The morning after
We made coffee and packed lunches like always.
I showered and got dressed like always.
We got everyone out the door and off to school like always.
The actions were routine, the scents and sounds familiar, but inside I felt anything but. No, that’s not true – I knew this feeling all too well, it was grief and it hurt.
To my five-year-old daughter though, it was just another day. Unnaturally warm for November, she skipped beside me in a short-sleeve cotton dress. The school grounds were littered with crisp fallen leaves and children lined up playing and laughing. The parents that stood behind them told another story: shoulders dropped, heads down, sunglasses covering bloodshot eyes.
When we reached my daughter’s class line I gave her a hug and watched as she giggled with her friends. Another mom I was friendly with caught my eye.
“Hi,” I said not able to muster my usual greeting of ‘good morning’.
“Hi,” She said. We stood next to each other silently watching our children for a few moments.
“I feel like the world is falling apart, but then you see these kids and you realize life goes on,” I said finally.
“Thank goodness for the children,” she said. And then, “Do you need a hug?”
I paused. The lump in my throat told me that was exactly what I needed. Not just the hug but the sense of community, of collective grief. My mind had known this was a possible outcome, but my heart constricted to the present and past had been unable to prepare or protect me.
“Thank you,” I said, when our short hug was over.
Our children’s teachers came to take them inside for another day of learning. I said my goodbyes and began the walk back to my car, grateful for the brightness of the sun so that I could use my own sunglasses to hide the tears welling in my eyes.
Grief is love.
Grief is fear.
It is BECAUSE I love this country and all it’s different people that I am afraid of what is coming. Let me be wrong, please oh please, let me be wrong. But I have hoped before and I know that hope is not enough. The checks and balances are fading, the guardrails lowering, the power consolidating.
And then I am home. Lost in my thoughts my car seems to have driven itself. I hear birds singing, an airplane humming, a windchime ringing. Life goes on.
Today it hurts, tomorrow it will too. But speaking from experience I can attest that there are few motivators stronger than making reason out of our pain. More than ever, we will need to look for where the needs are strongest and work to fill them. We will need to find those that are most vulnerable and work to protect them. We can hope we are wrong while preparing for if we are right.
Life will continue.
I will pick up my daughter from school, help my son with his homework, make dinner, clean up, and repeat it all again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Heaven has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turned,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorned.
-William Congreve
ID: The Author’s daughter, age 5, is seen from behind wearing a light grey sweatshirt and dark leggings with rainbow boots. Her dark brown hair is pulled back in a low pony tail and she is wearing a purple backpack with pictures of Disney princesses on it. She is holding hands with a little boy of the same age who is wearing a navy blue baseball cap and a red and blue sweatshirt with shorts and blue crocs. He has a red Jansport backpack. They are walking across a school yard with the school off to the side and children playing and adults walking in the background.
