Loss

It's amazing how reality can take and overpower you, even if that reality involves people you never knew and  a world of people you've only touched briefly.  So much pain and suffering has touched the very protected world of my medical school.  We started the week reeling from the loss of a beloved member of our school family.  A girl I had never known, yet from all I could see was a beautiful, intelligent, artistic and athletic individual.  She was overcome by a pain so great, she could no longer live with it.  I hurt so deeply knowing that one of my family was carrying this pain, this hurt, and did not know where to turn.  I can only hope that she now knows how loved she is, how she can do no wrong, and how is she never alone.  If only those messages had reached her earlier or that she had had the ability to hear these messages and known them to be true.  I cannot fathom what deep, deep sadness and loneliness she had felt last Friday.  I can only see how deeply she had touched all the people she had met in her lifetime, how deeply loved she truly was, and how confused and lost we all are trying to comprehend and cope with such a loss in our tight knit family at our medical school.  Even those of us who did not know her are moved by this shocking event and are left wondering how we can reach out and help.

Our pain, loss, and sadness were deepened further by disturbing images from the Boston Marathon on Monday which have only worsened as the week has continued.  The Boston Marathon is a crowning event of athleticism and sportsmanship.  The individual runners are amazing people with such talents I can only imagine.  The on-lookers, the greatest show of support I know.  The crowds cheer on and motivate each runner that passes them.  All sports events are unrivaled showings of connection.  Here we have the epitome of human beauty, human nature, and it is muddied, destroyed, torn apart by two men who had long ago been part of such camaraderie   Each man had once been an athlete, had been a vital part of the community, cheered on, just like the runners on Monday.  Then, without warning, the finish line was left in shambles, destroyed by homemade bombs created by two men who made a choice to cause widespread pain and misery.  Had they too suffered an unfathomable pain, one they could no longer hold in their chests, carrying alone, feeling like they had no one to turn to?  Were these men so indoctrinated at some point in the very near past to feel that the only release of this pain was through mass casualties of strangers?  It is incomprehensible.

To make matters worse, this initial shock of the bombings was compounded by the full-on manhunt through Boston that began early Wednesday evening.  The suspects flaunting the choices they had made.  The shutdown of a great city, overtaken by marshal law while the remaining suspect is on the loose.  It is horrifying to watch the images of house by house searches.  I can't feel the same fear and pain those in Boston are going through, the psychological damage that has been caused.  I can empathize.  I can suffer with humanity because I am part of it.  We are all connected.  I am paralyzed by what is replayed on the television.  I want to react, to help, to reach out, to protect.  But I am powerless.

I don't know where to start.  I feel so raw and exposed, but at the same time know that my feelings are only a fraction of what those in the crossfire are feeling.  I can only sit and watch.  I want to take action.  Maybe this is how I'm meant to do that.  We are all connected, and the pain we cause others causes our soul pain, too.  We are given the freedom to make choices for ourselves.  Whatever choices those may be, we will be held accountable be it in life or after death.  Regardless of any individual's beliefs, we all are connected through the understanding of a divine being that loves us unconditionally, who created us but left us free to make decisions for ourselves, and who will allow us redemption through self-reflection.  We must band together, care for each other, and love each other deeply and unconditionally in the image of our Creators in order to maintain the greatest calling of humanity.  We are one and always will be.