Love is louder
I’ll be honest, I have never been accused of being a “shiny, happy person” in my more than 40 years on the planet. Rather, my loved ones often “jokingly” called me Eeyore, but over the course of the last two years, even I have grown tired of what has felt like an ongoing and lingering dark cloud of negativity.
At the beginning of the pandemic, we often heard inspirational stories about communities finding new and unique ways to come together while they were physically required to stay apart.
As time went by, unfortunately that feeling of “we are all in it together” began to wane and the divide began to grow. Seeing how cruel people were to each other so often — whether it was face-to-face or from behind a keyboard — I was truly beginning to lose faith in the goodness of the human race.
On Saturday, some of that faith was restored.
I saw hundreds of people not only come together to celebrate the official kickoff to Pride month by lining Simcoe Street and Meridian Place to watch the first Barrie Pride Parade in two years, but who also came together to show that kindness, compassion and love is stronger than any words of hate that someone can spew through a microphone, no matter how loud they set the volume.
At first I — and I believe everyone else around me — initially assumed the voice we were hearing through the loudspeaker was part of the event. It wasn’t until a minute or two later that the crowd realized what was actually happening.
It didn’t take long before one attendee shouted back the three words that would quickly catch on and bring more and more people back to the centre of downtown: Love is louder!
In response to the disruption, one young couple came to the middle of the street to show the world their love for one another through a kiss. As the crowd began to grow and the words eventually overshadowed the words of hate, two more event-goers grabbed a flag boasting the pink and blue colours of the Trans flag as well as the traditional male and female gender symbols combined together and brought it up to the men with the mic. The crowd cheered and made its way over as well, continuing to chant those three simple and resolute words.
Being there to witness this coming together of a community of people of all ages, genders and ethnicity was truly amazing and will be something that will stick with me for the rest of my life.
As we all attempt to try to return to whatever “normal” is going to be, I can only hope that those three simple words will become an anthem of sorts for which the entire world really should be paying more attention to, because love needs to be louder than hate.
And Saturday proved that.
Nikki Cole is a staff reporter at BarrieToday.
