Why We Mourn Princess Leia (and Prince)

Amid all of the expressions of grief and loss on Facebook and Twitter over Carrie Fisher (and Princess Leia) and George Michael and Prince and David Bowie and all of the others who have passed away this year, I’ve noticed the occasional comment or complaint about the emotion and energy that so many of us put into openly mourning the loss of prominent public figures, sports icons, entertainers and even the characters they play. I admit that I’ve wondered about this myself, even as I’ve cried and felt their loss in my heart. I mean, we don’t know these individuals. Why do we express such sadness about their deaths? In many cases, they’ve lived full and privileged lives. Why would we feel and express such heartache over them as opposed to, say, the children being killed every day in Syria and other war-torn areas of the world? I’m no psychologist, but I have a 3-part theory on this. Take it or leave it:

It’s Something We can Wrap our Heads Around

It’s often said that as humans, we have a difficult time wrapping our heads and hearts around the loss of the many, especially the many whom we are powerless to help. When we think about the deaths of millions of people during the Holocaust, to use the most devastating example I can think of, we feel horror and terror and sadness, but it’s a broad sadness. It’s such an immense tragedy that our hearts protect us. Can you imagine how incapacitated we would be if we felt keenly the death of each person lost? The grief would be overwhelming.

The same thing happens to us with the loss of the many – men, women and children – in today’s war zones. We feel rage and horror and grief about their pain and death… and it’s a broad anger. It’s a broad type of mourning. Now instead, think about the small boy sitting alone in the ambulance after his home was bombed to rubble. Think about the man walking down the street carrying his dead child in his arms. Think about the woman grieving and aching at the hospital because she has just lost all of her children in an air raid. Think about the little boy who drowned when his refugee boat sank. You can feel their loss keenly. You can feel sharp anger and grief about their circumstances. We are built to relate to other individuals. It’s not a moral challenge or a character issue. It’s just the way our minds work.

It’s Safe

If you have lost someone very close to you, then you know that openly, publicly grieving is the last thing on your mind when that person first passes away. It’s one thing to speak at a funeral or to write an obituary, because those are proscribed tasks, things we are expected to do, checklist items that are anticipated and that have a purpose and for which we follow an expected format (for the most part). These are not open, emotion-driven expressions of grief. Quite the opposite. They are things we do that are expected of us and that almost help us wade through the shock and deep grief by giving us a safe outlet and a task list to follow… almost like a lifeline we climb, rung by rung, to pull us along through those initial, molasses-like minutes and hours and days.

If you’ve lost someone very close to you, you know that your true mourning is primarily internal, at least for a while, and that the last thing on your mind – usually – is to openly grieve on Facebook. Not deeply. Not fully. In pieces and in short statements, sure, but not fully and openly. Not for a while, at least.

Ironically, our open sadness and expressions of heartache over these icons actually reinforces (I believe) that while they mean a lot to us, they are not the people we love most. It’s our ability to shout out to the world how sad we are that subtly also shows that our love is one that comes from a distance.

It’s the Loss not just of the Person but of their Impact

I believe that we also mourn these icons so deeply because of what they represent to us – the laughter and entertainment they brought us, the example and strength we learned from a character they portrayed or from the individuals themselves, the music and emotion that was the soundtrack and heartbeat to a significant time in our lives. When these artists and entertainers and figures depart, it feels like they take a part of our lives with them, like that part of us and those memories darken and die a little when these icons die. In some cases, we grieve because these individuals used their fame and prominence to make a positive difference – by sharing their own stories and struggles, by fighting for others, and by giving back to the world through good deeds and donations and adding positive energy to the Universe – and the world feels like it will be a gloomier and less giving place without them in it.

All of this being said, I hope that we all can allow each other our grief and our sadness. We’re all individuals, and we all feel things differently. If someone you know mourns the loss of an individual they didn’t know personally, why judge him or her? If a person feels safer openly grieving for a star versus openly grieving for a close loved one, then at least that individual has a positive outlet for their sadness. If we are only human and can more readily process and express anguish over an individual because the pain of the death of thousands of individuals is too great for our minds to allow us to comprehend fully, then let us grief for the individual as a proxy and know that this doesn’t mean we don’t feel deeply for the many who also are dying, often under far more terrible circumstances.

