The people who were evacuated from the Gulf Coast after Katrina
are said to want to
”
get on with their lives.
”
The people who were evacuated from the Gulf Coast after Katrina are said to want to “get on with their lives.”
Two young American women, injured in the bombings in London, are asked by a television interviewer how long it will be before their injuries heal and they can “get on with their lives.”
Families of service men and women, deployed in Iraq or elsewhere, talk about the day when their loved one will return and they will “get on with their lives.”
That phrase bothers me.
To my way of thinking, big “interruptions” like losing your home in a flood, being wounded in an unprovoked attack, or sending a family member to war, are our lives.
Part of the reason is that events like these are hard to recover from. It is no less true for sounding like a cliche, that these peoples’ lives will never be the same again. How do you get on with your life when you have lost everything?
I can see somebody recovering from whiplash injury received in an auto accident wanting to put all the pain behind them and get on with life. The injury is an inconvenience. The process of assigning blame and collecting damages, involving different versions of events, competing insurance companies, and both sides protecting their interests, is a series of irritations that should leave no lasting traces.
But I don’t believe people recover from incidents the magnitude of Katrina, or a terrorist bombing, or going to war, without major changes to the direction of their lives.
Of course people should strive to get their emotional houses back in order. Nothing is served by remaining fearful, or bitter, or otherwise incapacitated. But at the same time I don’t believe people should expect that eventually they will shake off the last of the terrible memories and return to a life like the one they used to know.
I don’t mean to be glib about the devastation; far from it. Life is too precious to ignore what’s really happening. If “getting on with one’s life” means being reunited with family and friends and knowing that all are safe, that’s good. If it means going back to the way things were before, it’s a missed opportunity. Starting over isn’t everybody’s choice, but when it lands in your lap, resisting it would be a mistake.
Especially in the case of New Orleans, we don’t know yet if it will be more like Pompeii after the volcano (disappearing) or Chicago after the fire (resurrecting itself to new greatness). Starting over for some will mean returning and making a life and a living in the restoration. For others it will mean putting down roots in a new place and giving the family a new life there.
I am grateful I don’t face my life changing to this degree. I’m also grateful that these catastrophes, while not to be wished for, have allowed me to ask whether I have enshrined my routines and mistaken them for my life.
