When I was a boy living in Prescott, Ontario, along the Saint Lawrence River, the United States felt less like a foreign country than a close neighbour — close in feeling, and close enough in distance that, with a good slingshot, I could almost pitch a rock onto its shore.

I once remember riding my bike across the Johnstown bridge from Johnstown, Ontario, into Ogdensburg, New York. It was not planned. It was simply one of those spontaneous summer decisions, made because the day was long and the bridge was there.

What I remember most about that crossing is how little it felt like entering another country.  I felt none of the conflict that seems so present today. For me, there was none. Not even at the border’s checkpoint itself, where only friendly faces greeted me. Mostly, they seemed puzzled by how I had managed to pedal up and down the bridge’s high arch and navigate the widely grated steel road that I could see straight through. (Even bike tires whine as they drive over it.)

The United States did not feel threatening or distant to me; it felt familiar, peaceful, and woven into ordinary life, like a neighbour I could visit anytime. Granted, I was young and ignorant of many things, but children can still sense when tension is in the air. And I sensed none. My brother would marry someone from the United States, as would my best friend. Many times, we would drive down through the Catskills and on to New York City without worry, and without any thought that one day there might be a rift between us as countries.

Looking back, it had something of the spirit of the psalm: “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.” That was how the border felt to me then, not as a line of suspicion, but as a place where neighbours met.

Part of what made that closeness feel so natural was the river-border itself. The St. Lawrence was not a wall between two worlds but a shared highway, a bi-national shipping system, carrying huge Lakers to both Canadian and American shores. Though they flew different national flags, and sometimes the other country’s flag as a courtesy, those magnificent vessels depended on the same river, the same channels, the same locks, and the same weather

That same natural, easy closeness also came through the airwaves. Growing up in Prescott, we did not have an abundance of radio or television stations. What we heard and watched was a mixture of Canadian voices, especially from Ottawa, and American broadcasting from across the river. We followed American news, absorbed American ways of thinking and became familiar with American stories almost as much as our own. In some ways, we may even have known more American history than Canadian history.

And yet the closeness did not erase the difference. And yet there was still a. It was not a hard line of distinctness, not a sharp boundary of suspicion, but a quiet awareness that our nations’ stories were not quite the same.

One local place where that distinctness became visible to me was Fort Wellington. I visited it many times as a boy, drawn by its castle-like walls, battlements, and heavy timber palisade. It made history feel close and physical. It reminded me that this peaceful border had not always been so peaceful. Yet what stayed with me was not a sense of threat, but the quieter realization that the friendship we now shared had been built slowly, over time.

Perhaps that is what moves me to write now: not in anger, and certainly not without gratitude, but with sadness for what is unfolding around us. I suspect many who grew up with some version of that closeness are grieving too. The trust and affection that once felt so ordinary now feel distant, strained, and broken. Something precious has been lost… not beyond hope… but certainly changed.