Trying to Remember How to Be Happy
By Amrita Raja
Today felt a lot like April 17, 2007.
There was an air of uncertainty: What are we supposed to be feeling? What are we supposed to be doing? We can't be sad forever, so let us try to remember what it was to be happy.
Although that seems like a superficial sentiment, I think it was the one thing that made today meaningful. Remembering to be happy doesn't mean ignoring the reality of a tragedy: It means accepting the past, remembering those we loved and using their strength to go forward.
I joined my dormmates on the Drillfield after lunch. We sat and watched people play Frisbee. We blew grape-flavored bubbles, trying to catch the largest ones on our tongues. I spent most of the afternoon in the sun, talking, laughing, reading, writing and learning more about the people who I consider to be part of my extended family.
In this past week, I have been made to reflect. In moments of clarity, I realized that I have done my mourning. I had spent the last year in something of a daze, allowing life to happen to me, more shocked by the events of last spring than I let myself believe.
I will miss Leslie and Stack and those I never had the chance to know. There is still a surreal aspect to their passing, and sometimes it's as if I wasn't here one year ago, as if I never walked toward Burruss Hall early on a Monday morning, snow sticking to my hair and a cop trying to wave me back to the other side of campus.
For some people, the decision to live life to its fullest was an immediate response to the events of April 16. It took me a year to make the decision to become an active participant in my life. Now I am determined to rejoin the living. I want to find purpose.
I may wake up tomorrow, cranky as ever. I will not forget that tomorrow is still one year and one day after April 16, 2007. But I hope that remembering the past will only strengthen my resolve to pursue my future actively.
By Amy L. Kovac |
April 16, 2008; 11:21 PM ET
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Amrita Raja
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