Shiny Happy People

What I love best about Colombia is its people.  They are kind, hospitable, welcoming, thoughtful, gracious, faithful, and funny.  They have a sharp wit and love to joke around.  I am grateful for their laughter and joy.  Indeed my friend once said to me, “In the face of so much pain, you can either laugh or you can cry, and in Colombia we decide to laugh.”  And I respect that…most of the time.

Sadness is a tough emotion, and it can be overwhelming – an undertow that can drown you if you are not careful.  Still, I don’t think it should be ignored or brushed aside, and my trouble here is that sometimes I think the scale tips too far in the other direction.  Joy (and anger) are acceptable emotions, but sadness not so much.  When my friend died earlier this year, folks here were sorry to hear it, but quickly changed the conversation or told me to feel better.  I can’t really blame them, with as much death as they have seen they have to find a way to move on and dwell not in things of the past.  But at what cost?

Part of my concern is that the war that has existed within Colombia’s borders for more than 60 years now has robbed people not only of their loved ones, but of their ability to mourn.  Funerals still happen.  People still cry.  But tomorrow another story is going to be in the papers about body parts found in suitcases (article in Spanish) or the lack of justice following the massacre of 60 people in El Salado (English translation of the newspaper article in this blog post), so people just move on.  Or at least they say they do.

Some people, unable to share their fears/sadness/trauma find they have to leave Colombia in order to recover.  Others squash it down so far that it winds up oozing out in bad behaviors like adultery and abandonment.  And it isn’t just limited to those who have been directly threatened.  Second-hand trauma here is fierce and manifests itself in some really frightening theology at times as when a woman told a friend of mine, “God is really punishing the Catholics for their wrong beliefs because not a single Protestant died in that massacre.”  A fact most likely untrue and a statement made much more for self-reassurance than anything, but said with a shake of the head and then a desire to move on to other, happier topics of conversation.  And therein lies my other fear – that “moving on” turns into “forgetting”, and forgetting turns into “pretending this doesn’t happen.”

That’s taking it too far, and I know that.  I also know that people in the United States can be equally as lost on how to manage grief (particularly someone else’s), but I still flinch at the “Don’t Worry Be Happy” take on life.  I don’t want anyone to drown in sorrow, but I also don’t want to require sadness to be pushed aside as a bastard emotion that is more or less socially unacceptable.  After all, ignoring the undertow doesn’t mean it isn’t there, and keeping people from going in the water just means they never get to feel cleansed either.

And, as my wise colleague Alice Winters notes,  part of the challenge is that “grief needs time, and when tragedies and losses come thick and fast there simply is no time – especially if you have children or must take over other responsibilities of the deceased.”  Life indeed does go on.  So the question is, how do you accompany people in this context – both as a person from the United States but also Colombian to Colombian?  It remains an open question, but a vital one if people are going to have the chance to laugh and cry.