What a tiring couple of days. I have spent well over 12 hours in the car in the past two days, with various and sundry campus administrator types, traveling to calling hours and a funeral. It feels kind of odd to be, quite literally, along for the ride in so many respects. It feels very awkward to coming into contact with students for the first time in such sad circumstances. I feel at once detached and enmeshed, and it is kind of difficult to reconcile both at the same time.
And now, of course, the really difficult work begins, for the family, the friends, our students... figuring out what life looks like now. I look at their very young faces, and I know that they have been changed in very real ways by this tragedy. A loss of innocence, of invincibility. And that is the way of the world. I know that they have been changed, but I also know that, in time, they will be okay. Even if they don't know that.
I remember someone asking me, in the midst of their grieving, if it ever stopped hurting. How do you answer that question? I can only be truthful and say, not really but... but it doesn't always hurt like this...
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