I missed writing my minimalist Monday post yesterday. Partly, due to the fact that our three youngest children were playing with their youth orchestra at a music festival out of town, and partly due to the fact that I’m oh so very sad.
You have heard me say this before; “we are all connected.” And never do we feel it more than when there is a tragedy. When I heard the news about the Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Bronco’s hockey team’s bus crash last Friday, my heart broke; so many lives lost, and so many families changed forever. What I keep thinking about over and over is why. The accident was so bizarre and out of the blue. I mean, if there had been a terrible blizzard, maybe one could wrap their head around it, but there doesn’t seem to be any other reason, other than the bus was at the intersection at the wrong time. As my son Clark said, “what makes these events tragic, is how random they are.”
The YouTube video below by Lorri Brewer illustrates how connected we truly are….
We Are All Connected from Lorri Brewer on Vimeo.
Having been changed forever when my father was killed in a truck accident when I was a young child, I have a clear sense of the magnitude of a family’s loss. And being a parent, whose worst nightmare would be to lose a child, this accident hits me deeply.
And as if that wasn’t enough horror in our world, there was yet another chemical weapon attack in Syria, where once again, crimes against humanity have occurred. I’ve been crying deep inside for the victims of this most recent poisoning and all the families effected in the bus/truck accident. How do we go on amidst constant tragedies in the world? How do we support one another?
Here is one way another grieving person (Sylvie Kellington) chose to help the Bronco’s families with; “A Go Fund Me, :page. We can all help to make a difference.
It felt, so flippant writing about another way to become more minimal and environmentally proactive this week. While those things are important, at least to me, stopping and feeling the pain from loss seemed more appropriate right now. Some would say, “oh Lee, stop watching the news shows, or stop reading the news on line.” But if I did that, I’d feel like I was turning my back on people’s pain and grief. As hard as this is on my heart, I want to be impacted by their darkest days. I want to be reminded, that in a blink of an eye, our lives can change. We are all living on this large, spinning planet; gravity holding us to the earth, but in more ways than one are we truly one family. And we need being reminded of that. Because, although we may not be able to avoid horrific, random accidents, we can make a change with regards to how we treat each other, and make a stand on how dictators around the world are acting.
How can we move forward with hope in our hearts and allow healing to occur. How can we change what is happening in our world to our fellow humans?
I ask these questions and seek the answers and thought I would share an article with links that I came across on the net. Since I’m not a psychologist, or a grief counselor, I needed to find ways to process the most recent events and the following article and links inside of it have been beneficial to me. Maybe, you too, would find them helpful. Check out: We humans~How to be More Hopeful, written on Apr 3, 2018 by
It was a timely article for me and highlights eight Ted talk speakers, who are inspiring. I particularly appreciated the writer, Andrew Solomon, who said:
“You need to take the traumas and make them part of who you’ve come to be, and you need to fold the worst events of your life into a narrative of triumph, evincing a better self in response to things that hurt.”
“Grief is like the ocean;
it comes in waves,
ebbing and flowing.
Sometimes the water is
calm, and sometimes it
is overwhelming. All we
can do is learn to swim.”
Vicki Harrison
While I would love to crawl under the covers today or to sink deep into a fiction novel, that flies me far away from real life issues, I am choosing instead to stay connected with others and “listen deeply and intentionally,” as Dave Isay, founder of the NYC-based nonprofit StoryCorps suggests, allowing others to share their story of love, wisdom and courage, to fill me up, instead of depleting me. As he says, “it can sometimes feel like you’re walking on holy ground,” when you listen to these stories.
And if there was ever a time I need that, we ALL need that on this earth, it’s now. It’s when we break open and allow grief to change us, that we return to the NOW, and remember what’s truly important.
“Simply Loving each other”….and maybe that is my minimalist post after all…because nothing is more simple and yet powerful than that!
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Blessings and love from Hope