Where is the love?

I went to work yesterday as I would on any other Monday. I don't like Mondays. I honestly get the blues on Sunday night. I know that Monday is coming and I know I have to go to work and I don't really want to. But every week, I wake up early on Monday morning and get ready and take my boy to school, then deal with traffic on my way to work. I do it because I have to.

But this Monday, I really, really, really didn't want to. Not for the normal reasons. Not because I didn't want to deal with traffic or go to work. No, I didn't want to go because I wanted to have time to mourn the lives lost in the horrific tragedy which took place in Orlando early Sunday morning. I wanted to have time to process it all. I didn't know any of the individuals who lost their lives. I don't live in Orlando. Nonetheless, the news broke my heart. I fought tears, and I fought anger. I may not have known those who were ruthlessly gunned down, but as a human being, I can't help but grieve for them. 

It felt strange for me to sit in traffic with countless others to go punch in some numbers and letters on a computer, to go talk and joke with co-workers, to go about business as usual, while families waited to hear whether or not their loved ones were lying in a hospital bed or in a heap of bodies on the floor of a nightclub. I felt depressed all day. All I wanted was to be with my husband and son, to hold them and kiss them, and thank God for another day with them. All I wanted was to shed tears for those who lost their lives. All I wanted was to focus on something more important than making a dollar.

Now, I know people say that in these situations, we must not let "them" win. We must continue to live our lives. We must continue to know love and happiness and joy. I don't disagree with that. I don't want to live in fear. I don't want to shrink away from life. I don't want to hole myself up in my house or lock myself and my family away from the world. We can never let fear win. That's part of what kills innocent people. Fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the misunderstood, fear of that which is different. Fear that leads to paranoia and insanity. Fear that leads to hate. No I will never let fear take hold of my heart.

I will admit that I do worry in these times. I worry that my son is not safe at school, or at the park, or at a movie theater. I worry that my loved ones can be taken away from me in the blink of eye, without warning, for no good reason other than a psychopath with a gun or knife or bomb decides people should die because they don't think/pray/love/live a certain way. I worry. But I won't live in fear. And I won't return their hate with hate. It's a vicious cycle.

No, it wasn't fear that made me want to stay home. It was sadness and grief and anger and love. I wanted to stop and look and think and feel. I wanted to focus on what is most important in this world. What is most important to me. And it isn't making money. It's my family. It's life. It's love. It's this amazing world around me. It's the beautiful people that surround me. It's humanity in all its complicated splendor. 

I also didn't want to go out into public and hear all the political arguments and individual ideologies and personal prejudices. To me, in that moment, none of that mattered. All that mattered is too many people lost their lives. And all I wanted was to honor and respect them. All I wanted was to grieve for them and their loved ones.

I wish there were an easy answer to this problem. But there isn't. To take guns away or not take guns away. To close the borders and refuse entrance to specific groups of people or not. To go to war or not.

Honestly, I don't know that there is any answer besides eradicating hate and fear. And that's essentially impossible. Or is it? Can we ever learn to love and accept each other despite our differences? I hope we can. Because we can deny and take away and refuse and war all we want, but that will never solve the root problem. We can continue to fear and hate and kill and fear and hate and kill in return, but we'll only escalate the issue until we wipe each other out. 

I always hope for the best for humankind. But I struggle to be optimistic these days. I struggle to answer the question, "Where is the love?"