A heavy heart

This week has been a heavy one around town. When a tragedy takes place on a field trip that takes the lives of two beautiful souls from us far too soon, one can’t help but pause and reflect. Of course your heart immediately goes out to all of those most directly affected: Those who lost a family member or friend, those who lost a classmate, those who lost a colleague, those who first responded. If you are among them, I’m terribly sorry for your loss. It’s an unimaginable pain for many, to try and process this type of grief. It’s particularly cruel, a grief that doesn’t come slowly and with warning…but instead strikes like a lightning bolt from the clear blue sky. How can we carry on? How can this be processed?

And yet, somehow we do process, and we do carry on. Each in our own time and in our own way, we try to make sense of it all, the “before” and “after” of the community we still share. And maybe that’s a clue about one way to process: as one community. Together.

We also lost a member of the HiH family this month, which we only learned about on Thursday. Out of respect for his family, I’ll only use his first name — Tom was on call for us the past 2.5 years to load up our recycling and take it to the recycling center every two weeks or so. In his “Corrugated Cargo Cruiser” we stuffed cardboard, bottles, and cans while laughing about…well, anything really. Tom was a friendly presence and a reliable helper. Which is why we became worried as our cardboard piled up earlier this month and Tom didn’t respond.

When we finally got confirmation of our worst fears, we sat in shock. After all, he was just here three times in August, jovially cursing the heat alongside our staff. Speaking for myself, it caused deep sorrow that is still working its way through my spirit, which is notable because I barely knew the man. I knew how much recyclables could fit in his car, and knew that I was in for a chuckle when I heard “Tom’s on the way this morning!” I knew nothing of his hopes and dreams.

The many of us who didn’t know anyone on that field trip well, still feel that same sorrow for the two victims from Borlaug Elementary. We grieve alongside our neighbors, and we find ways to support our friends. Even if all we know is their names and their ages: Ahmed, 10. And Hannah, 24.

Perhaps that’s the place to find hope this week. That there’s something in the human spirit that binds us so closely to people we barely know or have never met that we learn of their loss and know that something in us was also lost. That our lots as neighbors are bound together so tightly that we don’t know how to carry on when one tragically leaves our presence.

It’s what I’m trying to hold on to this weekend. While grieving and supporting, there’s also the knowledge of an unseen connection with everyone around us. If we can feel each other’s loss, then surely we can feel each other’s joys too. We can take the opportunity to put all of ourselves into each moment with each neighbor, knowing that even the perfect stranger on the street could knock us flat with grief.

If that’s true, how can they be called a stranger? How can any of us consider each other strangers? Aren’t we all simply walking each other home, as neighbors?

May you find peace in the smile of a stranger this week, as you say “have a nice day” and really mean it.
And may the memories of the departed live on in our hearts.

-Ian