Let people grieve. Let people mourn. And be happy that they - that we - have the capacity to grieve and ache and want better for the world.

Missing “Hey, Meg!”

A week ago was my fmphtphepyidu-rd birthday.

Typically, I love my birthday. I’m not the woman who shies away from getting older. Quite the contrary. Every year is exciting to me, from the experiences – both new and routine – to the wrinkles and the white hairs to the memories and everything in between. Aches and pains, while not exactly pleasant, are still something new and therefore something to grab my interest. Having to hold my iPhone a little further away in order to read the typeface… it’s new. All of these things are part of life. They’re going to happen, so might as well embrace them and find a way to enjoy them. And that includes the celebration of each year completed on this earth. Hurray! (It’s also a lovely excuse to eat cake. Nothing can be all that bad that includes your favorite cake.)

This year, though, was different. Markedly so. This year, today, I had to work hard to make it through the day.

My little sister passed away exactly three weeks before my birthday. It wasn’t expected, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected either. No matter the circumstances, it happened, and it really sucks.

I’m not the kind of person who gets mired in sadness. No matter how hard something hits me, I have to focus on living, on joy, on the future, on doing something that will have a positive impact on someone else. As far as we know, this is the one life we live, so why waste it being self-serving or wallowing or worrying or becoming stuck.

During the week after my sister’s death, I didn’t allow myself the time or luxury to feel anything. I didn’t feel mired or depressed, but I also didn’t feel joy, or worry, or confusion, or devotion, or much of anything. And now… now I think I might be stuck.

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that I haven’t really cried. Not really. Not fully. And I definitely haven’t cried – truly allowed my heart to grieve openly – among the people I love most. In that first moment of shock and devastation, I howled tears of desperation with my husband. But since then… no. It’s as if when the people I love are around me, I put on a “me” costume, a defective one that was created without tear ducts.

Don’t get me wrong. Tears have been shed during this past several weeks. There were a few at the funeral, and during a business trip airplane ride, I found a continuous, unstoppable stream of tears silently pouring out of my eyes. Still, the real grieving hasn’t happened.

On my birthday, there were moments when it all hit, the reality that I’m now the oldest of four sisters, not five, at least on this earth right now. In those moments, I keenly felt the hole in the universe, the emptiness that was created when my sister passed from here to the next place. And I felt my heart start to rip open, ready to let the sadness pour out. But then, each time, this strange sound exited my throat each time, completely unbidden, like no sound I’ve ever heard before, and in my surprise I found myself closing my heart up again. I found that I wasn’t ready to feel yet. Not yet.

The problem, though, is that I don’t know that I’m able to feel much of anything right now. Keeping my feelings about my sister inside, keeping them from manifesting fully, has meant that I’ve had to hold everything in. There’s this wall I’ve built between myself and my heart, and there’s another I’ve built between my heart and the world. And the world feels flat, and so do I. Flat and grey and an echo of myself.

I don’t know how this all ends. I don’t know how to get back to me. I know it needs to involve a catharsis of some kind, a ranting, a real and honest release, and an acknowledgement all the way down to my soul – past these barriers I’ve erected – that my little sister is gone. I have to accept, fully and completely accept, that I’m never again going to hear her husky alto voice say, “Hey, Meg!” I know I have to do this, not just because it’s reality but because until I do so, I won’t be able to get back to me.

I just… I don’t know how yet. What I do know is that I have to get out of this “me” costume. Because it’s too tight, and it’s defective. Who ever heard of making a “me” costume without tear ducts?

I Choose Love

I’ve had a bit of a heavy heart recently. This past year – and last year as well, truth be told – has seen the passing of too many close, dear loved ones. The kind of loved ones that hold a huge part of your heart tightly with them at all times. The kind of loved ones whose presence is always somewhere in the back or even the front your mind, a sort of protection against the world when things are rough and an additional uplift when things are wonderful. The kind of loved ones who leave a ragged, aching hold in your heart when they’re gone.

