Certain events have the power to propel us into an emotional numbness, as if a hidden thermostat inside our hearts shuts us off. The pain is too much to bear. Some of the events that leap to mind over the past decade are:
- 9/11/2001. All you need is that date to evoke the painful images stored in your mind and heart.
- February 1, 2003. The Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster. You probably remember how you felt as that tragedy unfolded across the skies above us.
- December 26, 2004. The Tsunami. The sheer numbers are almost incomprehensible: Dead [estimated at 227,000], Missing [46,000], Injured [125,000], and Displaced [1.69 million].
- August and September, 2005. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita desecrated areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas; and parts of Florida, Arkansas, Alabama and the Caribbean. We saw the images of mass-destruction during that nearly month-long deluge.
- January 12th, 2010. Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti, was rocked by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that leveled much of the city, causing death and destruction that are hard to comprehend. At latest count, more than 230,000 died.
Yes, there have been other major natural and man-made disasters since 2001, but this list certainly stands out. The natural disasters represent the intensity and violence of nature, and remind us how fragile our existence is. The two other events, one man-made and one man-influenced, also let us know that there are no survival guarantees—ever.
470,000 People Died. I Knew None Of Them, Yet I Grieved.
More than 470,000 people died in those events. I was emotionally devastated by the loss of lives, but I did not know even one of those people personally.
Why was I affected? Why was my heart broken beyond the obvious awareness of the sorrow that was going to be felt by surviving family and friends? Why was it so personal for me?
Over time we've been called on to explain how and why we - and indeed, most people - are so affected by the deaths of people we don't know.
It may surprise you to learn how it works. When you hear of a tragedy - like those we have talked about here - your brain immediately and logically identifies what has happened as bad and sad. Then, without you necessarily giving a conscious command, your brain goes on a google search to identify bad and sad events that have affected you. In that process, it will review - at warp speed - every loss event that has ever affected your life. That is, everything that it might categorize as bad or sad.
You will think of loss-related events you haven't thought of in years. Not all of what you recall will relate to death. Some will be about romantic endings, or career or health problems, and disappointments and unfulfilled dreams large and small. It is not uncommon for those memories to be accompanied by sad emotions, which you will usually ascribe to the situation in the news.
It Is YOU And Your Membership In The Family Of Humankind
It is your experience with and about losses that creates your emotional response to and about people you have never met. It is your internal reminders about pain and sadness that allows you to have feelings about strangers and what they may be experiencing as they react to the death of the people in their lives, as well as the destruction of their property, the loss of their animal companions, and the loss of memorabilia that connects them to their heritage.
So it is you, and your personal storehouse of emotional experiences that is the common denominator. It may seem self-centered, but it's not. It's simply how our brains and hearts work.
And it is because you are a member of the family of humankind.
The Emotional Novocain Wears Off
In the opening paragraph we mentioned emotional numbness which is one of the most common reactions to major losses that affect us directly, and to the news of tragedies of enormous scope, even when we are not directly impacted. The numbness acts as a kind of emotional Novocain which protects us from being harmed by the enormity of what we heard about or saw, and allows us some time to adapt to the reality of what happened.
As the emotional Novocain wears off, we talk to each other about the emotions we are feeling. But sometimes there aren't words to fit the emotions generated by an event that is too hard to comprehend.
Something Larger Than Our Own Existence Comes To The Fore
Many of us didn't know any of the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, nor anyone in the other tragedies we listed. Yet we are profoundly affected. We instinctively realize that for each perished soul there are many grieving survivors whose lives have been irrevocably altered. For them, we imagine their grief is immense, each to the depths of their unique relationships with their loved ones who died. Even if we could speak to them, we know that our words, though well-intended, would barely brush them as they pass by.
At times like these, something larger than our own existence comes to the fore. Our membership in the family of humankind steps up. We care about the people who died, even though we didn't know them, because we are people too. Our hearts go out to the families and friends who must try to find a way to go on with their lives, because we also have families and friends and because we have the power of empathy which gives us a sense of what they might be feeling - if only just a little.
Because We Are The Family Of Humankind.
