Sandra Bland, Cash Askew, Jonathan Bernbaum, Donna Kellogg. \u00a0Each of these names was brand new to me in the past eighteen months, and all of them only entered into my world through their dying. \u00a0Sandra Bland\u2019s death in her Texas jail cell under police custody caused outrage and questions of foul play. \u00a0Askew, Bernbaum, and Kellogg were three of the 36 people who died in the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. \u00a0I have never met any of those people; I never will. \u00a0And yet the loss of their lives stirs something in me that feels like grief.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their deaths elicit other emotions as well. \u00a0I feel anger and devastation about the brutality experienced by Bland during her arrest following a minor traffic violation. \u00a0I feel anger and devastation about the young people whose attendance at a house concert and party in an artists\u2019 collective space led to their horrific deaths. \u00a0I am outraged by the systems in our culture that give way to such atrocities \u2013in particular: \u00a0in Bland\u2019s case the condoning of police brutality and in the instance of the Ghost Ship fire substandard affordable housing in our country\u2019s major urban centers. \u00a0That anger, devastation, and outrage is all absolutely warranted and absolutely necessary. \u00a0It is due to such emotions that action often is taken; many reforms of cultural institutions and radical changes in our society are borne from anger, devastation, and outrage. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, there is more. \u00a0I experience the anger, devastation, and outrage much like topsoil; they are easy to see and right there at my fingertips. \u00a0Underneath those intensely tangible reactions, though, there is something else. \u00a0There is the deep ground of loss. \u00a0If I remain focused on the top layers of emotions and never dig deeply down below them, I may not even know that loss is there \u2013 that it, in fact, forms the very foundation for all those other experiences. \u00a0This loss deserves to be excavated and explored.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although I do not feel the loss of those individuals from my life, my mind can take imaginary trips into realms where it feels like I have lost someone near to me when I read about the deaths of strangers. \u00a0There seems to be something fascinating about these kinds of fantasies; many people learn about something tragic and immediately paint themselves into the event. \u00a0Indeed, this happens so frequently that people close to those dead often plead for privacy, asking that those who are not part of the community directly affected by the loss refrain from making comments about it on social media pages devoted to that community. \u00a0I understand both the frustration of those close to the departed and the fascination of those unable to abstain from interjecting themselves into a situation that has nothing to do with them. \u00a0\u00a0This fascination can serve an important purpose. \u00a0By imagining ourselves in the situation of another, we work our compassion muscles; this is, in fact, how young children learn to experience, build, and use compassion. \u00a0So some pieces of the loss we may feel when we learn of the death of a stranger have to do with that \u2013 imagined loss. <\/span><\/p>\n

But underneath even that imagined loss is true loss \u2013 subtle but palpable.<\/span><\/p>\n

How can that be? \u00a0How can I feel grief at the death of people about whom I had no knowledge until their death?<\/span><\/p>\n

During the past two years, in northern Colorado Springs, the geographic region adjacent to my hometown of Monument, teenagers have committed suicide in record numbers. \u00a0Again, I do not know any of these young people. \u00a0One I watched swim for years without knowing it, as he belonged to a team against which my son competes. \u00a0Another was the nephew of one of my son\u2019s teachers. \u00a0But I did not know them.<\/span><\/p>\n

And again, there is anger, devastation, and outrage — that we just are not caring for one another in ways that keep our young people alive and that mental health is an area of research and education where need so eclipses accessibility. \u00a0And I can imagine the loss experienced by those who loved these young people. . . for moments at a time. \u00a0The anger, devastation, and outrage compel actions on my part: \u00a0help with education and advocacy, in this case. \u00a0And the imagined loss works my ability to be compassionate. \u00a0But if I stay on these uppermost layers, I will not reach the loss that underlies them.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years ago, just as my husband was beginning to teach our son to drive, there was a horrendous accident in our small town. \u00a0Four boys attended some parties, four boys got into a car, two boys died, one boy suffered tremendous injuries, and one boy was convicted of vehicular homicide. \u00a0The day that we received the news of the crash, I drove to the accident site. \u00a0I had no idea why I was pulled there to pray. \u00a0Again, I did not know these boys; I never would. \u00a0\u00a0And still I drive by the memorial to them several times each week; it\u2019s on the way from my home to the monastery where I pray and where I teach. \u00a0It changes all the time \u2013 displayed there are shoes and holiday decorations, teddy bears and signs. \u00a0Each of these is a love letter to someone I never met. \u00a0So seeing it sometimes feels like I am intruding on the most personal of conversations. \u00a0And yet I force myself to look at it each time I pass. \u00a0I force myself to watch what arises in me as I do so. <\/span><\/p>\n

