WHEN GRATEFUL DOESN’T WORK
Yes, of course this is a site all about Gratitude and Trust, but if we are going to be honest there are times when that duo has no choice but to be replaced by other feelings.
It does not mean they don’t return. It does not mean we do not strive to make them as Paul says the “ the track our choo choo runs on.” But sometimes the train pulls into a sucky station, a stop that doesn’t feel so good, bad things don’t just happen to good people, I so don’t believe that. Bad things happen to all people; No doubt some worse than others. That is part of the human experience.
Sometimes they happen personally and sometimes like the horrors that took place yesterday in Boston they are collective and personal experiences. And in those moments I do not feel we need to bury our real feelings in a phony cloak of gratitude.
I think it’s imperative at times to really experience what we are feeling, to invite those scary, sad feelings inside, sit down and give them a cup of tea and deal with them. If not, they often surface in ways that undermine our lives later.
There is no way a person can experience terrorism, witness the carnage of innocent people and not feel pissed off, scared or confused. There is no way you can hear of an eight year old boy losing his life while he was innocently waiting for his father to cross the finish line on Patriots Day and feel gratitude. You can feel selfish gratitude that it wasn’t your kid, though I don’t think any of us here like to do that.
One can’t feel the birds are chirping, the sky is blue, oh what a wonderful world gratitude in those moments, nor should we.
There are glimmers of gratitude in yesterday’s attacks – there were not more dead or injured. Yeah, OK, but then I go to the two kids watching their mother cross the finish line whose legs were blown off, hard to see the silver lining in that cloud. I heard she died, but I don’t know if that is true. There is the mother now with two sons, neither of who has a leg. Trust and gratitude – nah – I don’t think so.
And that is OK. It is OK to be mad, sad, upset, scared, and angry at terrorist cells, crazies in the crowd whose goal is to kill and maim as many innocents a possible, the fact the Boston Police Department made the stupid decision to not remove the public trash cans for the first time since 9/11.
You can be upset and unhappy and it does not diminish your goodness as a human being.
We now live in a world of Newtowns and Columbines, and insane Islamic Jihad, metal detectors at airports and museums, this is not the world I grew up in.
At these moments there are heroes. And heroes are always something to be grateful for. Americans run into the bedlam to save their fellow man and that is extraordinary. Teachers risk their lives to save their students. People do amazing things in hideous situations.
But why should they have to? Why on a beautiful Spring day at a world famous event that represents, strength, freedom and the power of the human spirit, where thousands get together to cheer strangers and loved ones over the finish line should people be carried off dead or limbless on stretchers? There is no reason.
Thus, no gratitude in those moments; no real gratitude. Not for me. I will own that.
Well, I have gratitude. My daughter is in her final month at Emerson College, the school that was at the epicenter of this. Seven Emerson students were taken to the hospital. Had it not been a holiday and had I raised her not to be a sports fan she might have been there instead of in her apartment. And that is selfish gratitude, but it’s real, though it does not undermine the other feelings I carry.
Life has taught me we can carry many conflicting feelings. And in times of tragedy some of our sunnier outlooks get pushed aside temporarily for a deeper, darker set of emotions.
They must live. They must breath. It does not give us the right to hurt others, kick the dog, or take part in or return to life threatening habits, but it does mean we sometimes have to experience life on life’s terms and they are not always pretty.
I will tell you what I hate. I hate when something bad happens either personally or to all of us and some wise ass goes, “Well, it could be worse, you could live in Darfur.”
Some one you love dies and you need to grieve and a perhaps well-meaning person goes, “ Well, you have a roof over your head at least. You could be a Ugandan refugee. “ And sure, there is gratitude if you dig that deep. But there are moments to feel sorry for the people in Darfur, and there are moments where you can indulge in feeling sorry for yourself or others. Or in the case of yesterday, when we feel sorry we live in a world where events like yesterday’s terrorist attack happen. No, it’s not Darfur, but it’s horrifying in it’s own right. And not allowing those feelings a place at the table is not doing justice to the horror.
Tomorrow is another day, but for far too many today and every day from now on will be a day without limbs or a parent or a child.
And I feel no gratitude in that. And for that I am grateful.
Tracey Jackson is a screenwriter and blogger at traceyjacksononline.com. Her book Gratitude and Trust is now available.