This morning while running errands around town I had a conversation with my nine year old about why all the flags are at half-mast.
If you’re avoiding the news (which in my opinion would be completely understandable, frankly) the flags across the country are at half-mast after two mass shootings over the weekend resulted in over 30 deaths in less than 24 hours.
“They lower them when something really sad happens.” I told her. And when I explained about the shootings, she said, “Oh. I thought maybe it was because I heard about a car accident that happened the other day and when people drove by they saw there was a little boy laying by the cars.”
Y’all, if you wanted to find something in this world to break your heart every day, you could. In fact, you might have trouble limiting it to one thing per day. And when you start sending your heart out into the world with your little humans, it somehow becomes all the more breakable.
On my list of errands today was a trip to Walmart for some picture frames, some dance leotards, some school supplies. Except, I read that one of the first victims of the El Paso shootings that took place in a Walmart was a young mother of three who was school shopping with her kids. One minute she is waiting on her kids to choose which design of pocket folder they want and the next she is shielding them from gunfire with her own body. No wonder Walmart is marketing bullet proof backpacks in the school supplies aisle this year.
What do we do with our broken hearts in a world like this? Do we scream into the void, tell the Internet again how much we’ve all failed each other, how much the system is failing us? Do we unplug the power cord and just be grateful it wasn’t our family, our mama’s and our children? Do we write helpless blog posts or angry journal pages? Do we medicate ourselves with antidepressants or self-prescribed gin and tonics? Do we placate ourselves with the knowledge that we don’t have it as bad as others, so we should just be grateful? Or that pain is how people grow? Or that everything happens for a reason?
I don’t know. And if I don’t know what to do with my own broken heart, how can I teach my children what to do with theirs?
How do we raise our babies in a broken world?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
Maybe we pay a little closer attention. Maybe we slow down and listen a little more closely. Maybe we try to let all this change us for the better. Maybe we lean on each other a little harder.
Or maybe we just let ourselves be okay with being human and heartbroken, and we teach our children that it’s okay to be human and heartbroken. Maybe heartbreak isn’t something we prevent or solve or avoid or rewrite or rename. Maybe it’s something we feel because we’re human and it’s a part of the experience.
And maybe we’re not supposed to know what to do. Maybe we just do the best we can.