I emailed the letter (below somewhere) to the editor of one of the local papers which claims to have the largest readership. I waited two weeks for him to include the letter on his editorial page.
Nothing.
So, just a couple of days ago, I emailed the same letter, with permission to edit, to the 'other' local paper. It was printed in yesterday's (09/22/05) paper!
How did my education pay off? In some psych class, I learned that sharing one's pain and loss publicly turns personal pain into public tragedy.
I found these quotes by Ruth Padel, which are from a different tragedy: GREEK FURIES
"Tragedy is about public feeling. The Greeks invented it as a mass spectacle which gave shape and meaning to unbearable pain."
"Tragedy was the city watching the pain of an individual who mattered to everybody. You pitied that person and trembled for yourself, because what happened to them could happen to you. Their pain became the people's pain.
Tragedy presented its massed crowd with a fragile world where not even royalty and great wealth, Ritz Hotels or armoured limousines, saved you from tragedy's chief ingredient: violent damage."
"The tragic condition is being alone in suffering, even though you matter to other people."
"I vote for the side that says tragedy is about life going on. Sharing pain is not sharing meaningless black, but sharing life."
"For tragedy is finally about giving the dead a positive, unifying presence in the community which remembers them."
My letter to the editor put in print the grief that I carry and will touch the hearts of others who have had similar tragedy in their lives.
Sharing pain is about sharing life. Life goes on. "Time passes, you come to terms."
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