Almost five and a half years ago, I was standing outside my dorm at UVA, when a friend came down the stairs behind me. I started to greet him, but his face stopped me. "What is it?" I asked. "What's wrong?" "There's been a terrible thing," he said. "They've flown…someone's flown a plane into the twin towers."
It was a catastrophe different from any most of us had known. That catastrophe was cities away from us, but it seemed close – do you know someone who…? What if they did…? What are they now…? We were terrified. We were…the word is shattered.
The world, I thought, has shattered. It has broken apart and when it comes back together its shape will be different. It will be a shape crazed and cracked by grief and fear. There will be strange gulfs where your reflection disappears or distorts. There will be sharp places where there were none before, and some places there will suddenly be nothing at all.
Catastrophe and cataclysm strike you, like hammers. Like axes. Like missles. Like grief. As university students, we often feel insulated from the world, as if we are trying out life, trying out adulthood, beginning to be the people we have always known we were, but not quite responsible for taking the whole package on the road, as it were. It's a vital, wonderful, exciting time in life.
Which makes it, I think, all the more terrible when that life shatters with terror and grief, when upheaval, cataclysm, and catastrophe break that happy, insular world apart.
I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, less than an hour away from Blacksburg. Nearly half of the college-bound seniors from my graduating class went to Virginia Tech. That figure has stayed steady for years. We're a Tech city, brimming with orange and maroon even on non-game days, Tech merchandise for sale in every grocery store. As a UVA undergrad, and a current grad student, Tech is ever-present too. It's the comic foil, the good-natured sports rival, the place where everyone else you know went. It is part of my home.
There are no words really, of course. There are no words for the inexpressible grief of this violence. "Massacre." "Shooting incident." "Tragedy." They're all insufficient, somehow even silly or insulting. This isn't an act of war, to be historicized by "massacre." This isn't a code on a police scanner, to be sanitized by "shooting incident." This isn't a play, to be advertised by "tragedy." It is a shattering, a crazing of the world we live in – a world that is for me very palpably part of home, but is also part of the home of every university student, every Virginian, every person who feels affected by it.
My sorrow for those involved, for the world that has been crazed by this terror, is boundless. My heart and my thoughts – and yes, my prayers, if you want them – are with Blacksburg and Roanoke, with the families and friends of those involved. Today, as I did five and half years ago, I will say the Mourner's Kaddish:
May God give peace to those who suffer
May God give peace to those who mourn
May God give peace to those who wait
May God give peace to those to whom peace is yet to come
May God bring peace to those with whom we do not know it
May God bring peace to us, who do not feel it
Praised and sanctified be your holy name, Lord our God; may you grant us strength beyond sorrow and love in our grief
We ask you God, please grant us peace.
It was a catastrophe different from any most of us had known. That catastrophe was cities away from us, but it seemed close – do you know someone who…? What if they did…? What are they now…? We were terrified. We were…the word is shattered.
The world, I thought, has shattered. It has broken apart and when it comes back together its shape will be different. It will be a shape crazed and cracked by grief and fear. There will be strange gulfs where your reflection disappears or distorts. There will be sharp places where there were none before, and some places there will suddenly be nothing at all.
Catastrophe and cataclysm strike you, like hammers. Like axes. Like missles. Like grief. As university students, we often feel insulated from the world, as if we are trying out life, trying out adulthood, beginning to be the people we have always known we were, but not quite responsible for taking the whole package on the road, as it were. It's a vital, wonderful, exciting time in life.
Which makes it, I think, all the more terrible when that life shatters with terror and grief, when upheaval, cataclysm, and catastrophe break that happy, insular world apart.
I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, less than an hour away from Blacksburg. Nearly half of the college-bound seniors from my graduating class went to Virginia Tech. That figure has stayed steady for years. We're a Tech city, brimming with orange and maroon even on non-game days, Tech merchandise for sale in every grocery store. As a UVA undergrad, and a current grad student, Tech is ever-present too. It's the comic foil, the good-natured sports rival, the place where everyone else you know went. It is part of my home.
There are no words really, of course. There are no words for the inexpressible grief of this violence. "Massacre." "Shooting incident." "Tragedy." They're all insufficient, somehow even silly or insulting. This isn't an act of war, to be historicized by "massacre." This isn't a code on a police scanner, to be sanitized by "shooting incident." This isn't a play, to be advertised by "tragedy." It is a shattering, a crazing of the world we live in – a world that is for me very palpably part of home, but is also part of the home of every university student, every Virginian, every person who feels affected by it.
My sorrow for those involved, for the world that has been crazed by this terror, is boundless. My heart and my thoughts – and yes, my prayers, if you want them – are with Blacksburg and Roanoke, with the families and friends of those involved. Today, as I did five and half years ago, I will say the Mourner's Kaddish:
Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba b'alma di v'ra khir'utei, v'yamlikh malkhutei b'hayeikhon u-v'yomeikhon u-v'hayei d'khol beit yisrael, ba-agala u-vi-z'man kariv v'imru amen.
Y'hei sh'mei raba m'varakh l'alam u-l'almei 'almaya.
Yitbarakh v'yishtabah v'yitpa'ar v'yitromam v'yitnasei, v'yithadar, v'yit'aleh v'yit-halal sh'mei d'kudsha b'rikh hu l'ela min kol birkhata v'shirata tushb'hata v'nehemata d'amiran b'alma, v'imru amen.
Y'hei sh'lma raba min sh'maya b'hayim aleinu b'al kol yisrael, v'imru amen.
Oseh shalom bi-m'romav, hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu b'al kol yisrael, v'imru amen.
May God give peace to those who suffer
May God give peace to those who mourn
May God give peace to those who wait
May God give peace to those to whom peace is yet to come
May God bring peace to those with whom we do not know it
May God bring peace to us, who do not feel it
Praised and sanctified be your holy name, Lord our God; may you grant us strength beyond sorrow and love in our grief
We ask you God, please grant us peace.
Labels: death/mourning/corpses, spirit_of_the_age, spirituality
This almost brought a tears to my eyes. Well put and well said. I can simply echo what you have already stated. Good wishes and comforts to all those in pain.