When I heard that she had been killed, I was stunned. I thought to myself ' There is a dead woman in Polochic', but on another level it never really registered, it still seemed so distant. My thoughts were set into a flurry: That explains the call in the early morning... I wonder if Maria is OK?...Are we still going to Polochic?
As planned, I got to meet with Maria and Raul after things settled down. My attention was almost totally focused on Maria, as I heard that she was most shaken. She was composed, but spoke very quietly. I asked her how she was holding up, “terribly” she said in a long sigh as she started to walk to the table.
We took our seats and Raul was the first to speak, launching quickly into the few known details. Maria was looking through the table, a blank stare. She had never struck me as one to fidget, but she was spinning her phone around incessantly. Raul continued to talk, describing where he was and what he had been doing during the morning and afternoon. Maria checks over her shoulder, then with deep sigh, sinks deeper into her seat. The question of ‘What must she be feeling and thinking right now?’ was constantly running through my head. I scribble down a question in my notebook: What are the limits of empathy?
As I make sense of it, empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. But how much can we really know about someone else’s suffering without experiencing the same loss, or the same pain associated with it? I think the answer is obvious…I couldn’t even come close. At the same time, I started to realize that maybe that is not what empathy is about...
After hearing the news, I was feeling most upset for Raul and Maria. I was worrying most about their thoughts, their worries and their fears. As a bit of time passed, the scope of my concern widened and I started to think about the fears and pains of the husband and the children that she left behind. Wider still, about the disturbance this would have created in her community. My empathy wanes for every increase in the broadness of its scope, until there is little feeling or understanding left in my thoughts.
It is of little wonder that many people seem to able to process international news so casually. “Earthquake in Haiti you say?! Thousands dead?! That’s a bloody shame that is, my goodness.” Later that morning, the focus might have moved to something more trivial and lighthearted, such as Weiners’ Weiner or hating on Rebecca Black. Is this quick slide away from the darker news of the day inexcusable, or is it a necessity? Should we be dwelling and longer, and more seriously, or should we move on as soon as we are able?
Consider the opposite of cavalier - Imagine if each tragic event we hear about was to move us on a profound level – to strike our hearts down to the depths of our spirits. I can only imagine that it would be hard to get through a single day without a breakdown. The emotional and mental stress would be crippling, most certainly producing some unpleasant physical symptoms like hypertension or insomnia.
I've never had to deal with a death on a first hand basis. My great grandpa died when I was young, but I didn't cry, I barely knew him. I've been fortunate to have this as the only death in my family. But the result is I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to mourning, and comforting those in mourning. Near the end of our conversation, we were all staring off into the distance in silence. During my efforts to feel my own sense of pain from Maria's death, I was confronted by my own strangeness to the situation, the reality of being a transient presence with a return flight to Canada. So I tried to feel even more upset to compensate, which could have seemed petulant in retrospect. I was afraid I would seem callous if I was not impacted...
Raul broke the silence. “So, The question is ‘what are we going to do?’ We can sit here with crossed arms, or we can chose to continue on. I say, we figure out what we are going to do tomorrow.”
That snapped me out of it. I may not have been as deeply impacted by the death of Maria Margarita as others in the community, but that is only natural. I can certainly say that I was impacted most by Marias’ and Rauls’ strength and character. As Grahame had said near the beginning of this experience, that they are great examples of people who are working to change their world, one day at a time. And often times, from what little I’ve seen so far, the hardest part of that work is to get up in the morning, dust off the shoulders and keep working, just keeping on trying to move things forwards.
Sure enough, three days later, we went into Polochic valley. I saw their trip as an act of defiance, flying in the face of the companies tactic of fear and repression. I saw my trip as a way to not get lost, trying to empathize in suffering, and that empathy also can strengthen feelings of solidarity, and the drive to keep going.
Here's to moving forwards, an! Adelante!
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