Rob Ford is gone. The legendary one-time mayor of Toronto is gone. You’ve probably heard of him, and if you haven’t it will be very easy for you to look him up. Before his time as mayor he was a city councillor and people loved him. He was legendary for responding to people’s calls for help and going out of his way to do something for them. People felt heard. They felt cared for. They felt like Rob Ford was looking out for them. People also liked the way that he railed about waste at city hall – there was a supposed gravy train chugging along throughout the halls of City Hall.
You’ve probably heard of Rob Ford for one reason or another, and you may already be aware that he died of cancer last week.
It’s sad. It’s sad whenever someone dies too soon and when they leave behind a family through a painful illness and as I think about his passing there’s two things I feel like I need to put down here and they are not totally connected, but they are closely related.
The first thing is that I feel like I need to sort through my frustration with Rob Ford, because there was something about Rob Ford that made me so angry like no other public figure has before. I had this bizarre fascination with everything to do with Rob Ford; I would obssessively watch his every move with horror and anticipation. I started following people on twitter because of Rob Ford, and now that his mayoralty is over, I don’t follow anyone twitter anymore.
What was it about Rob Ford and why did he get to me so much?
The second thing is about how I want to write about real people in this world, or the real people in this world whose family is still in the world. It seems to be easy for people to forget that when they post things publicly on the internet that anyone can read these things. Just because someone is in another country or they have achieved some degree of fame, it doesn’t mean they can’t read hurtful things about themselves and feel bad about it.
People post awful things on the internet that they would never EVER say out loud in front of other people. A lot of the time people will do this even knowing that the person WILL read those awful things. Why does posting on the internet seem to strip away our sense of respect at times?
I think it’s important to remember that when you post something on the internet, anyone can read it. Anyone! It’s not private or protected. Just because you’re some ordinary joe, it doesn’t mean that you should post mean things about someone with a more public face.
So, in thinking about that, I want to write this post on Rob Ford knowing that his family could it. They probably won’t, but they could. There’s nothing stopping them, so I want to write this without writing anything that I would feel bad about if he kids read them. I think I want to take that approach with everything that I write. It seems like a positive way to do it.
So…
The more I think about it, the more I wonder what it was about Rob Ford that so frustrated me. It’s not just that he was a conservative with a lot of bluster, there was something else to it. I could point you to articles by others that talk about moments of bad leadership or about decisions that were uninformed or ignorant, but I think it was more than that.
So much has been written about Rob Ford, so I don’t think I need to get into the details, but if I’m going to be honest, I think that the one thing, more than anything else that upset me about Rob Ford was that he didn’t behave in the way that I felt that people ought to behave and he was unrepentant about this, and I found that endlessly frustrating. He rattled my expectation for the way the world works and that was upsetting to me.
I have to confess that I desperately wanted Rob Ford to get his comeuppance and thankfully, cancer was not what I had in mind. I wanted him to be trounced in the election. I have to confess again that as horrible as it is for a person to be diagnosed with cancer, I was more upset that he was withdrawing from the election than I was about his illness. By withdrawing that mean that he was unable to lose. That made me really mad.
The perfect comeuppance in my mind would then have been for him to lose the election for the seat on city council, but that didn’t happen either. The guy I was following, Andray Domise, and hoping would win didn’t even finish second – and he was such a great candidate too. I guess people loved Rob Ford too much.
It just seemed so arrogant – to step down from the mayoral election and to have his brother Doug step in, and then to have his nephew run for the school board trustee instead of city council so that he could run there, as if it was some kind of family business. It made me mad.
I wanted him to get his comeuppance, but it ended up very differently. I don’t think that anyone deserves cancer. It’s not a form of justice. It’s a terrible illness and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’m really sorry that happened.
You know, I spent so much time thinking about Rob Ford but I really didn’t spend a lot of time praying for him, or thinking about how Jesus felt about him. You’d think that maybe I would have done more of that considering that I place a whole lot of value in those things. You know, hoping for someone to get a comeuppance is a very human thing, but it’s actually not one of the things that Jesus urged his followers to do. Quite the opposite, he told people to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecute them.
Rob Ford never persecuted me and he was hardly my enemy, but I sure thought of him that way, and I’m sorry for it. I wish I’d been able to pray for him and to actually leave the anger to God. If there was any need for comeuppance or justice then I really should have thought about the fact that I believe these things are in the hands of God. I also believe that harbouring resentment and anger is unhelpful and even destructive.
If Rob Ford is in need of any of God’s judgment, then God will take care of it, just like God will take care of the same thing with me.
There’s a political process where people can make their voices heard and where they can speak out against injustice and incompetence. You can vote for a person or you can vote for someone else. You can write letters. You can start a petition. A lot of people did those things, but I just complained and got angry about Rob Ford. Not helpful. Not productive.
I was not a big fan of Rob Ford as mayor. I was on the opposite side of just about every decision he made, but I took it personally in a strange way and I let it get to me. I wish I’d been able to react differently. I suspect that it probably would have made little difference to the city or to Rob Ford, but it would have made a difference to me, and considering my whining and fuming only made a difference to me too, then that would have been a big step forward.
One of the things that upset me the most about Rob Ford was that it didn’t seem like he learned from any of his mistakes. It seemed like he was defiant, and unrepentant or else insincere in his forced apologies. That may be so, or maybe that’s just what he put forward to the public. Either way, the least I can do is to make sure that I learn from my own mistakes.
I’m sorry I let this one get to me. If God loves me as much as he loves Rob Ford then I think I can leave the anger aside and see if maybe God might want me to do something helpful next time.
