A Response to Terror in Manchester, England: Feeling All the Emotions

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terror emotions Providence Moms Blog

I remember when I was a kid we used to have bomb drills in school.  We would have to go to the hallway and sit facing the wall, curled up with our heads touching our knees.  I am still not sure how this would have protected us from a nuclear bomb, but it made me anxious every time we had to do it.  My mom would assure me every day that nothing was going to happen to me and that she would never send me anywhere that could be unsafe.  Maybe I was naive or maybe the Cold War was too big to understand, but I truly believed her when she said I would be all right.  This morning, when I woke up to headlines of what happened in Manchester, England last night at the Ariana Grande concert, I went through a range of emotions. 

Overwhelming sadness – For the victims and their families, for parents who still do not know where their children are, for the first responders who will never be the same again.

Anger – At a perpetrator who targeted young people, at a world where people can hate so much that they choose to become a suicide bomber.

Anxiousness – Will I ever be able to send my kids out into the world with the surety that they will be safe?  How will I feel the next time I get on an airplane, go to a concert, or go to the mall?

Fear – Is there anywhere left where something cannot happen – a movie theater, a concert, a sporting event?  How can we just live our lives knowing that incidents such as this are becoming more common?

As all of these feelings swam through my head today, I thought about that pit I felt in my stomach after 9/11.  After Sandy Hook.   After too many other incidents to name.  My job as a mom is to keep my kids safe, but I cannot put them in a bubble. They have to go to school.  We will still go to baseball games, amusement parks, and museums; will still take subways and buses.  Resilience is taught when you don’t let these things stop you from living your life, even if you feel like you are looking over your shoulder a little more often.  

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Sara
Sara is a native Long Islander who has managed to shed much of the accent, but cannot get rid of her love of a good New York bagel, the Mets, and a decent pastrami sandwich. She moved to Providence in 2001, with stops along the way living in upstate New York, Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Pittsburgh. Sara has two fantastic, funny kids – a 14-year-old daughter and an 10-year-old son – who attend Providence Public Schools. She graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Psychology and has her Masters in Social Work from the University of Maryland at Baltimore. These degrees have served her well in her career working as a fundraiser (currently as the Chief Development Officer at the Jewish Alliance of Greater RI) and in her home life negotiating détente between her kids. In her copious amounts of spare time, Sara enjoys going to a museum or the theater, reading, listening to 80s music, cooking and piling everyone in the car for a day trip. She also admits to a love of funny and occasionally sophomoric movies and has been known to recite entire scenes from Monty Python or Mel Brooks. She tries to find the humor in all things which is necessary when juggling a household with two kids and a full time job. Her attitude can be summed up by a print she saw at Frog and Toad: When life hands you lemons, try to figure out something to do with those lemons.