A Coping Mechanism

I recently noticed a completely bizarre trend in my life: I miss out on major catastrophes. I somehow manage to either ignore them, or just don't find out about them until way after the fact. And then many years later, I finally read about them and cry a lot. I suppose this is some form of coping, but even I think that it's weird, and a little bit pathetic.

When Princess Di died, I had just barely moved into the dorms at BYU, effectively cutting myself off from all other civilization. I didn't have a clue about her death until a week after it happened, when my mom mentioned it on the phone in passing. I was shocked! When the brilliant movie The Queen came out, Craig and I were so impressed by it that I also went ahead and read the excellent book Monarch. While the book was about Elizabeth II, it also taught me so much about Di's entire history with the royal family.

When Columbine happened, I was still at BYU and at least aware enough by then of the outside world to occasionally grab a copy of The Daily Universe to peruse (although I will admit that I mostly read it for Eric Snider's column, Snide Remarks). So I did hear about Columbine. But-- because I'm a terrible person-- I quickly got tired of all the media attention it garnered and tuned the whole thing out. I just read a book about it (called Columbine, so that's easy to remember, by Dave Cullen) and was shocked by just how horrible the massacre was. How did I manage to be so blasé about it at the time?

When Aron Ralston got trapped in southern Utah and had to amputate his own arm to save his life, I had just arrived for a two-month stint in Namibia. The first I heard of it all was when the movie 127 Hours came out. I didn't bother seeing the movie, but I did read Ralston's book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

And most significantly. When the World Trade Center fell, I was on my mission in Japan. Aside from the fact that we weren't supposed to read the newspapers, there was also the glaring fact that I was incapable of reading much of anything in Japanese. So while I heard about it, and while my mission president called my family to make sure my sister who lived in New York was safe, I felt virtually none of the impact that most Americans suffered through. My only impressions of the whole nightmare were based on what I observed 6 months later, when I returned home. I remember being surprised at all the American flags and wondering when Seattle had decided to become patriotic. Once, my Mom asked me what the phrase "Let's Roll" meant to me, and was unhappy that I didn't recognize it as the phrase Todd Beamer had said shortly before he and his fellow passengers on Flight 93 decided to take down their hijackers.

A couple years ago, I finally forced myself to watch the footage of the towers collapsing. I sobbed for two hours. I felt like finally I was at least beginning to understand the tragedy. And while I'm sure that I can never fully grasp the aching sorrow and fear that 9/11 caused, I am still so proud of my country and the amazing stories of heroism and kindness that were born of it.

God bless America