We’ve been hearing a lot about Islamic State murders of two journalists and a British aid worker, and most recently Algerian militants killed a French citizen. All this has really thrown me for a loop.
I’ve had my share of grief and shock, and let me tell you, I remember those hours, those days and weeks. I remember the kindness of friends, neighbors, police, strangers. For me, it’s the people around you who make it possible to continue putting one foot in front of the other.
We lived in a walkup building with no doorman, so when the buzzer sounded, I prepared to open the building door to my handsome, elegant father, but instead of his genial rumble over the speaker I heard a sound that to this day I cannot describe. I don’t have a clear memory of getting to the vestibule, but do remember the stranger with my father’s blood on his hands and my thinking, “remember this face, remember this face, remember this face” as he turned and disappeared down the street, and the green-painted glass-paned door swung back through the air, closing shut on my life up until that moment.
Walking through my quiet neighborhood, my father had been attacked by a man who needed – what? – money I presume. They struggled and this person knocked down and stabbed a man who had spent much of his life working to help people like his attacker. The Bate Program at Newark’s Integrity House is named in his honor.
I’m far from alone in having had such an experience, and can imagine (only imagine, no one can know) what the families of James Foley, Stephen Sotloff, David Haines and now Hervé Goudel – I name their names – are feeling.
I hurry to add, however, that in the midst of the numbness, anger, fear and grief, there is love. If that sounds a little counterintuitive, just bear with me a minute. As we were waiting for the ambulance, I gazed – no I stared, hard – into my father’s still-clear blue eyes and I saw him start to go. He was leaving me, and I yelled at him – I yelled at my Dad. I had only one syllable: “Don’t! Don’t!” And you know what? He didn’t. He came back. He came back for me. He didn’t stay, of course, but he did come back. For me, his well-grown-and-independent daughter, he came back, for a little while.
Returning from the hospital a few hours later I was overcome by a sense of love, not merely for my father but for everyone, for everyone in the world. This emotion seemed so irreconcilable with what I thought I was supposed to feel. Nevertheless, I welcomed it because it linked me to that intense connection with a fine spirit who turned back to me for a just short time.
Even now, so many years later, I sometimes get a chance to feel it again. It’s my Dad’s last gift to me and it endures. It abides.
Now we hear of new threats to British hostages Alan Hennings, and James Cantlie — I name their names. They love and are loved. This simple statement all by itself may represent the greatest power, the last and best gift exchange. Is love the only thing? Is it really all you need? I suggest that, reduced to its essence, perhaps it just might be.
Adriana Bate of Dallas is a voice actor and a Community Voices volunteer columnist. Her email address is ambate@mac.com, and she can be found on Twitter: @moosey10. For more information about the Integrity House, visit integrityhouse.org.
