This Friday, as I watched hundreds of Canadians cue to make contact with the late NDP leader Jack Layton's casket, a question came to mind,
"What Canadian would I actually physically line up to see if they passed away?"
The answer, "I'm not quite sure."
This realization almost takes on a sombre tone. The subject itself is quite bleak. Few people want to think about death, yet we all know we cannot avoid the inevitable. Titans such as Mr. Layton and the struggling Steve Jobs can be felled by cancer just as easily as Joe Blow down the street. What separates the two is lives lived.
I often wonder how many people etching chalk drawings or gracing the entrances to city hall actually met Mr. Layton, or even were in the same vicinity as the man during his sixty one years. It takes a lot to command some one simply with your ideas, shouted in the halls of Parliament kilometers away, in opposition no less.
Respect for the dead breaks through biases and grudges. Layton's follies are washed away with the summer monsoons that struck the city as he took his final breathes. The press will portray him as a pure white light for weeks to come. This is all textbook.
What becomes unique are these visitations. In an age of "pokes" and "likes", I gain increasingly more respect for those who make appearances; those who physically take a spot in line, approach the wooden capsule, draped with our nation's flag (How do you get one of those anyways?) and lay down a mourning hand. It must be strange to meet someone for the first time when they cease to exist.
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