My closest friends and I share everything, from the minutia of our day to larger issues we are facing at home or at the office. As I read articles this morning about the most recent shooting at the bar in California, I thought about the fact that we don’t really talk about these tragedies. We may mention to each other how horrific they are but we don’t go much further. We’re all well-informed women, all proudly voting this week, interested in world events beyond Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. And yet we have discussed the royal couple much more often than we have the devastating loss of life at the hands of madmen.
Taking a look at myself, I questioned if I just don’t care? The definitive answer is I care. A lot. Have I stuck my head in the sand, taking an “if it doesn’t happen to me or to people I love, it’s not my problem” attitude? I have not. I hope you know me from this blog; I would be honest if that were the case no matter how that would make me look. So what then?
We have gone through so much together, the compassionate, smart women I share my life with: loss of loved ones, divorce, illness, financial struggles, events that rocked us to our cores. But the senseless killing of people just like us is apparently the one thing we simply cannot put voice to. We are all wives, mothers and daughters, all unable to not imagine the phone ringing with the unimaginable news. When physical pain is so severe you can’t cry out, you know you’re in dire straits. We are sharing these terrifying acts. Our silence is not a declaration of apathy. It is a profound hurt screamed silently between us.
