Dear Martha: The Grief Won't Go Away

Dear Martha, 

The tears won't stop flowing and it feels like they shouldn't. I can't stop thinking about those little souls and this is coming from someone who doesn't know a soul in Newtown. I cry also for the parents and the families of every single person directly affected by this. But, relatively speaking, my indirect position in it all feels just terrible.  

Please help me to understand what tomorrow should feel like, please help me to process this grief while also respecting and honoring the immense greif of those who actually lost someone. 

Someone said to me I need to get over it, "You're being dramatic now."

I don't think so.  I am feeling this and I can't pretend that I'm not. Please advise.

   – I'm Here but I Feel Like I'm There

Dear Here and There,

First things first, your friend who is accusing you of drama needs a reality check.  What happened in Connecticut is something that realistically deserves years and years of grieving. Again, that's my opinion but I'm holding to it strong. A tragedy of this magnitude, taking the lives of numerous innocent children is devastating beyond words. 

There is a pull between empathy and sympathy, between talking about it because it hurts or talking about it because it happened to you. When I was in college I passed the same girl in the hall four times a day. She was a leader in the school, a bit older and slightly intimidating. I very much looked up to her and always was attempting to muster the courage to make an introduction or just a hello. She was loved by everyone. 

A random Friday night in October she was at a party and was standing on the second floor of a foyer and a bunch of rowdy boys started shoving each other next to her, her back was turned and then the boys accidentally made strong contact with her and she was flung over the banister. She died that night. 

I was hit hard by her death. We weren't close friends, friends or even hardly acquaintances.  I think my sadness lived in the fact that I never had the opportunity to know her, and that I knew she was lovely and great.  I think that's where an immense amount of this communal grief lies, in the fact that we knew these little babes had a world ahead of them and that their death that day was beyond untimely. 

An extended family member of mine perished that day in the first grade classroom. Her name was Allison Wyatt and she was 6-years-old. I'm from a large Irish family with arms and arms of first cousins, second cousins, once removed nieces and nephews ... the works. I didn't know Allison and now she is gone.  And I mourn that missed opportunity and I mourn her life being cut short. 

At the end of the day when a life is taken prematurely by a force unwanted, that person becomes missed by their closest family and friends and everyone else living and breathing. At least I believe that's how it should be. 

Here and There, mourn. Mourn for the families, mourn for the lost souls, and mourn until you are ready to move on.  No one knows how you feel but yourself.

Weep for those who have fallen, weep with those who loved them, and weep along side those who never had the chance.