Again, the topsoil of anger, devastation, and outrage appear sometimes — about the forever consequences of some teenage mistakes. \u00a0And about our kids having no way to safely and openly explore substance use under the guidance of wise elders so that they feel compelled to hide these explorations in ways that are dangerous and deadly. \u00a0There is anger at all the blame spewed around in desperate attempts to rid ourselves of the devastation of such occurrences. \u00a0\u00a0I can use all of this for action; and I do.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I can use the tragedy to pull me into ever deeper levels of compassion \u2013 compassion for parents who lose their children, for children who long for excitement and escape, for each of us who makes a horrible mistake that affects the lives of others.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I am continually called to dig more deeply, to examine this subtle but undeniable pull of loss that underlies everything else when I allow myself to be opened to and by the death of a stranger.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have experienced enough grief \u2013 my own and that of the people I serve \u2013 to know its pull, its wide range of manifestations, its uncontrollable terror and its delicate tenderness. \u00a0Although this grief of a stranger\u2019s death feels almost infinitesimal in relationship to the grief I have experienced when I have lost someone close to me, it is undeniable. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is the experience of loss.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what have <\/span>I<\/span><\/i> lost in the death of a stranger? \u00a0What do we lose together?<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems to me that this experience of loss is the loss of some earlier version of myself, some piece of me that I cannot regain. \u00a0It feels like the Amy who existed before reading about Sandra Bland or those persons killed in the Ghost Ship fire can never be found again. \u00a0I will never again be the Amy who was unaware of the number of teenagers driven to suicide just down the road from my home or the Amy who believed that teenagers in our small town were not as easily lured into drinking and driving as are those in every other geographic region in our country. \u00a0A layer of my na\u00efvet\u00e9 has been stripped from me with each of these stories of death. <\/span><\/p>\n

And sometimes I long for moments of not knowing, times of respite from the consistent sadness that can creep into my life the more aware I remain of the world around me. Sometimes I miss that state of not-knowingness when I imagined that all police officers behaved honorably and kept citizens safe, when I believed that people would not be harmed while in police custody, when I did not equate teenagers attending a party with death and devastation, and when I trusted that we were serving our young people better and taking care of one another better. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But I never truly want to return to any of those states where I existed previously. \u00a0I do not want to return to that state of not-knowing, because my personal mandate is to be aware of the suffering of other beings and do whatever is in my power to be present to that suffering. \u00a0So it is imperative that I examine the loss that I feel when learning of a stranger\u2019s death. \u00a0Without this realization of deep loss, these things cannot change. \u00a0My tiny flicker of loss compels me to act on behalf of those who no longer can act and on behalf of their bereaved who must focus on their own healing. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I dig down deep enough to feel our communal and cultural losses \u2013 those that occur every single time anyone\u2019s life ends due to violence or mental illness, to recklessness or lack of responsibility \u2013 I become aware that each of us is united to our collective group of humans, all 7.5 billion of us, in ways we can perceive but never fully understand. \u00a0Loss is one of the fiercest ties that connect us; and when I open myself to that loss, I experience those attachments between myself and my fellow humans \u2013 those humans I know and those whose deaths precipitate our meeting. Because death and loss weave together this tapestry of humanity in which each of us is a vibrant and needed thread, there really can be no death of a stranger.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sandra Bland, Cash Askew, Jonathan Bernbaum, Donna Kellogg. \u00a0Each of these names was brand new to me in the past eighteen months, and all of them only entered into my world through their dying. \u00a0Sandra Bland\u2019s death in her Texas jail cell under police custody caused outrage and questions of foul play. \u00a0Askew, Bernbaum, and Kellogg were three of the 36 people who died in the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. \u00a0I have never met any of those people; I never will. \u00a0And yet the loss of their lives stirs something in me that feels like grief. Their deaths elicit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n