Reality

April 23, 2009

What is normal? Every human being who has ever breathed has at one point analyzed this question. If you hadn’t before now, you just did. I have been thinking a lot about this question and what it means in my life. The piece of this question that has been baffling me, as of late, is that everybody’s “normal” or “reality” is altered moment by moment.
I digress. Ten years ago two boys walked into their school in ....Colorado.... and opened up a festival of gun fire, killing more than a dozen people. Just a year earlier, there was a similar tragedy with fewer victims in ....Oregon..... The moment these boys put their toes on these campuses, the reality of every person in and around those schools that day changed forever. These people entered a reality that had to somehow include these shootings and loss.
Part of the grieving process is adjusting to a new reality. My good friend Erika died last year on ..April 24, 2008.. unexpectedly in her sleep. To my knowledge, they never did find out why. That morning, when her son Jon called me, my reality was altered. I had to move on with life without this vital person. Her death required me to adhere to a reality that now did not include one of the most important people in my life.
Several things shifted in my reality. One shift was that when I was overly stressed or overly happy about something, I could not pick up the phone and call or text her as I normally would. I had a choice to make in my grief. I could either choose someone else to help fill this significant gap, or I could turn inward and experience life on my own. This transfer was grueling. I can’t recall how many times I picked up the phone to call her only to realize I couldn’t.
One other modification is that I no longer am stunned when someone abruptly exits my life, whether through death or otherwise. When my friend Susie, my cousin Lora, and my uncle Richard all passed away last year without warning, it became a little less shocking with each incidence. Death and loss has become part of my reality. Whether that is healthy or not is beside the point.
Thinking back on the Thurston and Columbine shootings, I wonder what kind of reality those people walked into. When I was going to school at LBCC, I met a girl who attended Thurston when the shootings happened. She had not been at school that day because the Seniors were scheduled to arrive later due to the fact that the underclassmen were doing scheduling that morning. I remember talking to her and being stunned by her annoyance toward the staff at Thurston after the shooting. Apparently, the staff was so consumed by the tragedy that occurred, they were not very sympathetic or helpful to those students that who were trying to move on with their lives and get on with graduation. This student had been affected by the tragedy, but in a way that was overlooked. I had assumed, as an outsider, that all of the staff and students would walk around in fear, moping over their loss. Not everyone’s reality was altered that way.
As I think on this, and on the fact that they are testing my son for Leukemia (see my bulletin), I wonder what my new reality is going to be. Will it be a reality that is riddled with fear and loss, or one with close calls and triumphs? Soon, the realities of today will fade away, but yet a distant memory.

What is your reality?