This past summer, I had the pleasure of attending numerous
weddings. While they were all perfect for the couple du jour, I was
particularly impressed by the friends who included the Quaker tradition of
silence into the ceremony, allowing the power of the silence to fill the air as
the couple exchanged rings. The father of the bride and I spoke after the
wedding, where I said how joyful everyone was and he said that there were no
words for such feelings. “That,” I said, “must be why the Quakers have silence.”
I thought the same thing a few sad weeks ago attending the
memorial service for the mother of a friend. As the widower delivered the
eulogy, he necessarily paused to gather himself. In those moments of silence,
the power in that church as everyone channeled their deep love towards the man,
this is again why Quakers don’t try to put words to that depth of emotion.
I am thinking the same thing now, throwing words like
skipping stones into the grief and horror around the Newtown massacre. I have
no words, no one has words, to give those lives back, or find meaning or
purpose in their deaths. We may be able to use this tide of national emotion to
block some other horror further on in time, but even if we could know what that
could be, it still will not reunite families or restart childhoods or erase
memories from the nightmares of first responders.
Like everyone I know, I have been wracking my soul to find
some way forward from Friday. What burns me most is the thought of twenty
little kids writing letters to Santa that will go unanswered. I know that is
Christian-centric of me, but at this time of year, when I was their age, that
is what my world was. And now, at thirty, I can almost imagine having my own
children and this time of year being fun and magical gain. That loss is one of
the parts that drives this into my gut and into my open eyeballs at dawn. As a
country, we’ve crafted legislation and funding and support to go to the moon,
and the inability to help people before they gun down an elementary school, and
to keep guns far from the hands of such people, is egregious.
But again, in search of a solution, an answer, a lesson. Gun
control seems an obvious step, but I’m more taken with cutting things off at
the source by improving the mental health attitude in this country. Anything
other than “normal” is so deeply stigmatized. Other than a few of my closest
friends, I told no one when I started going to therapy this spring. I felt
overwhelmed by life and could not stop crying. I didn’t want to tell anyone
because I felt deeply ashamed for not being able to handle the stress of my not
very difficult life. That stigma kept me silent, and that dementia and various
forms of psychosis are among my deepest fears. My therapist was a wonderful
woman and meeting with her made me feel less, rather than more, crazy. I fully
intend to go to other therapists throughout my life as I need them, and I
highly encourage everyone to do the same—and to admit that we are doing so.
Even an easy, over-educated, white, American life can have potholes and
tsunamis. And massacres and grief.
I don’t wish to engage in deep navel gazing here, despite
this being a blog. No one is asking for my opinion, but I’m flinging it out
into cyberspace because I don’t know what else to do. If more people would
admit to going to therapy, of seeking out mental health support when needed,
perhaps it can gradually become easier so that parents who struggle with
“difficult” kids feel as fine about taking their kid to a therapist as to a
dentist or a math tutor. And so that we all feel as normal about getting mental
help as we do getting dental help.
This is my favorite Vonnegut story. The quote I love best from Timequake is “we
are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” Vonnegut
got this pearl of wisdom from his son, Mark, who struggled with mental health issues. Shelving books
in the library last winter, I came across one of Mark Vonnegut’s own books.
Flipping it open, I read that Mark is now a doctor, still helping others
through this thing, as he has been helped.
To me, that is a beautiful story. And we're sorely needing more beauty these days, or the eyes to see it with.