When I opened my browser, the first thing I saw was an article on the orchestrated attack on Paris that killed eighty people. Next to that article was another about the suicide bombing in Beirut that killed forty just the day before. If there was ever a time to teach a unit on "safety and security," this seemed to be it. The world is reeling, and sometimes the only thing I know how to do as a teacher is close the textbook and talk about what's right in front of us.
For the past three hours, I've thrown myself into the headlines that have held the world captive since I've moved to Chile. I've relived the moments when each tragedy struck: the mass shooting in Garissa University that claimed the lives of 147 students and the 7.8 earthquake in Nepal, which is too close to India for comfort. With each memory that is too recent to seem so faded, the death toll keeps rising. As the list grows and the pain deepens, another part of my heart seems to leave Santiago.
I know that it's an unfair sentence to say, and I know that I can't pack up my bags and move to where ever people are hurt, killed, or in need. But being so distant from the world that I know has made me realize how distant I am from the rest of it.
I couldn't be there when a young girl was thrown across a classroom while sitting in her desk, or when a woman was pulled out of her car, arrested, and died in her jail cell only days later. A twelve-year-old boy was shot while holding a pellet gun because he was a "threat." Right now, students of color at Mizzou are being told that they will be killed if they try to go to class. The entirety of the United States is in the middle of a nation-wide dialogue centered around how much black lives matter, and I can only watch from the sidelines.
Even when tragedy and pain touched the ones I love, I was halfway around the world. Two Galesburg students were killed in a car accident in August, and although we had never met, they were still part of my community. Students, coworkers, and close friends were mourning the loss of lives taken too soon. One of my freshmen, now a sophomore, spoke at the ceremony in honor of the girls who passed. But I couldn't be there for any of them. At least, not in the way that I wanted to be. As much as Skype and Facebook can do, they can't take the place of a hug, a smile in a hallway, or a hand held.
In those moments when I felt like the world should have stopped spinning, my life continued just as it did before, removed and unaffected by the pain that seems to be everywhere else but here. When people talk about living abroad, they keep the conversation limited to the experiences they had and the stories they made on the way. We forget to include the stories we leave behind that continue with or without us. But that doesn't mean they disappear, and days like today make being far away hard to handle.
I can't go to Paris, Beirut, Garissa, and all of the other places that are hurting, including my own country, my own town. So I sit here, like countless others, unable to fix the world. To heal it. To help it. After all, there is no cure for tragedy.
But I promise to do what I can from where I am. For now, while I'm here, I promise to love the people within my reach fiercely and unapologetically. I promise that I will pour my heart into my friends, family, and students and let the ripples spread outward, however far that might be. And when a day happens, like today, when I can do nothing but look on, then that's what I will do.
I will watch. I will see. I will remember. I will not compare, prioritize, or rank the tragedies that appear in the news or pop up in my newsfeed. Suffering is many things, but it is not a contest; validating one should not negate another.
I may be far away, but to those who are afraid, alone, and in pain, you are not forgotten. Wherever you are, whoever you are, my heart goes out to you today.
You see, the brooks and the flowers and the birds come together, but people do not; great mountains and rivers, forests and meadows, cities and villages lie in between, they have their set places and cannot be moved, and humans cannot fly. But one human heart goes out to another, undeterred by what lies between. Thus does my heart go out to you, and though my eyes have not seen you yet, it loves you and thinks it is sitting beside you. And you say: "Tell me a story." And it replies: "Yes, dear Mili, just listen."
-Wilhelm Grimm, Dear Mili
