Opinion: In Tucson’s shadow, hurting & healing together

The banner outside the auditorium proclaimed: “Thank you for coming. Tucson is hurting.” The message, directed to President Obama at the memorial service for those killed in the nation’s latest tragedy, speaks volumes.

We are a nation hurting, and the service at the University of Arizona was the national equivalent of family and friends of the bereaved gathering in the living room to comfort one another—14,300 in person; countless others via media.

Many of us upon hearing the news of the shooting in Arizona initially reacted with disbelief, the “No!” echoing throughout us. Our minds rebel against accepting such inexplicable violence that randomly destroys life. Inner defense mechanisms cause us to deny, numb, distract—anything but sit with the reality. We feel overwhelmed, vulnerable, desperate.

In the best circumstances of death—a death anticipated because of age or disease and one for which we have had time to emotionally prepare—we hardly know how to respond well. Americans don’t do death well. But in the face of such a mindless tragedy, we can be almost paralyzed.

We need each other in times such as this. We need the reassurance that all is not madness and chaos. We need the presence of those who care about our pain and are willing to walk through the darkness with us. From more than 25 years of work in grief therapy, I know the only way out of the pain is through pain. That difficult journey is the sole path to healing.

In Tucson, the president started us on the journey we must travel together toward healing. In the president’s and Mrs. Obama’s transparency about their own anguish, they assured us we also could cry, and such emotion is not weakness, but the beginning of strength. When the president pursed his lips and paused as he spoke of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, the heart of every parent in the nation also pursed and paused.

As he spoke of the long-married couples who sacrificed one to save the other, we looked across the sofa at our own spouses and loved ones and grasped their hands. And as he introduced the petite, silver-haired woman who wrestled ammunition away from the shooter, we all reconsidered stereotypes of the elderly. When he challenged us to be as good at democracy, shared governance and national unity as a little girl imagined we could be, he showed us the path forward into new hope and new beginnings.

After the memorial service, we still must take the next step forward.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ foundational work on the feelings and responses to loss provides us one of our best resources. Grief therapy provides a path—if sometimes dimly lit—through the experience of loss, and while no one experiences grief in exactly the same way, markers guide us. We cannot say with authority we know exactly how someone else feels; we can say we care how someone else feels and we are willing to listen. We cannot change what has happened; we can change the feeling of total abandonment and desperation by being present, not just today but in the many hard, lonely days ahead.

Death through tragedy and crisis brings complex emotional layers—doubt, confusion, anger, blame, despair. Survivors ask haunting questions about whether anything could have made the situation different . The tendency to blame, including self-blame, is common. For the rest of us comes a sudden vulnerability and awareness that, if it could happen outside that grocery store, it could happen outside ours.

Why didn’t we schedule differently or go earlier or protect better? Why didn’t this person or that person respond more adequately to a warning sign? It is part of our attempt to figure out if something could have changed the outcome. Could we have controled such an out-of-control situation? Although this thought process is normal, it is not a place to linger. It is what it is, and sometimes reality is just horrible.

The anger we feel about the injustice, the unfairness, the evil—this, too, is an expected and necessary part of the healing process. As Obama said in his speech, we may not always be able to control evil, but we can control how we respond to one another. We must be kind to others and to ourselves. We are challenged to manage frustration and anger even while we try to remain civility and respect. There is no benefit in judging ourselves or others; none of us knows the full story of another. Lack of reason is the very reason we need each other.

In the beginning of grief work, one of the most important things we can do is show up. We show up at memorial services and funerals. We take stuffed animals and mementos and leave them as a visible memorial. We send cards and letters. We take casseroles and desserts to provide respite, nourishment and comfort. Even so, we feel helpless. We call in counselors and therapists and pastors and rabbis.

These rituals, which may seem so inadequate, are important—for the bereaved and for ourselves. In these actions, we offer our presence, and we have learned from hard experience, individually and as a nation, that shared grief is diminished grief. We have only to look at the outpouring sent to Ground Zero after 9/11 to realize the importance of this. A decade later, people from around the world still come to honor those who were killed—in the attack and in the rescue attempts. Tears still fall; the healing continues.

The Twin Towers tragedy teaches us yet another lesson about the journey of grief. It doesn’t ever completely end. We are changed. Pieces of us are missing. One thing we know for certain in grief work—silence never is a good course. We must find ways to bring the pain we feel out into the open so we can begin to heal.

The president’s memorial service spoke a nation’s pain. Tucson, we are hurting with you.

–Helen Harris is a senior lecturer in the Baylor University School of Social Work .