We each process life, love, and tragedy in our own way. For me, the only way to understand the world is to continually ask the question: "Why?"So when tragedy like 9/11, the Sandy Hook shootings, or the recent Orlando shooting happens, I spend much time in solitude trying to figure out why.
The Sandy Hook shootings marked a poignant moment in my life. At that time, my daughter was a half year away from entering kindergarten… something I wasn't ready for, and was uncertain about as it was. Then an entire school of young children underwent a horror that I still can't even imagine. This rocked me for months.
And the question of why never left my mind. The answer arrived the following April. During opening day in Yankee Stadium, there was a moment of silence for the lives lost at Sandy Hook. I could feel the emotion in the stadium. It was palpable. All that energy and love being sent in silence to those souls who died, and to those still suffering from the loss.
In that moment of silence I realized why. Why tragedy strikes. Why bad things happen to good people, to innocent people. Those who are gone no longer suffer. We suffer. And in our suffering we do good.
Never is the inherent strength and goodness of humanity as apparent as when tragedy strikes. The more severe the tragedy, the more powerfully communities band together to support one another and do good in the world. Anyone in New York during the final months of 2001 can attest to that. Only when tragedy strikes does the entire globe come together in ways it never would otherwise to give back and do good so selflessly. There is never the same kind of goodwill toward others in happy moments. A wedding will never generate as much love between friends and family as a funeral. When we see goodness, our instinct is to bask in it, to take some of it for our own. But when we see suffering... we instinctually give of ourselves to ease it.
I believe that one day we will learn to bring that goodness and strength and love into our daily lives. To give to and love each other the way we do so selflessly when we see suffering. Then humanity will no longer have a need for tragic events.
Then we can stop asking why.
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Danielle Rose, The Alchemist - Making magic from the mundane
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