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I am no stranger to grief. In fact, I have waded through a fair amount of it. I have held the hand of my grieving 10-year-old daughter as she mourns her losses. I have seen the way grief has incapacitated Amy as she refuses to acknowledge its presence. So I am no stranger to grief.
All the more reason I continue to be surprised by how emotional I have been today over these Virginia Tech shootings. Is it because I have college age kids? Is it because I am a sap for kids in general? Is it because I am a half-century old? Because I have been waking up too early and losing sleep? Because I have learned to (hopefully appropriately) wear my emotions on my sleeve to model them for those who don’t know what to do with them? Or maybe because I work so hard to allow parents to feel the emotions that so many other people tell them are “not appropriate”?
As I mentioned in my previous blog, I have been hounding my kids today. I have hugged Beth all day, and called and emailed the college kids. I called Steph again as I was driving Beth to swim practice. This time my message was emotional… and Steph called me back quickly.
Ironically, she was relieved to learn I was dissolving into tears by just thinking about the tragedy. She said now she didn’t feel so weird—because she was too. (Actually, she said, “Now I know where I got it!”) She was struggling to understand how some of her classmates could talk about the Virginia tragedy in the same sentence as what they were having for dinner… whereas she was substantially derailed by the event. And she’s at a solid Christian campus.
I spoke about the Bell curve in a previous blog… and I guess this is yet another example of that curve. On one side are people like Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, who have no concept or no concern about how their actions impact people around them. On the other end are people like Steph and me and many of my compassionate friends—who are profoundly impacted by events even when those events don’t directly impact our families. And in the middle are people who feel empathy for those directly affected but are not feeling much personal pain. Steph and I decided that while the pain is uncomfortable in the here-and-now, we’d rather be emotional people than wired like Amy who has successfully prevented herself from feeling much of any emotion at all.
Check out this article on PTSD… you can bet the Virginia Tech students and staff will be experiencing it.
It’s too agonizing for me to think about, as terrible as that sounds.
I can’t understand why people keep doing things like this. He seemed so sad from these pictures too.
It’s still no reason to do something like this…
I wish people would stop hurting each other so much.
I’m emotional over this as well.
When you are human, how could we not be affected by this? Add to that a mother’s heart, and many of us cannot help but project ourselves onto the parents involved, putting ourselves in their places. Such an unspeakable tragedy….
I’m emotional too. My prayers and sympathy first go out to Hui’s victims. However as a parent of a seriously mentally ill child I have to wonder about Hui. He had no business being on a college campus. Who was paying his tuition? There were MANY redflags that he had huge mental problems and the campus offered counseling. How far back does his history of mental problems go? I’m betting childhood! Was he seeing a psychiatrist or receiving proper medications? His parents haven’t come out with a statement, of at least sympathy, as you would expect. I find that strange. Maybe we’ll learn more today.
I often become emotional and tearful over news stories involving kids and young people, even much less horrific stories than this. I can’t even imagine what I would feel if my daughter were taken from me- she just came home after 2 weeks in the hospital, during which I saw her every day, and I could barely handle that separation! I ache for all these parents and the kids who lost friends. And, for the little boy I imagine must have grown up to be the shooter. By the way, your daughter is beautiful- what a gorgeous picture!