The Murder of Peace

November 7, 2021

I heard something really distressing yesterday. The daughter of an acquaintance had been murdered.

I mentally juggled this information for a while, coming to grips with it the way we do with horrific news. It was baldly shocking, as murder tends to be. 

A death by murder feels vastly different to me than what we are pleased to call a natural death. The same way self-murder—suicide—feels vastly different. 

The reasons and motivations are also different, on the surface at least, from the more typical means by which life leaves our bodies. Disease and accidents seem to “just happen.“ Murder and suicide seem quite deliberate, and engender a grievous ripple effect. They murder not only those who die, but the peace of those left behind.

When a person chooses to kill another, or a person chooses to kill themselves, the play is set for all time as one with a tragic ending. And, karma or no karma, I always feel that the story has been ended perhaps before it was quite finished.

*****

I received the sketchy details from the person bearing the news, and then we went on to discuss other things. And later, when alone, I felt the tears wanting to come.

I don’t know this acquaintance that well but I’m very fond of him, and I’ve known him for years. He’s a cheery guy, a hard worker, and admittedly a bit silly. That’s part of the joy of being around him. I appreciate men who can giggle without shame.

I wonder if, when I see him again—if I see him again, he may not come back to town—he will remember how to laugh.

*****

I was surprised that this situation kept popping into mind yesterday as I went about the rest of my day. I found myself wanting to not cry and wanting to not feel sad.

There was a moment of lapse in that struggle when I just sat, feeling the way I felt. And the thought came: go ahead and feel what you’re feeling, just don’t hang onto it.

I usually feel like I’m pushing down the emotions that are trying to come up. Go away, no thank you, I have enough battle scars already. I don’t need any more trauma to deal with.

This creates quite the conflict, as I’m aware that part of what I am supposed to be doing right now is…feeling and expressing feelings.

*****

When I have a faint fog of grief overlaying my awareness, even if I’m not overtly conscious of it, something in the systematic functioning of the unit I call “me“ is blocked.

The foggy morning throws me into a deeper depression. The cat doesn’t seem to be feeling quite well, and dread fills me. 

Will the sun never come out? What if I need to take the cat to the emergency animal hospital? Doom, depression, worry.

An hour or two later, having ruminated and written, the outside fog is lifting slightly. The cat seems to have shrugged off whatever his difficulty was.

The inside fog, that helpless confusion that seems to be a byproduct of shock and despair, has been reduced to manageability.

The managing part is largely on the internal and spiritual side. When the cat was in distress, I sent him Reiki, subliminally aware that it is channeled to me and through me from our shared higher source of God, Universe, All That Is.

And I was drawn to this writing as if to a candle flame in the dark. This is my illumination, this is my awareness, my expression and my releasing it to the world.

Let the feelings be as they are, the Universe seems to be telling me. You won’t be alone in receiving or expressing that which you feel.

A big sigh. Something has been completed. An experience of emotion has wound down to a natural death, and I have not tried to murder it by compressing it or denying it.

Bless me, bless us all, for we can feel. Even that which we may, from the bottom of our hearts, not wish to feel.