Road Safety
Toronto, 2002. Our first winter.
There I was on the busy Toronto roads, newly arrived with two young daughters, aged 3 and 5. I was anxiety-ridden, unsure, and downright terrified that I’d made this move from Jamaica. I held a small hand on each side of me. Maybe they were too young to understand but I was horrified by pedestrian behaviour.
“Do you see what that man just did?” I pointed out to the girls. “He stepped out into the road without even making sure the cars would stop. Unimaginable! Don’t ever do that. This is a new culture, but you don’t have to do everything that everyone else does.”
I would continue this rant for years, even to this day. “Cars are bigger than people. Don’t care about who has the right of way. Make sure you are safe. See that person on their phone, not even looking at the road? Don’t do it. A person in a car could be sipping coffee, tired, daydreaming, putting on makeup. Nowhere else in the world except North America do pedestrians assume they have the right-of-way.”
Years later when my son was around four, he ran out into the road. It was a quiet neighbourhood back then. I reacted harshly. He must have wondered why his loving mother transformed into a raving lunatic. There has to be a better way to teach children about road safety, I thought.
Inclusivity, diversity, road safety
In 2010 I wrote a book called Essie Wants an Education. The book’s message was originally supposed to be about inclusivity and diversity: a squirrel wants to go to school, but humans aren’t so welcoming. The idea came about when listening to the news and I heard the plight of Roma children being discriminated against in Eastern European schools. People said the Roma children weren’t capable of learning, that they were dirty and smelled bad. It reminded me of The Segregation Era in North America. In Essie Wants an Education, Essie the squirrel learns the usual academic subjects, but she learns something incredibly valuable to take back to her community. She learns to cross the street safely. I used the tale of Essie to become a gentler, more positive parent. “What did Essie learn in school?” I’d ask gently. “Do you remember how Essie did that?”
Stories work and I wrote this book so that other parents could do the same. I wanted all children to be safe. Every time I see children crossing the road, my body goes rigid and I become hyper vigilant.
Essie the squirrel. I bought these as giveaways for the book launch.
Why am I so fearful around cars and crossing the road, I wondered. Then a memory surfaces. I realize that writing Essie wants an Education is rooted in trauma. I can’t fully trust the memory so I call my mother in Jamaica for verification. She fills in the blanks.
Kingston, Jamaica, September 1976. I am 8 years old and my sister Rachel is 4.
The school day had ended at Stella Maris Preparatory School in Kingston, Jamaica. I ran around outside with the other children, all of us waiting to be picked up. My parents were both working, so my younger sister and I waited for a driver called Brother B. There was a commotion in the streets. A young boy had left the school grounds, run across the street and was hit by a car. He was a highly active child. Two weeks earlier, we’d been sitting behind this boy at the theatre. He couldn’t sit still.
It is difficult to say what is reality from my imagination. I think I saw him run across the street. I think I saw him being hit. I think I saw him lying in the road. I remember everyone rushing to see. Our driver Brother B took the young boy to hospital. When he came back for us hours later, I was scared. My mother told me I was traumatized by the blood in Brother B’s car.
That day a menacing fear took hold of me that never quite left: the cars, the street, the blood and then later hearing the boy had died. To think that a spirited young boy could be here one day, laughing, screaming and playing, doing all the things a young boy does, and then the next day, gone. Just like that.
In the weeks that followed, I saw the young boy across the street, staring longingly at the school, wondering why he couldn’t cross the street and come back in. His head and shirt were covered in blood. I was terrified and didn’t tell anyone what I saw. Now that, said my mother, is just your imagination.