Shell Shock

It is a type of shell shock. I look at the videos of the tsunami, the devastation, and I read the stories about the potential nuclear disasters, and I feel nothing. I listen to people I work with talking about watching the videos and sobbing, or being so very upset, and I can't relate to it. I feel like an awful person, because I can't 'connect' with this event.

Maybe it is because of the anti-depressants I have been on for ten plus years. My doctor says that feeling 'flat' is one of the side effects. But, I don't think that is it.

Maybe it is because I am attending a funeral tomorrow. For a young man, who died far too young. For a young man that had the best possible parents, sisters, opportunities, and in the end, it didn't keep him safe, didn't keep him here.

No parent should have to bury a child. This is not how it is suppose to be. This is not the first funeral of a child I have been to. One was a few months old, another in grade three, and another young man killed on another winter highway. My son's dear violin teacher, died at 33, of meningitis. My grandmother, buried her youngest son, my father. That is not how it is supposed to be.

But this young man - I knew his mother when she was pregnant with him. He played with my son at my house. My son played with him at theirs. There were birthday parties, and camping at Okanagan Lake, and Christmas parties.

Although the boys' friendship did not continue, I kept abreast on his life through his mother's eyes. Through his father's eyes. Through the eyes of parents that loved him so powerfully. It wasn't enough to keep him safe. Not in the end.

We like to believe that a mother's love, father's love is all-powerful. But it isn't. It can't prevent date-rape. It can't prevent suicide attempts. It can't prevent deep, deep sadness. It can't prevent illness. It can't prevent accidents. It can't prevent those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. It wants to, but it can't. And, when those awful things happen, even though we think it isn't possible, we get through it. We get through it.

My friend's love for her son is huge. Huge like her heart. Huge like her strength. My friend's love for her son can see all the pieces of the puzzle that have come together to see the 'rightness' of this moment in time. There is a 'rightness' in each moment in time. Sometimes we are just too close to see it.

I believe the funeral will help. Help snap me out of this shell shock. But then I am afraid that once I begin to cry, I won't be able to stop. Because, it seems, at this moment in time, there is so much to cry for.