This epitaph by the current Toronto Mayor and political adversary of Rob Ford, pretty well sums up the best that some can muster as a tribute to a fellow man’s death, when that man is Rob Ford.
Imagine that engraved on your gravestone for generations to come. If you (like Rob Ford) are best remembered for being “profoundly human”. WTF? What does that mean? When I had to put down my beloved pets in past years I didn’t see them as “profoundly dog or cat”. They were my much loved furry family members. If the best that can be said about you when you depart this earth is that you were “profoundly human”, then your time here on earth was terribly wasted.
I admit that I joined the ‘I hate Rob Ford parade’ during his final years as mayor of Toronto. Those years were a circus, a national and international embarrassment and affront for all Canadians. There was no more polarizing political figure in our time at the municipal level than Rob Ford.
Ford’s many exploits and headlines-making buffoonery do not need to be rehashed. They are forever embedded in YouTube clips of the late-night television talk shows. They remain with us for years to come as scars of a disease that was left untreated for far too long. It did terrible damage to Canada’s largest city, if not the country itself. But we are healing from it.
Our friends to the south are experiencing a similar malaise with the growing awareness that Donald J Trump may well be the Republican candidate for the Office of President of the United States. Both Ford and Trump shared a similar bigger than life persona that transcended the political caricatures we have come to expect in our leaders. As the United States struggles with Trump, many of our American neighbors are quick to point out that Canada had Rob Ford. Touché.
In my lifetime, three of my most despised public figures have been O.J. Simpson, Rob Ford, and Donald J Trump. All three represented membership in a wealthy class demanding entitlement and privilege denied to the vast majority of us regular folk.
In the past few days I have read many commentaries on Ford’s death, most of them unforgiving of his past misdeeds and the national disgrace he visited on our country. I am greatly disturbed by many of these commentaries. I have not donned a pair of rose-colored glasses to view this man’s legacy. But, unlike some, I do not relish in the fact that he suffered unspeakable pain with the cancer that ravaged his human form. I do not agree with those who apply karma to what he experienced in his final years. No one deserves to die the kind of death he did with the cancer he had, and then have hate spewed upon his corpse.
Let this “profoundly human guy” transition from his earthly life to the beyond. I’m not forgiving his past anymore than I’m asking you to forgive his past. But trashing him now, and in days to come, serves no reasonable or constructive purpose.
And, perhaps, we should all hope that when our time comes to leave this earth, we will do so remembered as more than just being a ‘profoundly human guy.’
