This Battalion of Sorrows

By Ronald Sunderland

Shakespeare's Hamlet poignantly dramatizes a feeling that is experienced by those of us for whom grief piles up as one loss follows another. Claudius, king of Denmark addresses Hamlet's mother after the death of Polonius, and Ophelia and Hamlet's apparent madness, "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions.(IV.v.73ff.)." The dramatist draws attention to this aspect of the human drama, which plays out, in two arenas, one personal, the other societal.

            When an entire community, even a nation, experiences a tragedy, grief can become a personal experience of loss. Radio and TV coverage bring a sense of immediacy to our awareness of and involvement in disasters of such magnitude. The people who died often become known to us through our TV screens, radio, newspaper, and magazine articles. In a very real and dramatic way, our sense of loss and bereavement deepens. We have all been caught up in too many such situations: the assassinations of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King; the crashes of Pan Am 103, Value Jet 592, TWA 800, and Alaska Airlines 261; the Oklahoma City tragedy, and the deaths of Challenger's seven crew members to name some of the most memorable.

            On such occasions, personal grief becomes a communal grief, often reaching through both national and international channels. Each individual's experience of loss is magnified as a whole nation struggles with the tragedy. We understand all too cruelly the meaning of aphorisms that in less painful circumstances we may quote without sufficient thought to the pain and anguish they express. But when Challenger 'went down,' the poet John Donne's words spoke for all of us: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." Within moments, tens of millions had either seen the explosion of Challenger or were flocking to TV sets to watch the endless replays of the horror.

            Each event comes full circle, as it evokes one more wrench of pain at a deeply personal level. Individuals struggling to cope with their own very personal, or multiple loss find their pain reechoes, exacerbated by such tragic events. They face the risk of becoming isolated from customary sources of support. It is as if we cannot escape the pull of our own losses before we are plunged into other losses and the grief national tragedies evoke.

            For grieving individuals fearful that their reactions will be perceived as abnormal and inappropriate, public expression of grief in funerals and memorial services, and on occasions of societal tragedy, may help to alleviate this fear. We may feel like it will haunt the lives of the bereaved. But, in the aftermath of tragic events, the outpouring of public grief not only reassures us that expressing our deepest feelings is appropriate, it may also assist us in expressing and coping with our personal grief.

            When this occurs, healing and wholeness are within our reach; or in the words of an old Chinese proverb, 'You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair!"