Grief

When I was in labor with my first child, I could not believe that the world could go on outside my house as if nothing were happening. This was too much, too painful, too monumental for the world to just ignore and yet, I knew in my heart that it was not- this is what it took to bring a child into the world and if the world had stopped and everyone in it had stopped, it would still be the way it was for me to labor and then give birth.

Years and years later, I see reports of horrible tragedies that do not seemingly affect me or my life and I avoid, if I can, looking at the pictures, hearing of the terrible suffering. I don't exactly cut off the radio or avoid looking at the paper or internet, but I don't dwell. I think to myself, what good would it do? My empathy, my attention to the tragedy will not change what the sufferers are going through.
And then...something happens.
I was listening to NPR and heard Melissa Block, who is in China right now, talking about a couple trying to find their two-year old son and his grandparents in the rubble of the building where they had all lived.
She narrated the events of a long day as the rubble was finally removed enough for the parents to enter their building and they had such great, frantic hope that even after all this time, their baby boy and parents would still be alive. As she spoke, Ms. Block's voice broke over and over, and then when she translated what the mother was saying, she almost broke down.

"Wang," she cried, "Your mommy is coming!"

Hearing the numbers of the dead, the thousands and tens of thousands, mean nothing.
But hearing one mother, screaming to her undoubtedly dead son that his mommy is coming, it means everything.
With those words, I can't ignore the sorrow and pain going on so far away and although it will not help anyone, I cry.
On this beautiful day in May in North Florida where the sun is shining and the birds are calling and the oak trees tower over my peaceful home, I have to stop and cry.
We are all separate in our pain and in our tragedy and yet- how can we be?
This is something I can not understand. But after hearing this report, I can't help but see in my mind this woman, calling to her son, willing him to be alive, and then shattering into a million pieces when he is found in the arms of his grandfather who himself was in the arms of his wife. All of them dead.
And I know this same story is being repeated over and over and over right this very second and it has been, for days.

So much sorrow. I can do nothing.

But I can stop and pay attention. I am human. I can cry.