year old killing himself back in 1993 and I am appalled. Then I realized that it happens to a lot of the kids around the world? Why? Why do they wanna end their life when it has barely begun? Why do we not care? Why do we only become nice to someone when they are dead already?

Why weren't we their friends? Why weren't you my friend?
I hope that we will all soon learn to stand up against bullies in this world. Not just at school but in the office, home, and any place as well. We need to tell them that how they treat us is not right nor acceptable. And I hope that we can all do this without the need to shoot them dead or shoot ourselves dead.

To all the Curtis Taylors of the world, I hope you find courage to get through and stand up for yourself.

From the song Jeremy: "you kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge. That all you're gonna end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper. [...] it does nothing … nothing changes. The world goes on and you're gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself. Be stronger than those people. And then you can come back"