I wonder if any of us is really capable of handling the scope of sorrow that technology now exposes us to.
On Friday, as the world was rightly absorbed with the epic tragedy in Japan, I was reporting on a local tragedy for Patch.com. A young man, Matthew C. Blum, 32, of Forked River, New Jersey, had collapsed and died after leaving a recreational hockey game because he didn’t feel well.
Blum was married just four months ago and his wife learned two weeks ago that she is expecting their first baby. A season of celebration was inexplicably shattered for this family.
As I sat next to Blum’s young, pregnant widow in the living room of her in-laws’ house absorbing one family’s grief, I was incapable of absorbing anything more epic than that.
I felt this way after the Haiti earthquake last year, only the reason was more personal. Still mourning the death of my son in 2008, I was incapable of taking in any more sorrow. My personal grief has, to some degree, emotionally disconnected me from global tragedies.
I wonder though if any of us is really capable of handling the scope of sorrow that technology now exposes us to. Famine, earthquake, tsunami, terrorism, genocide: it’s enough to tempt one to believe end times prophets have a point. …
