Love

I wrote the last post the evening before the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Clearly, there has been even more time for meditation on the nature and repercussions of loss.  Fuck.  More loss is the absolute last thing the world needed right now.

Completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the crime, stunned by some insensitive responses by some of my "friends," horrified by the facts of the crime, I could think of no response. After a few hours, it hit me...  The only possible response for me was to say "I love you."

In 2009, I was living in a town that saw another horrible tragedy.  A gunman went to a picnic celebrating a local theatre company and opened fire.  He killed three people and, eventually, himself.  The day of the shooting, friends who knew the victims gathered at our house.  My husband pulled me aside and said "I don't know what to do...  We didn't know the people who were killed, so I don't know what to say..."  I said "Well, we know them," I pointed to the friends sitting in our living room, "and they are hurting, so just tell them you love them. Tell them you're sorry." The lingering effect of this long, horrible day is that none of us who experienced it together ever part from friends or loved ones without saying "I love you."  Never.

So, that's the response I have today.  I love you.  That is the only response possible for me in the light of this tragedy...in the light of any tragedy.  I love you.  It's only when we recognize and live as if everyone on this planet is as important as we are that these kinds of tragedies will cease to be.  I am you, you are me, we are in this together.

I'd say more, but my wonderful friend Brian already said it so well:

"More than forty-eight hours have passed since nigh on incomprehensible evil descended upon Newtown, Connecticut. Two days have come and gone since the lives of twenty loving, joyful, inquisitive children were cut far too short. Two days have come and gone since seven dedicated, compassionate, nurturing souls who pledged themselves to shaping the lives of young people were snatched from this world.

 Two days have come and gone since a troubled young man, not long removed from his own childhood, succumbed to demons within himself and became an instrument of horror that threatens to overwhelm us with its magnitude. 

More than forty-eight hours later and I - undoubtedly, like the rest of you - still struggle with a mind that reels, a heart that aches, and a soul that desperately wishes to know peace in the face of such profound and meaningless loss. When will we heal? How do we cope? What do we do?

We love.

We love family. We love friends. We love strangers.

We love the young and the old. We love the rich and the poor. We love the strong and the infirm.

We love those who seem ready, willing, and able to return our love. We love those who, perhaps, never will.

We love when we feel capable of taking the entire world within our embrace. We love when we feel so fatigued - mentally, physically, emotionally - that we're unsure whether we're capable of summoning the strength to love ourselves.

We love as much as we can in any given moment, on any given day, for the rest of our lives.

We love knowing that the simple act of doing so kindles a spark inside ourselves that illuminates us from within, and that our combined light is capable of dispelling the deepest shadows in a world that can be disconcertingly dark.

We love."