FONTANA: Commiserating loves company

I’ve never quite understood the phrase, “misery loves company.” I’ve said it for years, relying on the idiom for poignancy and humor when need be, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever believed it.

Does misery, true misery, really look for company? After tragedies such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and even our very own tragedy this last Monday, Patriot’s Day, April 15, 2013, you can feel the world huddle together: countries fall silent, communities light candles, people reach out to one another — “Where are you?” “What’s going on?” “Are you safe?”

Something in our human nature really does love to commiserate. And it’s not just an American ideal, or a Western phenomenon. Humans across the globe are attached to other humans. For better or worse, we’re imbedded in the hearts of countless people.  Maybe there’s a piece of that golden rule imbedded in all of us, too — if we were lost, in pain or confused, wouldn’t we want someone else to be worried about us?

I met a man a few months ago named David France — we quickly bonded over our shared first name and initials. We got to talking and I have to say, I learned a pretty amazing life history. He told me a story about a boy who was kidnapped in France and held for ransom. The kidnappers got the money, but instead of returning the child, they smuggled him to the Americas where they left him on a beach, presumably to die. The boy, who only spoke French, was found by a man named David (we’re pretty great guys), and taken into his home. That boy was the first David France, named for the man who found him and the only language he spoke. He was the great ancestor of the man who told me the story — David France III. An incredible story, really.

For most of us, a challenge like that would’ve been more than enough, but David’s still had his own story to tell. He came from humble means in Bermuda where he was raised by his mother. He remembered having to cook his own meals as a kid since his older siblings and mom worked. He was independent from a young age. And at that time he fell in love with the violin. Its music, its motion — it connected with him in a magical way. He told me about working hard to come to school in the U.S. and having to work even harder to stay here.

He made it, but not without a few bumps in the road. He told me that after graduating from his conservatory he had been homeless for pretty long while too — a fact very few people knew about him. He remembered finally finding a place to sleep behind the Boston Aquarium. He remembered playing for money on the T platform so he could get a meal. He remembered the people he met and most importantly the ones that had helped him. It had taught him many things about life.  And now he was starting the Roxbury Orchestra — he wanted to bring music to kids who wouldn’t usually get it, just like its magic had been brought to him.

Homelessness, kidnappings, bombings — they are slow tragedies. Most of us, the lucky ones, we look at them as quick sparks, tragedies that appears in our personal worlds for only a moment. And for that moment, we come together, we reach out, we give money or food, we jump over fences and call for help. But even by the next day, or just moments later, we’re asked to move on, to find normalcy again. But what about those who can never find their normalcy again? For those who have to completely redefine their normalcy in ways they’d never imagined? Does their misery — do these “misérables” — love company?

Or rather, does misery really want to run and hide, looking for that dark corner in the room — in our minds — where it can dissolve in agonizing silence? After a tragedy you can feel the world come together, but so often you hear families ask to grieve in privacy, you find friends who just sit there in a reserved paralysis and you go home — you lock your door, crawl into bed and just try to make it stop.

Individuals want to be helpful, communities want to commiserate, countries want to find revenge and a place to put their collective anger, confusion and fear. But misery itself, doesn’t really seem to love company.

It’s a nice idea: That fact that, as humans, we all try to relate and share in tragedy. Maybe that’s more the point. It’s what we do as humans in the face of these tragedies. It’s the people who rescue a scared boy on a foreign beach. It’s the people who introduce children to musical magic. It’s the people who call 911, who carry people to safety, who cry for all the people who can’t cry. Even if misery doesn’t love company, I think we all do. And that desire to commiserate in the face of misery, that’s what gets us through it all, time and time again.

David Fontana is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at fontad5@bu.edu.