Thank God You're Okay

In the face of tragedy like that of Parkland, Florida, we often (after offering our thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families) admonish one another to “hug your children a little tighter tonight.” Hug your children a little tighter, because thank God they’re okay, and you can do that.

Hug your children a little tighter, because someone else will never get that opportunity again. 

Tragedies like Parkland (and Sandy Hook, and Las Vegas, and the Pulse Nightclub, and Sutherland Springs, just to name a few) hit close to home, because we find ourselves in places like all of these every day. Marjory Stoneman Douglas could have been my child’s high school, we shudder to think--and yet, we are also breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn’t, in fact, our child’s school.

In a mass tragedy, while survivors and victims are being identified and released one by one to families waiting in excruciating anxiousness, we can all imagine those feelings. We have all awaited some news, not knowing whether it would be good or bad--a college acceptance or rejection, a job offer, the results of the biopsy, whether or not the surgery was successful. We wait, and a world of agony happens between the time that the event is set into motion and the time we know the results. Waiting is painful. In that space, we imagine the worst that could happen, and animate that into a vivid, harsh reality in our minds. We imagine the very worst.

In most instances, our worst fears are not realized, because our own minds are generally more cruel to us than life is. I can imagine standing on the lawn of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, my child inside. My mind is swimming, battling between the best and worst case scenarios. With each name called, I grow more confused. I see some embrace their children, tears of gratitude flowing freely, saying, “Thank God you’re okay.” Others watch, panic-stricken, as their children are wheeled out on stretchers, and into the ambulance. It’s the ones that crumple to the ground in sobs that are difficult to watch. I look away. They no longer imagine the very worst, because the very worst has become their reality.

It’s hard to be a human walking alongside another human who is going through a really difficult time. We never know what to say, so we either say the wrong thing, or we say nothing at all for fear of saying something wrong. We send our thoughts and prayers because we think that’s the best we can do. It’s the default answer for when we don’t know what else to say. Our “thoughts and prayers” may not help, but at least--we hope--they don’t hurt.

From where I’m sitting--on my couch so many hundreds of miles away from Parkland, Florida--my heart is breaking. Still, I didn’t know any of the victims, and as awful as the loss of any young life is, this horrific event does not touch me directly. I have the luxury of sitting here in my home, going through my regular daily routine. I can read articles, listen to reports, and be angry / sad / shocked, but by and large, my life is no different today than it was yesterday or the day before.

So, a shooting happens. My heart breaks. I can easily imagine myself in the tragedy--yet I have the luxury of retreating from that nightmare into my own comfortable reality.

I am reminded of a passage from the late David Rakoff’s Half Empty:
“I recognize in my incipient tears the remove of spectatorship, and the joy in that which separates us. There is nothing so cleansing or reassuring as a vicarious sadness.”

Time passes, and I forget the heartbreak--because it wasn’t my own, only borrowed.

The families of the 17 victims will not forget.
The students of the school will not forget.

Must a tragedy touch us directly to be etched in our memories?

I wonder what it will take to get us to care as deeply about the loss of another as we would one of our own--to care not just because it reminds us of our own fragility.

We hug our children a little tighter, but what do we do for those who can no longer hug theirs?