Monday I traveled to the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport to meet
my brother who flew in from Georgia. I arrived early for I like to
“people watch” and to get a sense of the stir of an airport with
people coming and going, greeting one another or saying goodbye, and
seeing the panoply of life situations presented from families with
children to singles to senior citizens to young people with fresh
relationships just beginning and locked in embraces of greeting or
farewell. I watched as a young man arrived and greeted his waiting
mate. They embraced and kissed, and then repeated the kiss. I felt
an identity with them and thought warmly of the cherished days that
Kathy and I enjoyed together. Then I thought what it would have been
like to witness such affection had my life always been isolated and
alone. Rather than feeling empathy with the young couple and their
joy, I would have felt envious and painfully deprived and left-out of
the best fruits of life. I came to the realization that the absence
of such negative feelings can be attributed to the fact that I have
had a full life of my own. When we hear of mass killings it often
comes to light that the person who commits the atrocity is a loner.
Could part of the reason for the tragedy be that for the killer the
happiness of others is too great a burden to bear and lashing out in
envy and resentment is the only way to resolve this personal tragedy
within—that of stark loneliness and emptiness—an abyss filled
only when humanity rushes in at last to surround him with focus and
passion.
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