This Is How We Mourn Now

We hear bad news and we aren’t even surprised. Of course another tragedy occurs; that is what happens in our lives.

We go days without even being fazed. We know how to control it, how to decide when it will hit us. We wait until we have the time—our schedules we have packed full to forget the tragedies that have already occurred have no time to deal with this right now. We pencil it in for later.

Later it comes, usually at night, usually alone, and we let it hit. The waves crash against the shores of our minds and hearts, and for a moment we are grateful for it. To feel again. We’ve been numb for so long that the only way emotion comes in is at its highest and lowest. We need the tragedies just to feel; the highs are much more difficult to come by.

Then we drink. We drink a lot because as soon as we feel, we realize why the numbness is so important. The tragedy reminds us of the past, and those waves pick up speed with each memory that comes flooding in. The drinking helps to slow things down, bring us back into our shell, to our numbness.

We have prepared ourselves now for the public mourning. We can smile with tears in our eyes but with enough control to keep back the waves.

Until another storm rages through, our minds are calm.

This is how we mourn now.