Friday column: When life as usual doesn’t seem right

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the NFL postponed that Sunday’s games. Major League Baseball took the next six days off.

In 1963 after the assassination of John Kennedy, the AFL — a rival of the NFL — shut down its games for a week. Pete Rozelle, then NFL commissioner, had his league play on — and came to regret it.

Why do I bring this up? Because this is a sports column, and the above paragraphs are as close to the world of games as I can come today. And more to the point, because there are some times when it seems things just ought to stop. Completely shut down. Not just sports — everything. For a day, a week, two weeks.

Tragedy and loss need to be noted, need to be mourned, need to be pondered sufficiently before life resumes. In times past, in smaller communities, the violent ending of four young lives would have brought things to a halt until a level of grieving and understanding had been accomplished.

First at Cathedral Park, then at Santa Fe Prep and Monte del Sol, there have been memorial gatherings for classmates, parents, friends of Rose, Alyssa, Kate and Julian — and for Avree, for whose continued recovery we offer prayer. We’ve had one funeral, with more services to come.

Yet that doesn’t seem enough. There’s just too much pain, too much shock, too much anger that needs to be processed.

Perhaps the world, including our part of it in Santa Fe, is too large and complicated now for such extended mourning, extended reflection.

Our loss.

Of course, in a city the size of Santa Fe, it’s impractical for everything to shut down. And even if it were possible, where would we draw the line? What level of tragedy would be necessary for everything to stop in its tracks? Who would decide?

A few weeks before Sunday morning’s deadly, possibly alcohol-fueled accident, we had the deliberate killing of a young mother-to-be, her father, and the baby in her womb. A few hours after, we had a teenage boy shot and killed, allegedly by another teen.

So, if we put everything on hold for senseless tragedy, we’ll never get off hold.
But going on with business, with life as usual, seems wrong somehow. In my imagination, I see a city with everything stopped. A stranger approaches and asks, “What’s going on?” and is told, “Nothing is going on, and won’t for several days.”

“Why?”

“Something happened.”

Everything didn’t shut down after JFK’s killing or the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings, but enough did stop to make us — briefly, at least — aware that something had happened, something worth taking note of.

Yes, ultimately, life goes on and normalcy returns. It just seems that sometimes it shouldn’t. Not for a while.

Some times, things just ought to stop.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.