Goodbye Bobby and Civil Wrongs

i had prayed so hard. It wouldn't be like when President Kennedy had been killed. This time, his brother had made it to the hospital and was still alive when i awoke in the morning.

But he did die.

That weekend, we drove to Detroit for Dad's cousin's wedding. i remember getting a big lump in my throat and feeling vaguely sick and sad when i saw the graphic of the American flag crossed with the Canadian one. It wasn't the usual thrill i felt at crossing the border.

i was young but i knew what Bobby Kennedy stood for. i knew of a clash over civil rights, though the "struggle" was theoretical to me. Before multiculturalism became public policy in Canada, before it was a strategy, it defined our neighbourhood. The parents of our babysitters had come from Holland after WWII. There were neighbours from Italy, India, Poland, Germany, Lebanon, the United States, etc. My most envied friends went to Arabic school on Saturday mornings, had a hookah in the living room and a grandmother who made wonderful bread one tore like paper and rolled to eat. Ethnicity was something like clothing -- one more thing folks wore. A friend at school was Cree, had beautiful almost-black hair and the same name as my mother.

English wasn't a language or a culture; it was, almost literally, white bread -- something which had no flavour till you added bits of something else.

A few weeks earlier the world had stopped when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Heck, i was a veteran of "assassinated" at the age of eight -- set up for a lifetime of stomach lurching when "News Bulletin" appeared on the TV screen, conditioned to wonder "Who has been shot now?"

We shopped at Hudson's, Mom's downtown Detroit store of choice. She bought me two dresses and had me wear the sailor-styled one i liked less to the wedding. Vacationing in Detroit was as commonplace as visiting a cottage: Trade motel pool for a lake, a Pontiac for a motor boat, hopscotch for crab-walk soccer, Vernors' factory tours for the Port Elgin bakery's Chelsea Bun lineups. Simple.

Dad was the ultimate wedding prankster: i helped him put IBM filings in the top of Roy's car, in the books on the floor, etc. i sat with my cousin, Leslie. (In our family, until 1968 i had to go to third cousin to find a female my age!) Her mother cried through the ceremony and we puzzled about what makes grown-ups cry at happy things.

Rice was downright confusing. Where were the happy flutters of confetti? Rice crunched beneath our feet, was sickly and pale coloured. i thought of the times i had picked up Mom's wedding dress for a peek and had confetti fall in tiny showers on my face.

After a meal at the church, we headed back to the house on Lesure. All the grown-ups were in the dark, slightly damp basement. Leslie and i escaped into the warmth outside her grandparents' home.

We played games without toys. Talked, walked, skipped. A girl who lived on the street came to play with us. She was either the same age as me or as Leslie, who was a year older. She had the familiar name of someone i knew. She was dressed like we were -- we were still in dresses from the wedding, not fancy but clean and comfy. i guess we didn't change "for comfort" in those childhood days.

We hadn't "finished" playing when we were called by an older relative to the porch. The stern comments were breathed sotto voce at Leslie: "We don't play with *those* people. Come in."

All i remember is that i felt sadness beyond sadness: This was wrong. It was not only wrong but also exactly opposite of what i knew had died that week: Hope. Change. Tolerance. A different way of being.

i sat alone in the dim light of the den, TV on, watching Bobby's funeral train, footage from the funeral and thinking of the pain, pain, pain of that week.

It would be years before i told my mother what had happened. It was about 30 years before i could say it aloud. It has been 42 years before i could write it down.

Visiting Detroit was never the same. Of course, a few years later, the family moved from Lesure Street to Farmington Hills. i asked my eldest relative why they'd moved. She said, aghast, "Why, my dear! They were practically the last white people on the street!"

Right.