I’m crying as I write this. This is strange, because at the passing of some of these beloved individuals, I didn’t shed a single tear. The shock of their passing was too great for my emotions to wrap around. For others, the tears came hard and couldn’t be held back, no matter how much I tried. But tonight, as my thoughts wander from one missed loved one to another, the tears come softly.

The most recent loss came just a couple days ago, and it was a doozy, and it came only weeks after another loss. I won’t go into the who or the why, but suffice it to say that this was one of those losses that cut deep. I haven’t cried yet, but I suspect it’s coming. My mind just cannot comprehend that this vibrant and amazing human being, someone I have known literally my entire life, isn’t here physically any longer.

The first time I experienced a loss like this – the kind of loss that takes days and days to accept – was almost 20 years ago. My grandfather – the patriarch of my family and one of the most impressive and dynamic and brilliant and loving and exceptional individuals ever to walk the earth – passed away exactly one week before my first wedding (yes, I’ve had two weddings; deal with it). To say I was stunned is an understatement. I found myself alternately silent and giggly throughout his funeral and burial; his lack of existence on this physical plane was too ridiculous to accept. Two weeks later, however, the dam burst as I was attempting to drive home from work, and I had to pull over in a parking lot where I cried uncontrollably for two straight hours.  It was the first of many such sessions.

Tonight, my thoughts wander and dance and drift across the idea of protecting one’s heart against heartbreak, of keeping love at a distance to avoid just this sort, or any sort, of deep ache and sadness. I wonder, as many others do, at the futility of loving as fully and deeply and openly, knowing heartbreak could always be imminent and that hearts are fragile things.

The thing is, I am aware – every minute of every day – of how fortunate I am to have as many close acquaintances and colleagues as I do. Even for those people who aren’t necessarily close friends, I would do just about anything, and I know that so many people in this same group would do the same for me.

Still, there isn’t a huge number of individuals I would consider very close friends, but to those who are I give my whole heart, freely, without limits. That’s a risky thing, if you think about it. That involves an insane amount of trust – not just in each person but also in circumstance. In that situation, each individual has the power to crush your heart, but so does fate. And fate’s been having a bit of a field day lately.

Add to this the fact that I’m an emotional person. I’m essentially a giant ball of emotion crammed into a small body. I practically burst at the seams with emotional energy – mostly happiness, but anger and frustration and giddiness and sadness and everything else come in this package, and pretty dramatically so. Heartbreak is no different. It can be a bit overwhelming.

So that begs the question: is it better to continue to love deeply and trust wholly and give my heart fully to each loved one, or is the potential for pain and heartache just too much to bear without putting up some boundaries and protections? It’s a quandary.  

For now, I think that I can only continue to open my heart widely, to dream broadly, to love fully and to accept that by doing so I make myself vulnerable to heartbreak and the aching pain of loss. Because there is power and brilliance and unparalleled beauty in loving so completely. And eventually, after the pain of a deep loss has eased somewhat, the memory of such a love brings its own satisfaction and helps heal a hurting heart.

Tonight, I'm counting on that. I'm counting on the fact that the memory of this most recently lost loved one eventually will bring a smile where tonight the loss feels like a grey shadow, an emptiness in the world that this beloved soul used to fill so perfectly. It will happen, and for now I'm focusing on remembering how fortunate I was, how incredibly lucky I was, to know her and to call her family and to have her around for so many years. What a gift that was.

So for me, for now, I choose love.

The Lovers, The Dreamers... and Me

I was all geared up to write a post about something funny that my best friend texted to me today, but this whole situation about that young boy in New York, Leiby Kletzky, has me in knots. I can’t stop thinking about him and his parents and his community. Between this child and Caylee Anthony and all the other kids we hear about – or don’t hear about – in the news… if you allow it to, it can really eat you up inside.

So today we’re going to focus on something positive and light, to fight off the grief and focus on hope. Today is about the little ones. Our little ones. Yours and mine. Whether you’re a parent or a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, a cousin or a friend of a very young member of our species (or two, or three), let’s chat about our tiny people. Even if your child is all grown up or is gone-too-soon, I want to hear about him or her. What is your keenest memory or favorite ritual or funniest story? What would you share with the world about your child, if you could?

