Mental status update

This will be brief because (as I have said) we are on vacation, and the point is to chill and "escape" a little, but it would be dishonest to talk about celebrations and home renovations and perfect OB visits without also talking about the other reason there haven't been many posts in the last few weeks. The last time I wrote about about katy's boss, I was still unaware of the magnitude and the media attention that the tragedy would warrant. We rarely mention it to anyone without being told that "everyone is affected and traumatized" about it... I was even told by one of my friends, "If you had children, this would be even harder for you- it would be more devastating..."

WHAT?!? whatever... anyway...

Another conversation that strangers like to have is the WHAT I WOULD DO IF I WERE HIM tangent. This usually involves a lot of people impetulently stylizing an outcome based on empathy... as if you perseverate for a long or a short time on a man's tragic loss, you might know what it feels like for him or you might imagine a course of action if it happened to you... as if detached logic or other rational and ordinary life experiences might bring you to an understanding of the recreation of routine life after the unimaginable....

This invariably leads to many claims and projections: "I would have done XXX inside that house..."
Right. Thanks. If that makes you feel better... thinking that you could have stopped this...

"That's why I have a gun..."
Fine, but that would not have changed anything in this case...

Or my favorite: "I would just kill myself."
Really? How brave of you to be so convinced you'd have the will or strength to live or die.

I get moody. Because it seems invasive to focus on the WHAT IF of reordering your own possible grief, in a situation that is inconceivable and has not happened to your family. Instead of just sadly acknowledging the limitations of empathy and quietly hoping for some peace to settle on this horrific-ness.

Katy and her colleagues at work are doing amazingly well at holding things together and taking care of each other. It was nice to see many of them in our yard this weekend- to share some conversations and be together outside of a professional setting.

When we got to p-town, we walked 3 blocks behind houses on quiet, darkened streets to get to the center of town, and I admitted to my wife, "I feel scared for some reason." I am not used to the sensation, to be honest. I am used to general apprehension or slight anxiety. But I rarely feel vulnerable to physical attack. Kt, wisely pointed out that we haven't really been anywhere new without other people around since everything happened in the Pet.it's home that night.

This is not our tragedy, but we are close to this violence, this evil, this devastating loss. I keep replaying the few conversations that I ever had with jen. Katy keeps forgetting that jen and the girls are gone. All of it is happening in the context of high publicity that has friends, neighbors, and the general public feeling vulnerable and therefore justified in all of their opinions and judgements of all the players involved. Kt leans toward physical illness every time some patient or passerby describes the details of an imagined vengeance s/he would like visited on the perpetrators of these crimes. Not because she disagrees necessarily, but b/c she is sensitive to images of violence. Even when justifiable, vengeful retribution sickens her because she recognizes the that one violent act is not entirely unlike another.

I watch her- amazed; because she is so capable and multi-dimensional and protective without letting displaced fear and anger and grief consume her life right now.

We know this is not our tragedy. But we are affected and forever changed. We are here for after the photo and videographers go home to see if there is anything we can do to help pick up the pieces. We are willing to sit silently in this grief and loss for a while with a friend and mentor- if there is any way we can.