Public Displays of Affliction

Maybe it's just me; I'm willing to accept that. And maybe it's unhealthy; I'm willing to accept that as well. But the fact of the matter is that I HATE to cry in front of other people. I hate for them to see me hurt. I suppose it's twofold: I don't want to burden them with my problems and crying in front of other people makes me feel self-conscious. Rest assured that if you've seen me cry it was most likely against my will. But I don't think it's just me... I think we all have this problem. Don't reach out, don't open up, don't share, don't lean... don't tell them how you really feel. Apologize to them when you cry. After awhile the bereaved become experts of hiding their emotions from other people. In the beginning, it showed all the time. You had "I'm in pain," written all over your face. Sometimes people notice, sometimes they don't. Sometimes the people who notice care, but most often they don't know what to do. And really, I'm not sure I ever really wanted anyone to either notice or care. Grief has become something personal. I could have shared this experience with Siege; but with him gone, there's no one else I really care to let see that side of me. It's kind of like how we'll let everyone in the world see us when we're clean and make-uped and dressed nice. We only let those we truly love see what we look like right when we wake up in the morning. It's personal, you know?

Why do we do that, though? Why do we close ourselves off that way? Sometimes when I see pictures of people in other countries (especially during celebration and tragedy) it strikes me by how close they all are. They seem to touch, to share, to care - total strangers are as open as the closest families. It gives a new meaning to community. They hold each other, either in despair or in joy, and everyone around seems to take one person's feelings on as their own. Men hug each other, console each other and they cry together. When's the last time you saw two men hug each other and cry, either in pain or joy? I'm not sure I ever have... It seems to me that we, as a society, seem extermely uncomfortable with other people's emotions. We tense when others touch us - what are their intentions? what do they want? why aren't they respecting my space? am I wearing deoderant today?. It's even worse when we see people who hurt. We can't face other people's grief, we don't know what to do with it. We are a results driven people, and you just can't fix some problems. They'll give you that look, that meaningful, slightly panicy look. "You okay?" God, I hate that fucking question. I know (as we all know) that they mean well. But it's just... how in the hell do they think I'm doing? I'm freaking awesome, thanks for asking. So we smile wearily instead of roll our eyes, and say "I'm fine, thanks". And then we stare at each other for a few seconds while they wait to see if you'll say anything else, before dropping it with a sense of relief. You can almost hear their telepathic entreaty to you, "Please, please feel better."

There was a post on the Young Widow's Bulletin Board the other day, where the author referred to all the other people as "normals". All those who continue on in their daily lives, blissfully unaware of how quickly and easily the things that matter can be ripped away from you. It's like a twisted version of the Sixth Sense: "I see normal people...". Grief and loss change so much, so fast - both in our outer lives and within ourselves - that you can't help but view everyone else as living in some rarified world of ignorance. So when they stare at you like that, like there's something wrong with you that they wish they could fix, it can't help but make you feel like an outsider. I imagine that's why veterans rarely care to talk about the horrors of war to anyone except other veterans: you can't possibly understand unless you've been there.

But it's more than that. I think we, as a society, are inadequate at dealing with death in general. We don't teach our children how to handle it, how to face it. We have so little death as a country - compared to places like Africa which faces Aids, famine and civil war, or the Middle East which suffers from daily random violence. We want to tell our children that everything is always going to be alright, that bad things don't happen to good people, that when bad things do happen they happen for a reason. We want to protect those we love from the bad things, from the truth: that life isn't a fairytale, that it certainly isn't fair, and that part of being human is learning to live with that, and make the best life you can anyway. People know that. We understand it, on some esoteric, metaphoric level. But until you experience it, you really don't know anything. It just makes me wonder which version of the truth better serves our children? The version where life is fair if you work hard and are a good person and death only happens when we're old and ready for it? Or the version where nothing good is permanent and life can change on a simple whim or in a single moment?

People believe the first version because we like for things to have meaning, to be explainable and understandable. People like to think that even death can't stop true love and that the good don't die young. And maybe for a lot of people that's true. But perhaps if we were taught the second version, we'd have a greater appreciation for the things that are really important - no matter how permanent we think they are in our lives. Maybe we'd stop worrying so much about what everyone else thought. Maybe we'd be kinder to one another and not take the small things for granted... But even more than that, maybe we'd be better at handling life when things don't turn out the way we'd planned; and perhaps we'd find an even better and more comfortable way of dealing with other people's loss and pain as well as our own.