Weave the Web

Eugenia Collier, in her short story, “Marigolds,” posits that it is impossible to be both innocent and compassionate.  Only those who have experienced the vicissitudes and sufferings in their own lives can exercise compassion,  have the ability to empathize or feel another’s pain. 

 

I lost my innocence at the age of fifteen when I realized my father was human.  If he could be wrong once, and he was so wrong, then all the order of things upon which I had built my life, was shaky.  I could no longer depend upon things to work the way I had thought was forever. As parents, we protect our young children from hurt.  A scraped knee is kissed and made all better; a wounded ego is held, caressed and loved until perfect peace is restored.  But my innocence was lost as my father, the bedrock of my fifteen years, turned to sand.  No hug or kiss could recreate the rock; it had crumbled.

 

Ironically, this calamitous event prepared me for life.  It was the beginning of the very important lesson that “we are all human.”  I, too, was headed for failure, mistakes, and wounds that would create the distinct lines in my heart. As a sixty three year old, I have compassion for people with shared experiences.  I know the emptiness of losing a child, the guilt of a failed marriage, the agony of physical pain, and the helplessness in caring for an aging parent.  But until September 11, I had no real compassion for victims of terrorism.  I paused, ever so briefly, at the news of cars blowing up in Ireland or zealots with bombs strapped to their young bodies, blowing up pizza parlors.  Too bad, I would think.  How stupid; why can’t they learn to get along.

 

Now the “they” is “we,” and because of this shared experience, my innocence has been replaced by compassion.  I devour the life stories from that infamous September day.  The young man racing to catch his flight before the doors closed; best friends booking two different flights because they didn’t want to travel together; a young woman who discovered she was pregnant on September 13 – and her husband will never know; the young students specially selected to attend a National Geographic program; the firemen… As I listen to their stories and watch their loved ones, I whisper, “I love you.  I don’t understand why you had to die.  I am so sorry.  What can I do for you?”

 

America has lost her innocence.  Our perfect world order that had once naively assured all of us that our land was sacred, beyond the reach of the madness of the rest of the world, has crumbled.  The bedrock of our belief that we could not be violated has turned to sand.  And now it is time to begin to etch our American heart lines.

 

America has so much heart.  New York led the way, and all of America joined in on a national hug drenched in universal tears.  Our lives have forever changed and we can never revert to our infancy – our innocence.  The car bomb in Ireland killed someone’s father; is it our father?  A young girl tasted her last pizza, our daughter or our sister: Kabul is bombed, and a mother has lost her son; or is it our son?   A man dies of Anthrax, and a child has lost his grandfather, our grandfather. This is why the madness, the killing, the war must stop.  We are a part of something larger – something that goes far beyond national boarders. 

 

We have lost our innocence and with that loss has come the understanding that the world will never be perfectly all right.  We are all human, after all.  However, we have enough love to share, and it is this universal love force, etched deeply in each human heart, that will allow us to ease the pain in others. We must face our new lives with compassion that says if you suffer, I will feel your pain and hold you until you’re stronger.  Then you will pass that hug on to someone else who walks through your life.  We must all be givers of those hugs, for surely, we all have need for a hug sometime along the way.  It is impossible to be both innocent and compassionate.  On September 11, 2001 we lost our innocence.  When will we become a compassionate nation?