Letters to the Editor do not reflect the editorial opinion of The Daily Free Press. They are solely the opinion of the author.
This morning I woke up and started my routine. I turned on “Up First” and started making my bed. The story that took up most of the podcast was of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, a news story that I had skimmed through Saturday night during an Uber ride.
The podcast version of the story didn’t move me at first. It was the same narrative: some angry dude posted crazy shit on social media and then decided to be a “vigilante” and shoot some innocent people.
But what got me during the story was the list of the names with a few biographical notes. Daniel Stein had just become a grandfather. Bernice Simon used to be a nurse.
But the two names that made me hold onto my dresser for fear of collapsing were from two brothers, Cecil and David Rosenthal, who lived together and were described as “inseparable.”
What came to my mind when I heard their story was not an image of what I thought the Rosenthal brothers might have looked like or their somber funeral, but instead I saw my own twin brother, Andrew’s face. I imagined us there next to each other, looking at each other seconds before we would be murdered by a gunman. We spend our last few seconds together, hugging each other one last time (it is OK if you are crying now. I am too).
In the advent of so many mass shootings and tragedies, we naturally become cold. When we talk about them, all we end up sounding like are bad literary critics, “Oh it’s just another sob story, not worth reading or dwelling upon for too long.”
A small minority of people have been unfortunate enough to know or be related to a victim of a terrorist attack or mass shooting. The rest of us, however, barely know their names, much less have a real emotional stake in the victims. We offer our thoughts and prayers and political rants but move on. In some cynical moods of mine in recent months, I see the tragedies and think, “Whew. It’s not me.”
But this time it was different. The thought of the two “inseparable” brothers being murdered assaulted my emotional firewall and mangled my feelings. I almost cried this morning at a formally abstract and distant, but now possible and real, anxiety coming true.
There is no universal way to deal with these moments. Yes, I could write an op-ed or donate a few bucks to a politician or non-profit dedicated to preventing further gun violence, but even these are relatively abstract. By doing these distanced actions, you are sending a representative for yourself to deal with your problems.
So how can you deal with your problems and emotions directly? How can you actively share in the feelings of the mourners? The first step is to see yourself in the victims. Don’t read Cecil Rosenthal, read Andrew Dellechiaie. At that point you’ll understand deeply — and not superficially — pain.
The next step is up to you. You can admit and bury the emotion. Or you can realize that no matter how big an individual or atheist you are that Christ’s saying, “Love thy neighbor as thou love thyself” is not about religion, but instead it’s about seeing the world as a place full of people who you can love, even if they are a pair of older Jewish brothers from Pittsburgh.
Read their stories and see yourself: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/10/28/pittsburgh-shooting-victims-mostly-were-elderly-worshippers/1791727002/
Daniel Stein, 71
Joyce Feinberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59, and David Rosenthal 54
Bernice Simon, 84 and Sylvan Simon, 86
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69
D.A. Dellechiaie
dadell@bu.edu
I have NEVER in my life felt the need to comment on anything I stumbled across on the internet, but found this “letter” extremely moving. I have not lost anyone close to the unimaginable and totally incomprehensible type of violence that took the lives of these two brothers and nine other decent and extraordinary people, but was moved by how the author conveyed his heart felt distress when he moved past the emotional firewalls we all build and allowed himself to envision how such a loss would feel were it personal. Like him, I have come to a degree of insensitivity when hearing about yet another horrid massacre initiated by some lunatic with a grudge and guns. I shall remember the author’s alternative vision when the next and inevitable horror occurs.