I will not join the chorus of people delighting in Boris Johnson's suffering. You disgust me.

I'm as socialist as you can get. My contempt for Brexit is severe.

You betray the very principles you claim to champion. I believe in the universal value and dignity of every life.

You are no socialists.

You're just as cruel and contemptible as the evils of capitalism. Where there are winners and losers. And boodthirsty revenge.

No, Boris Johnson does not deserve to suffer like this.

NO ONE DOES.

If God forbid this virus takes his life, and right now I believe it will given the latest dire report of his condition, I will mourn his loss and honour Boris as a human who suffered.

Despite championing an opposite and harmful view of the world to mine that caused suffering.

I can do that bc I allow my mind to grasp nuances.

Because I know that the vast majority of human beings don't want or intend to hurt or cause destruction even when they do. I grasp that humans are careless and sinful.

And that the only way forward is forgiveness and love.

I am steeped in the morals and sacred traditions of health workers and the Hippocratic Oath because I worked for Public Health.

I served and toiled under doctors, nurses and scientists during the last major period of global public health panic (Ebola and vaccination/measles).

The sacred value underpinning the Hippocratic Oath is that every life deserves our compassion and service when that life is in need.

That no human is a God and can decide worth like a market. Every life is owed your efforts toward freeing that life of suffering.

Because anything else...

*Is violence*.

A major reason why the Hippocratic Oath is drilled into every health worker like never before is the long dark shadow of AIDS.

When many health workers denied service to AIDS patients, succumbing to their fears rooted in bigotry.

If you didn't know looking at my profile, I am HIV positive. And long-term unemployed having suffered from illness myself.

That's the framing I see the world thru.

The fact of my condition is the lessons of AIDS which I refuse to betray. I uphold them for Boris and every human

Denying anyone your compassion and respect as a human, who is owed dignity flowing from values of universal rights and equality, denies our common humanity.

Which is where hope springs from.

That's giving up.

Because I believe in the values that universal health care, social program supports and universal basic income are grounded in, during this moment of his pain and suffering facing death...

I BELIEVE IN BORIS JOHNSON. I feel love for him right now.

I feel grief and agony for him.

I feel grief and agony for everyone who is suffering this pandemic.

For every life lost, and every life shell-shocked by loss and grief.

I feel love for every personal testimonial I see on social media and in the news.

There's yet another reason these values mean a lot to me, and you should know about.

I also feel love for Doug Ford and his family.

A piece of my life - a piece of my family's experience - is wedded permanently in a personal way with the Ford Family they may not even know about

Literally days, or two and a half weeks after this event, my brother's wedding in 2001...

My father (pictured right joking with our friends) will be dying in an ICU in a coma. Mechanically breathing from a ventilator at Toronto General.

I was at his bedside holding his hand.

I was at his side when they wheeled him in for surgery. Feeling optimistic.

*And I was at his side in ICU for the full horror of his condition.*

Barely alive.

His surgery was supposed to be fine and yet he took a horrible turn in recovery. A doctor told me it wasn't good.

My father's extreme suffering, the brutality wrought on his body required by surgery to remove a massive tumour, cannot be overstated.

His suffering was barbarity.

And I was there for it as close you can get.

I have never felt more shocked, more pained, more destroyed.

Desperate. Lost. Agony. Terror.

That was our experience in ICU with his battle with his cancer.

And the extreme suffering of others in ICU.

A permanent state of trauma mellowed only by the gentleness and kindness of nurses.

I have never been the same.

And then at some point, he turned.

And doctors assured he wss going to make it, against all odds. It was nothing short of a miracle, *and dumb luck*.

It took a year of arduous, painful recovery, for Dad to even be capable of basic functioning to the point he could work again.

The cancer my father suffered back then that rained terror on our lives in that ICU, is the exact same rare cancer that Rob Ford suffered.

In fact, Rob's tumour was virtually the same size and the same location as my Dad's.

They may even be the only two men in Toronto or Ontario who have experienced such a nearly identical condition with this rare cancer.

My father consented to his medical file - all of it - to be used by Rob's doctors. And any patients.

And for research.

His case is a guide.

My father's suffering offered Rob more of a chance, and quite likely extended his recovery.

It hopefully reduced some of his pain during his struggle as doctors applied the lessons of my Dad's surgery to avoid some of the pitfalls Dad suffered immediately after.

That's why my family was anguished for the Ford Family. My Dad felt personally invested, a piece of him was literally with Rob trying to lift him thru it.

A piece of all of us was with the Ford Family in a way. And with Doug.

I know what Doug saw and experienced at Rob's side

I know precisely the extreme horror Renata, Doug and the entire family was exposed to.

And as one of the only people allowed at my Dad's side thru the worst of it, clasping his hand, living minute to minute, I know in visceral way the trauma Doug lived.

We wept for them.

I will never hate Doug or any of the Ford Family just because our politics are severe polar opposites.

In fact I feel love for him as we lived something few others know. I know something about him as a human.

I even regret my vitriolic language referring to him politically.

I respect and even love Doug the human - he's always me in an ICU in my mind on some level - while viscerally opposing his government. Even harshly.

But from now on, I vow to do so with less hate infused vitriol. We can protest, we can yell, we can scream, without dehumanizing.

I have a feeling one day I'll run into Doug Ford, somewhere, when he's no longer premier. I hope we do. And I'll say nothing about politcs. I'll say "I'm sorry you lost Rob, I know what you went thru in that hospital." And I'll tell him how grateful my Dad was his case helped him

When you've experienced life and death, and horror.

Seen, felt it, lived it.

The cruel sting of hurting or denying anyone love, respect and dignity in their moment of suffering, because of their illness like HIV.

You know applying love and respect universally is the only way.

Forgiveness: give every human the benefit of the doubt for their suffering, that few actually want to harm or destroy and it's usually carelessness, because of all of us sin.

Denying our common humanity on that level is cruel and violence, when you think about it.

I try to live by this:

"While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is I am a naysayer and hatchet-man in the fight against violence.

I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another.

Because I choose to live my life in the company of Ghandi and MLK."

"I reject absolutely:

*Revenge
*Aggression
*Retalliation

The foundation of such a method, is love."*

(Fin)

*

If there is a song this thread, it's probably this one.
(A fav of my Dad's) https://open.spotify.com/track/6r20M5DWYdIoCDmDViBxuz?si=5Us7uu-mTC-25Pm-C_dP8w