World Trade Center II

Is it any easier to lose someone through a major disaster when the whole world stops and mourns with you?

Your friend or relative gets killed in a car accident, a robbery, or gets hit by a falling tree. In an instant your life is changed. Your expectations are altered. The person you were going to see tomorrow is gone. The love of your life who made you a whole person is gone. Your brother, your kid's uncle, who has been part of your life forever will never put his arm over your shoulder again. The parent of your child is gone. Whatever it is, your life will never be the same. As you absorb this tragedy, the world goes on oblivious to your personal calamity. People play baseball, make silly jokes, tell you to have a good day, and generally carry on as if everything is normal.

But if your spouse or child died on 9/11, the whole world stopped and observed your loss. Sporting events were cancelled. There was grief everywhere. Your loss was acknowledged by everyone.

I'm sure some types of deaths are harder to accept than others - unsolved disappearances where there is no closure, murders where you have to deal with the fact that someone has intentionally done this unnecessary evil. Yet, every mother's grief over the loss of a child is more than people can imagine they can bear. A husband's loss of his beautiful wife and his children's mother is wrenching.

Is it easier if the whole world stops and mourns with you - implicitly acknowledges the horror of the day? I don't know. Any thoughts?