Sunday, June 28, 2009

Personalizing Disaster



Have you ever noticed how easy it is to distance yourself from a tragedy when you don’t know anyone involved? A tsunami halfway around the world. An earthquake in China. A car bomb in Iraq. A plane flying into the Pentagon. A train wreck in Silver Spring.

It’s almost a relief to say, “But I didn’t know anyone.” And that’s usually true.

But tonight at our book club meeting, we learned that our neighbors’ daughter had been in the train that recently crashed in Silver Spring. She was coming home from her summer internship on the Red Line. She was in the 3rd car. Her parents were in Spain.

She was slammed into the seat, but she wasn’t hurt other than being left in a state of shock. The people in her car knew others had died because they had phones and iPhones and Blackberries and any manner of other devices that connected them electronically to what the world was saying about they disaster they found themselves in.

The response efforts to those affected but not injured was not at all adequate. They told them they could leave. But where could they go and how? It was two hours later that they sent buses to pick them up.

Meanwhile this young woman whose birth we well remember had called her parents in Spain to let them know she was one of the survivors.

I suddenly felt a new connection to a disaster I had almost brushed aside because I didn’t know anyone involved. Why should that be?

7 Comments:

Blogger Merle Sneed said...

Barbara, I'm not sure we can make a disaster real unless we know someone. I think it is a defense mechanism.

11:34 PM  
Blogger Cyndy said...

I think everyone deals with the news of a disaster in their own way. It is sometimes hard to empathize unless you've experienced something similar. People tend to get caught up in the sensational details and the surrounding circumstances. Maybe that is part of the defense mechanism. It seems like people are dying right and left these days and I hate the idea of getting used to such a thing. It's very depressing and I hope we get a break from it soon. I'm so glad your neighbor was one of the survivors.

12:15 AM  
Blogger lacochran said...

Dr. Christiane Northrop says we are designed to be tribal creatures and we can usually handle the news of the tribe. When we try to be global creatures and funnel the news of the world through our nervous systems, it doesn't work well.

Think about it... if you got upset about every incident everywhere, you'd be paralyzed with sorrow. Merle is right.

10:53 AM  
Blogger Steve Reed said...

Scary! It does sound like the METRO's response to this incident was pretty appalling. I hope they get some policies in place to address things more quickly should -- God forbid -- another crash occur.

12:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Barbara, I agree with Lacochran. I believe that we can try to keep our hearts open to all the joys and sorrows of the world, but that there's also some sort of automatic "gatekeeping" that helps keep us from being overwhelmed. I hope you're not feeling at all guilty...

XO,

F.

6:00 PM  
Anonymous Maritzia said...

I got my eye-opening with the Virginia Tech shooting. The son of a dear family friend goes to school there, and I remember frantically calling everyone I knew to make sure he was alright. It was a harrowing few hours till word got back that he was okay.

I don't think we really can internalize happenings that aren't connected to us. Trying would probably make us crazy. I knew one person who took everything he saw on the news to heart. He was in a constant state of anxiety. It's just not good to live that way. We have to draw emotional lines somewhere.

8:25 PM  
Blogger Barbara said...

Everyone -- Thanks for your wise insight. I don't feel so hard-hearted for not taking on the world's sorrows!

9:17 PM  

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