K2 and I were watching one of our favorite TV shows last week (Rescue Me) when a scene played that struck us both. The show is about firefighters and in this particular episode, the firefighters came upon a firey car accident. While surveying the scene, they saw that one of the victims (a young child) had been thrown from the vehicle and was resting on the lawn. The cameras never panned to the young child, but the reactions of the firefighters were enough to let the audience know that the sight was gruesome beyond words. One firefighter turned his head and was immediately sick. None of them seemed to be able to approach the body in order to cover it before the parents or public could see it. Except one. Tommy, who lost his own son in an car accident, was the only firefighter who could do what needed to be done.
K2 looked at me and said, "You would do that".
And he's right.
What I have been thinking about since that night is why.
Why am I the person who is called for the worst of the bloody cases at school? I mean, I can do it and gladly so, but why? What is it about me that can do it? What is it about anyone who can do it?
When J. was killed, her clothes and other personal effects were given to us in a plastic bag and left in the trunk of my dad's car. I remember not wanting my parents or my brother to have to see the blood-stained clothes, to breathe in the scent of death or to see her butterfly necklace coiled tightly at the bottom of the bag. So, I went out and grabbed the clothes to wash them before anyone could see them otherwise. My mind can easily go back to that moment and my senses can relive it easily.
I think it's too easy to say that this is about strength. In fact, it makes me angry to say that this is strength because labeling me as strong has sometimes made it too easy for others to negate my fear, my apprehension and my anxiety. I also think that by labeling it as strength, it labels those who cannot do it as weak and this is far from the case. It is not about strength and weakness.
So what is it? How can some people stomach the things they do, witness the things they do, and do the things they do while others cannot? I often joke that I'm "dead inside" but I know I'm not. I can't watch any commercials about animal shelters in need or even listen to a news report about animal abuse. Where humans are concerned, though, I can do a lot.
Is it that the need to take care of others overwhelms my fear? Is it that my desire to prevent others from experiencing pain overwhelms the anxiety?
I have no answers and expect none. It's just something I've been thinking about.
When we came upon a disastrous car accident last year and rushed to help, we jumped in. We came face to face with death and pain. It shook us to the core. But when one is faced with something like that. A situation that you always wonder what you would do and say you could not handle it, for me, I just do it. Deal with it. Strength. Resilience. Whatever. I help those. I will always help. Help to ease the pain, burden, sadness, hardship of someone.
ReplyDeleteLike you said...it is not strength. It is about wanting to help someone we care for (or may not know) and help them avoid or help ease their pain, sadness and suffering.
Keep smilin!
I have never experienced such a difficult situation as the one you lived through (I am so very sorry), but I am someone who tends to jump in with both feet when something horrific happens. And I think, for me, it is about compartmentalization. I feel the pain of it. I cry... later. But in the moment I just do what I have to do. As 3D said, I deal.
ReplyDeleteMy mom tells me that she knew I would be that kind of person before I hit the teen years... (animal story ahead) because, at age 12, I buried our kitten and hosed down the driveway after my dad accidentally ran over him with the car. He was too upset and, well, I didn't want my mom and sister to have to see.
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ReplyDeleteI am exactly the same way. I do what needs to be done regardless. It is part of who we are...volunteers helping whomever needs our help. It is part of Chuck's very being and in that I have become some of that being too.
ReplyDeleteBut I also know that I do it because it is one way for me to cope with the loss. When my nephhew was killed right before Christmas one year, my sister and her husband were in shock and unable to deal with the arrangements. I did it all. It was how I kept myself from falling to pieces too. At the time I didn't have a child of my own and so I felt my nieces and nephews were as close to my own kids that I had and I felt the overwhelming need to take care of him in those last rituals. Then I fell apart later when everything was over and I was finally alone driving home on Christmas Eve. I still cry boatloads of tears when I think of that time, now almost 5 years ago but I am very proud of how I took care of my nephew one last time.
Now I'm off to dry the tear one more time.
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ReplyDeleteI am usually good at dealing with things at the time, then completely losing it afterwards.
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry for what you had to go through.
Wow. I am sorry you had to deal with that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you it isn't strength I am not sure what to call it either. I know where you are coming from though. One night we were having fondue and the burner overflowed and spread burning fuel across the table. My father stepped back and said "let Beth handle it" uhhhhh I am a nurse not a firefighter. But handle it I did.
You are right it sucks when that ability is mistaken for strength and it becomes hard when you don't want to be everyone's hero.
I am sorry for who you had lost.
ReplyDeleteFrom that it did give you something that enables you to take over when others cannot face the situation.
Being brave and having strength does not mean that you don't have fear or get scared...someone just told me that last night re my own situation.
I believe you do have a strength that makes you special enough to face this stuff..Strength does not have to be a label.
Anyone who has met you know's that you are a very special person.
It definitely sounds to me like you worry about protecting others first and then deal with your feelings at a later time.
ReplyDeleteWhen Briana hurts herself, I try to be calm for her sake. Inside, I am a nervous wreck.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
you are a sister of my heart. i was thrown back to the night of my mother's death (i have tears streaming down my face after reading this, imagining that necklace coiled in that bag, imagining you clutching those items to you and sheltering those you loved from the pain)... and on the night my mom died, i was the one who made that 1 hour drive in the middle of the night, 1AM, do pray over her body, to collect her belongings by her hospital bed- me, alone. it's the reason, i suppose, i'm cut out for the kind of nursing i do.
ReplyDeleteand interestingly, like you, i cannot (since i was a very, very little girl) stomach animal abuse of any kind. i used to go balistic even watching nature shows (have this memory of seeing a walrus would sit on her baby and yelling at my mom, 'why won't the camera man help?!!"- and just sobbing).
i think it is in our ability to be weak that we are strong. we forget that. and i know for me, in facing those things that truly hurt, i have faced my deepest weaknesses- my pain, my fear- and have gained so much more and have found strength.