August 3, 2001

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There is a very sad news story that has been making the rounds in this part of North Carolina, of the deaths of three teen siblings last week. The autopsy results showed that the deaths were a double murder followed by a suicide.

But in the days before the cause was announced, much of the coverage centered around what the family's life was like. Neighbors present and past were interviewed. The local television stations repeatedly aired the same piece of footage showing the father feeding the family's pets a day after the deaths.

All of the commentary seemed to come with an unspoken "tsk, tsk" that the two parents were somehow doing something terribly wrong for having returned to their home and taken care of the pets.

And it made me angry. Nobody seemed to be at all aware of the notion that when something so profoundly horrible happens, the people most intensely affected wind up in shock. And it strikes me as bizarre that as often as this shock is witnessed, it is rarely acknowledged. I want to change that, starting now.

I am here to tell you that shock is merciful. It allows a person to get up and remember how to put clothes on. It allows remembering how to make coffee, or fix some toast. And remembering where the dog food is, and that the dog needs feeding. It lets a person go through the motions of living.

That same shock may well prevent someone from weeping in front of the neighbors. It may allow getting through the funeral and actually singing the hymns. It almost always allows happy memories of the deceased to surface and be spoken.

What shock does not is mean that the people in shock are cold-hearted or somehow unaffected by the loss.

Please try to remember these things, and say them out loud, the next time someone starts preparing a batch of "tsk, tsk."