MARCH 9
After the dead are buried, and the maimed have left the
hospitals and started their new lives, after the physical pain
of grief has become, with time, a permanent wound in the
soul, a sorrow that will last as long as the body does, after
the horrors become nightmares and sudden daylight
memories, then comes the transcendent and common bond
of human suffering, and with that comes forgiveness, and
with forgiveness comes love.
—ANDRE DUBUSA grieving father said, after his daughter’s sudden death in
an accident, “I feel as though I have joined the human fam-
ily.”
This sense of solidarity with the human community, of
empathy and mutual love, is a hard-won bond. But in the
face of tragedy—whatever its nature—one could wish for
no finer resolution among human beings than that they
should turn their grief into love and understanding of one
another.
I don’t mean to be glib about the cost of this. But let’s not
turn away from the great gifts of forgiveness and love that,
after a long struggle, rise out of the shadows to put their
arms around us, even us.
My heart lifts, in solidarity and longing, toward all who have
suffered as I have. May we find and uphold one another.