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Do We Have Care to Spare?
Thoughts on the
Virginia Tech Tragedy
Virginia Tech Tragedy
By Linda Sharp
I can see who did this and I can see the victims. I can hear and read firsthand accounts from those at this particular ground zero. I don't get that from the bloody marketplace in Iraq.
Iraq is far, far away – in some ways, it may as well be another planet, light years away from my quiet suburban home. And in its abstractness, in its victims' anonymity, in its total remove from my day-to-day existence, I think I find my answer. It's not a perfect answer, and it's certainly not one that makes me proud. But in some small way, it does explain the disproportion in perspectives:
The degree to which a person cares about a tragedy is in direct proportion to their proximity to it.
I do care that innocent lives are lost on the other side of the world. I do believe that every human life, regardless of how far from me it breathes, is important, is vital, is worth my tears. I really do. I know you do too.
But the lives lost in Virginia on Monday were in my emotional backyard. And to paraphrase an old saying about charity, "Grieving begins at home."
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