When Someone Leaves us, Where Does it Leave Us?

This past week was one of many tragedies. Of course, this is nothing new. We live lives where tragedies are inevitable, and  happiness is by nature temporary.

But sometimes you’re surprised by the sheer amount of sadness surrounding you; your mother losing her friend, your teacher losing a colleague, your friend losing a role model, etc. You yourself also begin to lose the sense of security that keeps you going but has now fallen short.

This is how the past week has been for me: a week with no security. With no safety.

My sister was in a car accident. Thank God, she came out okay, but the incident shook our family. A day later, Professor Samir Makary, a man who made the entire campus weep on a solemn Wednesday night, left us.

A few days after that, my professor who had been so broken up over yet another death that she did not feel up to the task of teaching – persevered.

Truth of the matter is, there is not much to do when someone leaves you.

You can remember them in silence. You can remember them in a conversation with someone else who remembers them. You can remember them one-on-one with the empty page you hold in your hand.

I have read many obituaries that have pulled at my heartstrings, and made me cry, even for someone I didn’t know.

But we cannot lie to ourselves and to readers and claim we will always produce material that can do justice to the most tragic of events.

Sometimes, many times, we are not able to do that, whether for lack of sources, or for the sensitivity of the subject.

With everyone in his class devastated after the incident, students of Makary had no interest in speaking up. This is not only a testament to what he meant for the students, but also to the difficulty of the situation: being a witness to death is one of the most haunting things someone can go through.

Being a witness to the death of someone you know is even more difficult.

With all of the faith I have in the power of words, we cannot betray someone’s wishes to grieve in silence by forcing speech.

We cannot ask someone to go through the pain of witnessing death once more for the purposes of a publication.

None of this negates the power of obituaries and the honor they do to the deceased; nor does it negate their importance, but when words escape us, and grief is not only grief over a man, but grief over a moment in time that they will not get back, I think sometimes silence will suffice.

Perhaps some reflexivity such as this can be helpful in our attempts at dealing with something of this magnitude, but it will also add to our feelings of smallness in front of something that is much larger than we are.

But for now, for everyone who knows him and everyone who, like me, did not have the honor: let us have a moment of silence for Professor Samir Makary.