I’ll start. My favorite ritual with my kids is singing to them at bedtime. Just before my little Bear was born, I developed an urge – from where, I know not – to relearn “Rainbow Connection.” Do you remember that song? Kermit the Frog sang it in The Muppet Movie. I adored that song when I was little, and in recent years it’s resonated more and more for me. So from the first day I brought my son home from the hospital until well into his twos, I sang him “Rainbow Connection” every night at bedtime. Looking back, if I had to choose a Kermit song, "Rainbow Connection" was probably a better choice than “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

When Ballerina was born 17 months later, I decided to stick with the theme of rainbows and to sing her “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It stuck for a while, but once the kids were old enough to communicate, it became clear that they both really loved “Rainbow Connection” best.

About a year ago, the bedtime singing kind of faded away, but a few months ago, out of nowhere, both kids started asking for “Rainbow Connection” again just about every night. So it’s our ritual once more. I even recently posted a video of myself on YouTube singing that song so that my husband could play it for our kids at bedtime when I went on a business trip across the country. For. Realz. (Don’t bother looking for it. It’s not searchable. Besides, YouTube is probably going to send the copyright police after me for singing it and posting it online. That is if the Defenders of Quality Singing don't get me first.)

I admit that tonight, while I sang to my no-longer-babies, I felt a pang, an ache, for Leiby Kletzky’s parents, knowing they won’t be able to have their bedtime rituals with him any longer. They won’t have the chance to hug him tight and give him a good night kiss. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night, either. So I hugged my two just a bit longer and gave them extra kisses, and I’ll try to remember to do those “extras” often. Oh, and I admit that maybe I sang “Rainbow Connection” with a bit too much gusto tonight… but what is it they say? Sing like there’s nobody listening?

I’ll leave you with the lyrics to “Rainbow Connection” (written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher), but before I do, remember to go to Comments below and share something about your special little ones!

Rainbow Connection

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide
So we've been told and some chose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see

Someday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far
What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing
And what do we think we might see

Someday we'll find it
That Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

All of us under its spell

We know that it’s probably magic

Have you been half asleep, and have you heard voices
I've heard them calling my name
Is it the sweet sound that calls the young sailors
The voice might be one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it
It’s something that I'm s’posed to be

Someday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

La da da dee da da dum

La da da da da dee da do

Caylee Anthony – Why It Matters

If you are an adult alive and awake in the United States today, it’s almost impossible that you remain unaware at this point in the day of the verdict of the Casey Anthony trial. Even if you didn’t watch the verdict being read on live television, if you were anywhere within spitting distance of social media, you couldn’t possibly have missed the flurry of outrage that spread across the Interwebs when Ms. Anthony was found Not Guilty of any charges related to harming her daughter, Caylee.

Among the flurry and frenzy on social media sites were several comments expressing “enough already” or even “it’s not important, move along.” To be fair, some of the “enough already” comments had more to do with information overload experienced by those who live near the city where the trial happened and who were tired of every other news item being drowned out by this case. Fair enough and amen to that. But for those who claim that this case and this verdict weren’t important… to put it bluntly, I couldn’t disagree with you more.

Before I get into the main part of my post, I want to point out that the first two words of the title of the post aren’t “Casey Anthony” but “Caylee Anthony.” Casey Anthony, in my opinion, really doesn’t matter. Whether you think she killed her daughter or not, her actions have proven time and again that at the very least she is exceedingly narcissistic and more likely is a sociopath. She did nothing to announce to anyone that her daughter was missing in the first place and has done nothing at any point to help anyone locate her child or determine the cause of her daughter’s death. But Caylee Anthony… she matters. Not mattered, as in past tense, but matters. Still.

It’s often said that one of the oddities of human nature is that we feel more profoundly affected by tragedies when we relate to single individuals rather than to vast numbers. We have trouble wrapping our heads around large scale human catastrophes. Remember the tsunami of 2004? All told, that terrifying wave killed more than 230,000 people. That’s no typo – two hundred and thirty thousand. Think about that casualty figure for a moment. Try to get your brain to fathom what that means in terms of humanity and tragedy. It’s difficult, isn’t it? It’s just so… huge and overwhelming and unthinkable. Finding the right emotion for a disaster of that magnitude is tough. But then imagine one single mother on that day who clung to her small child as tightly as she could, desperate to save him, desperate to survive the torrent, until the waters finally tore him from her grasp. Imagine the agony of that one woman trying so frantically to save her young son, her beloved child, only to have the undeniable force of nature overpower her. Think about her loss and her unbearable grief, and then think about your reaction to her story. Bear in mind, I’m not speaking of a single situation but of thousands that happened that day, sadly. And yet, it’s easier to empathize with and sympathize for that single woman and to grasp the despair of that one mother’s plight than it is the full scope of the tsunami event.

