When One Family Suffers, We All Do

By Dave Wenzel, For the Sandy Standard

A few weeks ago, many of us found ourselves following news alerts from a street most of us have driven past without a second thought. Evans Street became the center of a tragedy that left families shattered, a police officer wounded, and a community searching for words.

Like many of you, I initially wanted answers. What happened? Why did it happen? Could it have been prevented?

But the older I get, the less confidence I have in easy explanations. One thing I have learned about tragedy and trauma is that answers rarely relieve the pain. More often, answers simply lead to more questions.

What I do know is that grief has a way of expanding beyond the people most directly affected. It ripples outward through neighborhoods, schools, churches, workplaces, and dinner tables. In a small community, suffering rarely belongs to just one family.

In the end, it belongs to all of us. Fresh grief has a way of awakening older grief.  A tragedy in the present often reaches back and touches losses we thought we had neatly packed away.

In my most extreme seasons of suffering I’ve experienced what many of you have also: suffering brings on a physical pain, like a sword through my chest and stomach.The pain often makes us want to isolate, when what we really need is connection.

And in my most painful times answers, such as they were, brought no solace. What brought solace was those who showed up and were present to me in my pain.  I can’t even begin to recall what answers they might have offered, I think many just sat with me. But I can tell you who showed up.

Rabbi Elliot Kukla once described a woman with a head/brain injury that would cause her to unexpectedly collapse to the floor.  People (well-intentioned no doubt) would hurry to her and attempt to help her back onto her feet, often before she was ready.  The woman reportedly told Kukla, “I think people rush to help me up because they are so uncomfortable with seeing an adult lying on the floor.  But what I really need is for someone to get down on the ground with me.”

Kukla noted that when someone is in deep despair, ‘getting on the floor’ with them can be anxiety producing. We tend to be very uncomfortable just sitting with despair and not trying to offer some sort of words. But I can tell you with complete certainty, both professionally and personally, being silent with someone who is in despair can be very powerful.

Some of my most meaningful and trusted friends are those I don’t have to explain myself to, or to try and tell my story.  I think for most of you, to truly feel understood by someone, you need them to also know the suffering you’ve been through. My closest friends were there to be witnesses to my pain.  And in turn, I’ve witnessed theirs.  After my first wife’s death a friend, who I didn’t know very well, came over and did my laundry for probably six months. She witnessed my suffering, and did so in verbal silence, just letting her actions speak.

In the weeks following our community’s recent tragedy, many of us have searched for words. Perhaps words are overrated. Perhaps what our community needs most is what people have always needed in times of sorrow: meals delivered to a doorstep, a hand on a shoulder, a quiet presence on a front porch, someone willing to sit on the floor with us until we are ready to stand again.

We all need witnesses. 

We all need to be witnesses.