When we lose our footing and fall to the floor, what is the first thing we do? We reach out.
When the earth moves and the very ground we stand on is pulled from underneath our feet, in that surreal, slow-motion downwards hurtle, we automatically extend our arms, outstretch our fingers and hope that there is something, or someone that we can grasp hold of, or will hold on to us.
A year ago yesterday my whole world shattered and became unrecognisable. My mam, my best friend and role model was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive sarcoma and what followed was a heart-breaking, excruciating and exhausting battle, which stopped when my mam passed away only five months later. I was confused, numb, dumbfounded and above all angry, full of hate and desperate to blame. I was falling. The only thing that kept me going, and the only thing that keeps me going, is that in a time of loss there were people who held me close; when everything was slipping away, there were people that were pulling me in tighter.
On the same day this year, the world had been horrendously shaken again - we awoke to the news that 22 lives had been lost and 59 individuals had been injured due to a suicide bombing after an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. People were waking up without their parents, their children, their siblings, their spouses, their friends. It's devastating.
I am not comparing one pain to the other, one hurt being more than the other. Hurt is not relative, it is individual. Hurt is hurt. However, there is one major difference between the two - one was a body attacking itself, the other was a body attacking other bodies. Why, when there is so much uncontrollable hurt in the world that we are desperately trying to remedy, are some individuals optionally and proactively seeking to bring more suffering into our lives? I cannot answer this. I will not attempt to answer this. That is not what this post is about. I don't think my mind will ever truly be able to comprehend why these things happen. And partly because of this, I will not jump to conclusions, I will not blame and I will most certainly not point the finger at a whole cross-section of society because of one person. In these moments, anger is a natural, understandable and human reaction...but it cannot be the overshadowing one. Surely? Blame, anger and rage alone can only lead to hate. More hate. More hurt.
We are falling.
We must react. We must stop pushing people away. We must stop creating a divide. I do not have a theory or a solution for the atrocities that have happened, but all I can do is call out for people to come together, to tighten their grip, to bring people in closer to them.
When we lose our footing and fall to the floor, what is the first thing we do? We reach out.
Reach out.