As with the one lost child among the thousands who perished in the tsunami, Caylee’s death is both a singular tragedy and a representation of so many others. People around the country and around the world cared about her disappearance and her situation and her recovery and the trial. We cared and we hoped and we grieved, and tonight we mourn for what many of us feel was the loss of an opportunity for justice. We don’t care because we knew her personally. Of course not. And no, we don’t consciously think of her as a symbol. She was Caylee. She was a child. We grieve specifically for her loss.

But part of why we focus all this attention and emotion and grief and hope and anger on Caylee is that she is just one of so many abused and hurt (and worse) children in the world. She’s not a symbol, but she is “one of” nonetheless. She is one of so many children who, either at times or throughout their youth, are unwanted, discarded, disdained, mistreated, abused, simply tolerated or completely untolerated. There are thousands of children in our country and in the world who simply are children, who are physically unable to be self-sufficient, who didn’t ask to exist but who do nonetheless, who are completely reliant on others for care and feeding and housing, who yearn for and have an instinct to crave and work for love and affection. But let’s face it – in the most basic sense, children exist at the whim of the adults who are responsible for them. And there are adults out there who do not perform that responsibility appropriately (to put it mildly).

As with thinking about all of the tsunami victims, it is literally impossible – to the point of madness – to think about and feel “enough” sympathy for all of the abused children in the world or enough loathing for all of the neglectful or abusive or murderous parents. There are so many of us who want justice for every single mistreated child. We want to rail against abusers and wrap our arms around the tortured children and make the world a safer place for all those who can’t protect themselves. But as individuals, we feel that’s impossible. We feel impotent to make a dent in this grand breadth of awfulness. So instead, we collectively focus on one child, with every part of our heart and every ounce of our hope. We pray that she’s found safe, and when she isn’t found safe we pray that the awful excuse of a human being that did this horrible thing serves some sort of justice. Because if we can’t bring all of the abusers and murderers of children to justice, then maybe we can at least have justice this one time. And then, when we feel justice has not been served, we cry out collectively, because if justice can’t happen for this one child, how can we hope to save the thousands of children still out there being abused and mistreated? If we can’t save one, even posthumously, how can we hope to save the rest?

So this, my doubting and aggravated friends, is why this case and this trial and this verdict were so important to so many of us. We wanted to see a difference made. We wanted justice for the one so we could imagine justice for the many. We wanted to feel that some good could come from this tragedy, even if we couldn’t save the girl… even if the good that came from all of this was simply our own internal justification and fire and drive to get out there and do more to protect the meek and bring the bad guys in and make the world a better place and make a difference.

And rightly or wrongly, because of today’s verdict, right now it feels like a losing battle.

Japan: Surreal 30,000-Foot Perspective

Since March 11, we all have been bombarded with scenes and stories highlighting the unspeakably tragic events unfolding in Japan. Image after image reinforces the almost unfathomable physical devastation.

A friend of mine flew over Japan on business a few days ago, and from thousands of feet in the air he took this photo of the coastline.

What do you notice?  I’ll tell you what I noticed… beauty and nature in stunning simplicity.  Looking at this image through the lens of the last several days is painful and surreal and poignant.  I find it almost cruel how lovely, serene and normal this image is.  I mean, shouldn’t the scars of the earthquake and tsunami and the very aching grief itself of the Japanese people be somehow reflected on the landscape?  

Perhaps this picture ought to remind me to appreciate the resilience of the earth, its hardiness and its very constancy in the face of dramatic upheaval. But I can’t. I can’t celebrate that today. Today I grieve down in my soul for everyone in Japan who is simply trying to endure… trying to remember just to breathe.

Today, this image as much as the others breaks my heart.