LINDEMAN: Extreme Sadness, Yet Hope

By BRUCE LINDEMAN
Cape Charles Wave

December 18, 2012

This past weekend was my birthday weekend down on the Shore.  Not a milestone birthday by any stretch, yet a birthday just the same.

But it wasn’t a happy one.  As much as I tried to stay clear of the updates coming out of Newtown, CT, it was hard not to check in on my iPhone now and again to learn more and try to get to an understanding.

It’s the understanding part that we all seem to struggle with.

We all process these things differently, and depending on where we are coming from emotionally and politically, we each have different things to say about the “why” question.

I’m not going to use this space to politicize this event.  There are countless others who will do just that online, in the halls of Congress, and behind podiums at town hall meetings across the country.  There is a lot of anger that will build up over this and recent similar events, and people will demand change in the weeks ahead.

I’m not ready to go there yet.  My mind and heart are still full of sadness and thoughts of those 20 little children.

We can argue endlessly about the “why.” But not here.  Please.  Instead, I want to talk about what we’ve become as a nation.

Most of us will look back nostalgically to recall a simpler and kinder time.  But our parents and their parents likewise have done the same.  The past always seems like a happier time.

Perhaps it was, and perhaps it wasn’t.  We have to think about such things as a whole and not just through our own individual eyes and experiences.  And “simpler” and “kinder” are failingly difficult things to quantify.

But for the sake of argument, let’s assume we have taken a slide toward a meaner and more unforgiving world.  If that’s the case, it begs the question:  how do we, as a society, reverse that trend?  For surely if we do not, we’re headed towards far more of these news stories.

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After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, I was filled with profound sadness over this very same dilemma.  Yet, something wonderful happened – at least temporarily.  For the next several months, people seemed . . . nicer.  More patient and kinder.  Life slowed down as people seemed to have processed the enormity of what occurred and – I think – realized that something had to change.

Sadly, that hiatus was simply that:  a temporary respite from how we all trudged through life before September 11.  We forgot how to be nice.

Yes, I get that “nice” is not the issue here.  But when I read the bios that CNN provided online for each of the children from Newtown, I can only think of how they were, how they loved life, their parents, siblings, grandparents, pets, teachers, and their school. They were just children.  So full of goodness and life.

Children, as it turns out, should be where we begin to look for answers.  And why not start with these 20 little children?

Six-year-olds don’t hate.  They just don’t understand the concept.  They get angry, sure.  But, they don’t hate.

And when they get angry, they don’t stay angry.  They don’t hold grudges and they forgive easily.  They realize, so much better than we do, that it’s just simply more fun to smile and be happy than it is to be angry and sad.

So what does all of this have to do with Newtown, CT?  I’m not fully sure.  But I firmly believe that we can still save ourselves from — ourselves.  We can still turn around and go back to a kinder and gentler time.  We can be more patient.  More forgiving.  More happy.  We can.  I’ve seen us do it.  It’s possible.

Would doing so help prevent future events such as Newtown?  I don’t know.  But there are a lot of angry people walking through this world who have the potential to do very bad things.  It seems logical to me that if fewer people were angry, fewer bad things like this would happen.

I realize this doesn’t address issues such as mental illness, of the type that seemingly affected Adam Lanza.  But could it have affected his mother, who felt the need to fortify herself and her family from bad things and people?  If you don’t live in fear you logically wouldn’t need to do such things.  And the opportunity that was laid at Adam Lanza’s feet would never have presented itself.

Again, I won’t pretend here to understand or explain the “why” behind this and I really do not want to.  Not here.  Not now.  My point is more of a plea.  A plea for all of us to slow down and to say and do the things our mothers taught us when we were children.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, the Golden Rule is a principle that everyone should build their character upon:  treat others as you want to be treated.  It’s pretty simple, really.

Wouldn’t you want someone to say “thank you” and “please”?  To hold the door open for you?  To look you in the eye and to give you your undivided attention when you’re talking?  To shake your hand firmly?  To give you a hug when you need one?  To simply . . . smile at you when passing you on the street?  I could go on, but the answers seem so painfully obvious to me.

In this time of grieving, please think of these things.  Think about the Newtown children.  Think of them playing in that Sandy Hook schoolyard.  Think of how they lit up a room with their smiles and infectious love of life.

If we all decided to walk through life as fully and sweetly as these 20 angels did, I bet we’d spend less time reading about such tragedies and more time giggling while playing hide-and-seek with our grandchildren well into our senior years.

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Comments

5 Responses to “LINDEMAN: Extreme Sadness, Yet Hope”

  1. Lenora Mitchell on December 18th, 2012 2:02 pm

    All things happen for a reason, they are either teaching experiences or learning experiences. Newtown is a learning experience – – I couldn’t stop screaming when I heard the news. We all need to step back for a minute and reflect on how precious life is and how precious our relationships could be if we were willing to put our minor differences aside, respect each other, be tolerant of each other and work together. It’s not so important as to who is right or wrong, but what is right or wrong. We are a great nation and Cape Charles is a part of this nation! As our prayers go out to Newtown, let’s say a prayer for each other.

  2. Wayne Creed on December 19th, 2012 6:00 pm

    Nice sentiment Bruce, and like Lenora, I wondered if there was anything to take away from it, whether teaching or learning. Seemingly futile, I attempted to explore it too:

    http://www.assesandvillains.com/post/Newtown.html

  3. Bruce Lindeman on December 20th, 2012 7:25 am

    All good points, Wayne. I’m so emotionally numb about the whole thing. Every morning as I’ve driven to work this week, I heard another story on NPR about the day’s pending funerals for the victims in Newtown. It breaks my heart that those families should have to bear that burden. They shouldn’t have to during this time of year. Not ever. I don’t know how those families will climb out of that overwhelming sadness. I pray for them.,,

    I don’t think that all the knee-jerk reaction comnig out of Washington, the NRA or… whomever is going to do much to stop mentally ill people from doing crazy things. To your point, Timothy McVeigh mixed totgether some very common materials that anyone can purchase at a hardware store without the least bit of suspicion – and killed more than 6 times the number of people in killed in Newton. We’ll never be able to stop these kinds of things from happening. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, however.

    Funny about Kerouac. To me, he is incredibly difficult to read. I know he’s taken his share of hits from critics through the years for his writing style. I’m still trying to sort him out in my head. I’m not sure if he was insane, high most of the time, brilliant, or a combination of all of the above.

  4. Deborah Bender on December 20th, 2012 8:52 am

    People with autism can be very violent. I have a good friend with a severely autistic son and he is very strong and can be very violent. I am also wondering if Mrs. Lanzas guns were under lock and key ? My heart breaks for all of the people in Sandy Hook. Every time I watch the news I cry for the 26 new angels. I mourn for the countless family members that have the heartache of losing their loved ones.

    Somehow this country needs to get better control of the types of guns that are being sold and better backround checks. The people that currently own guns need to make sure they are kept out of the hands of mentally challenged people. We have several guns in our home and you can be sure they are all unloaded, under lock and key in a gun cabinet and the room they are in is also locked.

    I also firmly believe that alot of children are not being taught the value of a human life. The seperation of church & state is wrong. We need God in school because many children don’t go to church and are not being taught the ways of God. I am not saying that it is up to the school to drill children with religion but how much could a simple morning prayer hurt ?

    Pledge of Allegience…morning prayer and lock those doors at school.

    I will now go put on a helmut and prepare for the firestorm I am going to receive.

  5. Betty Johnson on December 20th, 2012 8:24 pm

    Nicely said, Bruce.