Why revisiting difficult moments is just as important as remembering joyful ones.
“Shared joy is double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow.” -Swedish Prover
To ensure the content we share with our Live Inspired community is timely and relevant, I meet with my team monthly to plan future social posts, newsletters, and podcast episodes. As we meet and discuss, our goal is always to provide inspirational and engaging content to help you navigate your months, one day at a time.
These meetings can be fun as we think of stories around big holidays, special birthdays, or celebratory anniversaries.
And yet, taking time to remember the anniversaries we’d rather erase from our collective consciousness is equally crucial, especially this month. Let me explain.
Dates that commemorate past genocides, school shootings, terrorist attacks, and civil rights violence dot nearly every single day on the calendar during the month of April.
Sit with that for a moment.
Nearly every day this month is an anniversary of a significant tragedy that shaped history.
So why bother sharing those types of anniversaries when doing so can be painful?
We bother because reliving the brutal assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. with his son, Martin Luther King III, reminds us that even death could not murder a dream for unity, togetherness, and ultimately forgiveness.
We bother because talking candidly with Sue Klebold, mother of Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold, teaches us how an unbearable weight of shame and regret can give way to grace and healing.
We bother because confronting the unimaginable slaughter of almost 800,000 innocent people, including her own family, with Rwandan genocide survivor Jeanne Celestine Lakin challenges us to seek peace and shared humanity even in the darkest of circumstances.
And we bother because experiencing the survivor’s guilt of Oklahoma City survivor Amy Downs reminds us that hope is a verb we can enact today to radically transform our lives for those who lost that opportunity.
These are but a few of the tragic anniversaries that will be commemorated in April. And we bother to share the stories of the individuals listed above because while it’s far easier to ignore painful historic moments or to simply post a #NEVERFORGET hashtag in our social media feed, the individuals who bear the scars of these events most have lessons to teach us in living forward with our lives.
They remind us of the human capacity for evil, but more importantly of the ability to triumph in the worst of circumstances.
They encourage us not to assume an easy life, but to remain defiantly hopeful that better days remain ahead.
And they reveal that although they were rightly bitter after their loss, the only way for them to truly heal after tragedy was to embrace the very thing that caused the pain.
This month, my friends, let us celebrate in the midst of whatever struggle we may be facing, that our lives remain a gift, the foundation is firm, and the best is yet to come.
Today is your day. Live Inspired.
2 replies on “On This Day in History…”
The role violence and injustice play in our world is immense. To learn that nearly every day in April marks a tragic event in our history is very sobering. To be reminded of why it is important to recognize these events is essential. I live in Kansas City and ten years ago this month there was a terrible shooting at a Jewish Synagogue which claimed the lives of three people. Mindy Corporan lost her father and her son that day. Mindy has initiated a “Week of Kindness” every year in Kansas City, which is an example of how she has turned her grief into a way to show kindness and forgiveness to others.
Love Mondays!!