As I write this, the news from Apalachee High School in Barrow County is unfolding, though details are still lacking. Our hearts are broken … again. Knowing few facts right now beyond the first awful tentative numbers, what I can do is pray, as I have before, for people I don’t know, whose anguish reaches us in awful waves of grief and anger and confusion.
I usually choose to wait before writing about tragedies; I need time to absorb facts and the reactions of others; but today here I am, before the horror is analyzed or the agonizing litany of names read, before mistakes are pointed out or blame offered, and before we Americans translate again our shared horror into irresistible shouts and immovable response, I write what I can write.
I write from my space in this awful place we all share in tragedy’s first confusing moments. I write what you could just as easily write. I write of feelings raw as this new tragedy and familiar as headlines past. In this moment there is empathy, parent for parents, neighbor for neighbors; there is longing to hold terrified children in protective embrace; there is an anger and even embarrassment that we should find ourselves in this shared sorrow again.
Here in this brief awful moment, we are one agonizing, grieving, angry, wounded nation.
While we’re in this place together, before we march again or dig in heels, let us pray for those whose hurt we can’t imagine and for whom no words from us will suffice. While we’re in this place together, let us be silent with each other and with those who grieve. While we’re in this place together, let us humbly—hopefully?—be human together. Because we know the time will come when we can bear the silence no longer.
When we move again, as we must, can we carry with us a little of the silence we shared? Starting anew in silence, can we dare to talk and work together for the sake of the next before they are next? We are one in sorrow. Surely, in humility and hope, we can be one in seeking answers.
Those whom pain has brought together, let no one put asunder.
Humbly,
Mark