Strength, my friends, is finite. Yes, I suppose it is
possible to rebuild strength, but that takes a village. There are no villages
left, just cities where millions live cheek by jowl, never knowing their
neighbors, never seeing the poor and disadvantaged.
There are those among us who are strong, who are bastions of
hope when the entire world is turning to shit. There are those we turn to for
comfort, for a friendly pat on the back, for a warm hug that says “things suck
right now, but they will get better.”
We expect these men and women to be better than we are, to
have the strength of Superman and the wisdom of Solomon, to overcome all the
obstacles, to be immune from the things that terrify us. We expect them, often,
to protect us from ourselves, and to save us when we do immensely stupid
things. We ask them to put others ahead of themselves (and their families), we
expect them to drop everything when they’re needed, yet we also expect them to
be invisible when they’re not needed.
But these people are not automatons, they’re not robots.
They’re human, like us, but they’ve seen and heard and smelled things no normal
being should ever be exposed to. They’ve seen charred lumps that used to be
children, they’ve held friends screaming away the last few seconds of life as
their blood drains onto the ground, they’ve heard the anguished cries of new
widows and orphans.
Yet these protectors are not allowed to show emotions. They
cannot show terror or disgust, they must “be strong,” for us. They must
sublimate their feelings, their very humanity, for us. They must be more than
human, for us. They must be the adults, comforting us in our fears, for us.
And when these pillars of strength have exhausted
themselves, when they can no longer go on, when they cannot bear to see one
more tiny corpse, we abandon them. We say, “You were strong for others, now you
must be strong for yourself.” Sometimes, we are even worse: “What have you done
for us today?”
When they have reached the end of their rope, when we find
them whimpering in a corner, or hanging from a beam, or with a gun clenched in
a cold, stiff hand, we ask, “What happened? He was so strong!”
It’s simple, really. We asked a human being to be more than
a human being, to be an immortal, to be a god.
They tried, you know. Lord knows, they TRIED.
But when THEY needed help, when THEY needed strength, when
THEY needed comfort…
… the well was dry.
