Hajja Salesjana July-September 2022

It's okay, not to be okay by John Pavlovitz The day my father died, I was at the grocery store buying bananas. I remember thinking to myself, “This is insane. Your dad just died. Why the hell are you buying bananas?” But we needed bananas. We’d be waking up for breakfast tomorrow morning, and there wouldn’t be any bananas — so there I was. And lots of other stuff still needed doing too, so over the coming days I would navigate parking lots, wait in restaurant lines, and sit on park benches; pushing back tears, fighting to stay upright, and in general always being seconds from a total, blubbering, room-clearing freak out. I wanted to wear a sign that said: ‘I JUST LOST MY DAD. PLEASE GO EASY.’ Unless anyone passing by looked deeply into my bloodshot eyes or noticed the occasional break in my voice and thought enough to ask, it’s not like they’d have known what’s happening inside me or around me. They wouldn’t have had any idea of the gaping sinkhole that had just opened up and swallowed the normal life of the guy next to them in the produce section. And while I didn’t want to physically wear my actual circumstances on my chest, it probably would have caused people around me to give me space or speak softer or move more carefully — and it might have made the impossible, almost bearable. Everyone around you; the people you share the grocery store line with, pass in traffic, sit next to at work, encounter on social media, and see across the kitchen table — they’re all experiencing the collateral damage of living. They are all grieving someone, missing someone, worried about someone. Their marriages are crumbling or their mortgage payment is late or they’re waiting on their child’s test results, or they’re getting bananas five years after a death and still pushing back tears because the loss feels as real as it did that first day. Every single human being you pass by today is fighting to find peace and to push back fear; to get through their daily tasks without breaking down in front of the bananas or in the carpool line or at the post office. Maybe they aren’t mourning the sudden, tragic passing of a parent, but wounded, exhausted, pain-ravaged people are everywhere, everyday stumbling all around us — and yet most of the time we’re fairly oblivious to them: Photo by Molnar Balint - www.unsplash.com 30 Lulju - Settembru 2022 hajja