No Choice

Theme Song: The One I Love

I know Sandy Hook is what people are thinking about and feeling about and it’s what I’m thinking about and feeling about, too.

To be honest, I didn’t want to care, and my instincts were good because since I let the grief and horror of this event sink in, I’ve been having trouble getting it out of my mind and heart.

Actually, it was a Facebook post that finally broke me.

Someone posted, “I can’t fathom the loss.” And I thought, “Neither can I.”

But a quick fraction of a second later, I realized I can fathom the loss. So the tears started yesterday afternoon and they really haven’t stopped since.

Those of you who know me know that my own baby girl died over 13 years ago now. I think of her, one way or another, every day. Nowadays, the thoughts are fleeting and they usually aren’t too disruptive or sad, except on occasions such as her birthday or the anniversary of her death.

But when I’m faced with close to 27 mothers (yes, it’s the mothers I think of) and the sheer wall of implacable grief they must climb, I break.

You see, all that grief and loss exposes a secret I carry deep within myself which is this:

I long to kiss my little girl’s soft cheek just one more time.

That longing is like a shard of glass in my heart.

I have tried not to build scar tissue around it because I do not want a hard heart. I want my heart to stay as soft and open as it was the very first time I looked into her eyes.

This is my intention and I will say, it is not easy. You know, life goes on and the losses pile up and there is pain and injustice everywhere. It’s far easier to be overwhelmed, to shut down, to be bitter.

Each time an epic tragedy occurs, or even just the everyday tragedies we humans live with, that glass shifts in my heart, and the grief of being human resonates within me.

Because that is what Sandy Hook is about. It’s about being human and therefore subject to every amount and type of pain.

Yet we know, too, that all manner of beauty and human dignity will be revealed as a result of this tragedy in the months and years to come because humans are also subject to every amount and type of joy.

This is what I know: the human heart was built to break and the human heart was built to heal.

The process is transformative. Some of these mothers will not survive intact. Not really. The loss will be just too heavy and they will not have the resources to withstand it. Others will have heroic responses. Some will just get by.

The mothers are, just now, right at the tender point which hovers around before and after. They will never be the same.

Here’s what you can do: Be sweet with them. Tell them you are sorry for their losses, the losses that will, yes, multiply with every birthday and holiday that passes. Listen to them as much as you can. You will be tired of their grief long before they will, but, it is true, their grief will tire them out, too.

Above all, do not think of this as something that shall pass. It will transmute, yes, but it shall not pass.

One day not too long after my baby died, I was standing in my room feeling that I must have the baby back, that the loss was, simply speaking, intolerable. I did not know how to live with it and it was grinding me.

And then this thought came to me as I stood there in the sunshine, alone with my feelings: The only reason I will ever accept this is because I have no choice.