“Abort, abort, there are children aboard, say again, there are children aboard this plane!”
There are moments in life that leave you forever changed. Those moments are etched into your psyche – moments that leave you scarred, maybe even a little broken. They reveal themselves when you least expect. For me, the scene depicted in the quote above is one of those moments that instantly reveals one of my scars.
For years, my family has made note that there is this one scene in “The Incredibles” that instantly gets to me. Tears flow, my breathing catches. I can’t control it or stop it. They think it’s cute. “Oh look, dad’s crying.” The scene isn’t that long. It ends quickly, crisis averted. The family is safe. “Why does that bother you so much?”
I wrote it off as having something to do with me projecting myself into Mr. Incredible’s predicament. Restrained. Helpless. Unable to do anything except listen to the sounds of his family desperately trying to survive while he utterly fails to plead for their lives. “Please,” he cries, “I’ll do anything.”
Don’t misunderstand. The wellspring of emotion is not driven by the cartoon family. There is something deeper there. Saying it was empathy for the helpless father was close enough to the truth that I didn’t dig much deeper. (It would be terrible to be the father who couldn’t help).
But what about the barely-restrained sobbing? Don’t go there. It’s a dark place. I don’t even have to see the scene. I can imagine it. I can see pictures. I can hear the soundtrack. Doesn’t matter. Boom. I’m there. It is now a permanent link to someplace full of desperate anguish. As 2018 dawned, I couldn’t have given you a reason. Within two weeks, I would understand.
At 8:07 am local time on January 13, 2018 an alert message went out to cellphones all across Hawaii. For thirty-eight minutes, residents of the island of Oahu believed there was an inbound missile attack – and based on recent context, the belief was that North Korea had launched one or more long-range missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. The news showed film of students walking briskly toward shelters, and cars snarled in traffic as people tried to figure out what to do with the 15 minutes of warning they had received. There were many stories from that day, but one in particular struck me. Hard.
One man, a father, tweeted the following message, minutes after receiving the all-clear: “Right now, I’m in tears, pulled over on Bishop St. the adrenaline is just now leaving my system. Just 5min before the Ballistic Missile warning, I dropped my oldest at the airport and drove to <a restaurant>. There I found out about the threat and had to decide whether to shelter there, drive to my two younger children at home, go back to the airport or go to be with my wife at her work. None of these destinations were within :15 min of where I was. I chose to go home to the two little ones I figured it was the largest grouping of my family. Knowing I likely wouldn’t make it home in time. I was tearing up South Street to the freeway when I heard it was a mistake…”
As I read that tweet, I found myself back in the helpless place. Imagining his terror. Feeling the angst of having to make that choice. Knowing full well that none of the answers were ‘good’. I was overcome with emotion, the same way I would have been watching that movie. The same way I was … the day my oldest daughter was born…
There is a story elsewhere on this site that tells the tale of my daughter’s birth. It focuses (as it must) on the miracle of becoming a father. There are a few sentences in there that most people gloss right over – because it’s right at the height of the drama of the piece, and they’re anxious to get past the moment when my wife and daughter were in danger, and I suddenly found myself in a situation where I had to choose. I made a choice, that in retrospect wasn’t that bad, and the consequences were not so dire, but in my adrenaline-soaked, sleep-deprived mind, I made a choice between the welfare of my daughter and the welfare of my wife. And I carry the guilt of making that choice with me constantly – even though in the end, they both came out okay. That poor man in Hawaii, who chose a direction to turn his car, even though it wouldn’t make a difference, and in the end didn’t make a difference. But it did – to him. In that one moment, he was forced to put things of equal value on a scale, and declare one to be more valuable than another. You can hear it in his reasoning, there were more of them in one place. It was a logical, rational reason, and it’s one he can cling to as he tries to ignore the implication of the decision. By choosing one path, you had to un-choose the others. I can’t pretend to know how this affected him. But I know what it did to me.
The realization of what was triggering my emotional response helped somewhat. It doesn’t stop the reaction. It’s hard-wired now. I can’t break the link. But knowing the source of my reaction at least gives me a way to own it, instead of just having it rule me from the shadows. It gave me a chance to get it out into the open: I know you now, old friend. I see you. I talked with Becky about it. That helped a little. But it doesn’t erase the scar. Probably never will. As parents, we earn these scars. We make choices for our families, for good or ill – sometimes both – and we live with the consequences so those in our care won’t have to.
This past couple of weeks, it happened again, as students and parents shared their tales of anguish and fear and guilt and pain over the mass-shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. There were stories of parents who would never see their children again. There were stories of siblings who were terrified to let their siblings leave the house. There were stories of students banding together to demand action.
I listened to their stories, and I felt the stirrings of their pain. I watched as people denied them by calling them crisis actors. I listened and tears fell. I imagined what it would have been like to have my children in that school. What it would have meant to receive a terrified text message that there was an active shooter situation. Receiving a terse message informing you that your children were terrified and hiding for their very lives. Recognizing that in that situation, I would be helpless to change the outcome. (a small jet, pinwheels in the sky, desperately declaring the presence of children in a vain attempt to mollify the attacker). I watched the kids on the news, and saw them facing down their fear. Letting it galvanize them into doing something. I imagined my daughter as a victim, and then I imagined her as a survivor, and I realized that neither was a ‘good’ choice. Both would leave her damaged, the second would leave her in need.
Everyone faces pain in different ways. For a subset of those kids in Florida, facing their pain means figuring out how to prevent such a thing from happening again. The imaginary survivor daughter in my head would do that too. The imaginary survivor father in my head would also do something. The real version of me in my head wants to know why having tragedy strike my family is a prerequisite for action?
I look at those kids and realize they have something inside that is driving them, and I know they are very capable. But I also know that they are hurt. They need support. Because I also don’t want it to happen again. Because I don’t want anyone to have to face that choice. To earn those scars.
But I look at those kids, and there is a part of me that acknowledges the climb they have before them, and I fervently hope and pray they can stay strong and not lose heart. I can’t take this journey from them. They need this. But maybe I can help in other ways.
Maybe we all can.
What would happen if any one of us could do something to remove a roadblock, or weaken a barrier? What if any one of us could do something to make their burden lighter? What if any two of us could join forces to remove two roadblocks. What about three, or four, or a dozen, or more? What would happen if we could join together and follow the example they are setting?
I look at this possibility, and I imagine the choice before me…before all of us. A choice that has to be made, maybe a choice between two ‘not good’ options, but one that removes a burden or even saves a life. A choice we have to make or face the realization that we chose poorly and someone suffered or someone died.
I know this much. Inaction is a choice too.
I don’t wish those scars on any of us.