How does one cope with the tragic events that are happening ? What can we do ?
Dear Auntie SAM: It’s so hard to digest all the tragedies that are happening around us. Each time they send a ripple effect of heartache across the world. How do we explain these events to our children? What if they ask us, what can be done?
There came an early morning night – one summer’s eve before I had grown – when I was lying on berber carpet – unclean with with what felt like tiny pebbles, shards of glass, & the hairs of some animal that made me want to itch – thinking: «Next, my mother will have to identify my corpse.»
Whatever atrocities I was experiencing, I can’t quite recall. I remember how that carpet itched. How the windows in that room were broken. How the light almost could have been lovely if not for a tinge too much yellow. How we were up, just high enough, that if I had struggled to push past those shattered windows, I would have been hurt.
I believed: more.
My mother describes herself as a simple girl. She likes things easy; carefree. She walks away from fights. She doesn’t argue. She says something once & then she’s done. Sometimes she says nothing at all.
But she’s always communicating.
On the morning of the trial related to the incident above, my mother had to work until moments before it started. I was with my social worker. When my mother entered, she greeted the social worker & said nothing to me. She didn’t hug me, she didn’t touch me, she barely looked at me; she held me with her heart.
As she had done many times before & still does. Never explaining anything she didn’t understand. And never making excuses for that.
On that carpet, feeling those rough textures, hearing sounds I hated, & seeing ugly views drenched in ugly light, I knew for the first time in my life that I wanted to live. Upon that realization, what came into me was stillness. It filled my body, my heart, & activated my mind.
And, I’m not saying AT ALL that the people who died this past weekend died because of something they did or did not do. That’s not true AT ALL.
All I’m saying, is at that moment when you truly believe your mom will have to identify your corpse, the ability to be still inside is what you’ll want.
XO
AS
–
finies