NRU grief and healing

 

Heartbreaking and beautiful piece on a family saying goodbye to their 19-year-old son in a coma.  It brings me right back to those horrible days in the hospital, hope dangling in front of us like an illusory carrot, but what did we have to do in order to merit a miracle?  Why did the hospital not level with all of us from the beginning and why have they still not told us the whole truth?  If I carry the anger, sometimes masking the grief, it is in no small part because of the way they did not allow us to wrap our heads around our tragedy. May this family long feel the love of these four days so lovingly memorialized here.

I almost put this piece in the California Sights NRU, but I think the healing aspect is more important to highlight.  I love the way the folks in this article are thinking about how to teach/inculcate restorative justice.  It is a concept that is hard on all sides ... change doesn't happen without learning new habits.  Habits are hard to "teach" but allowing folks to think and feel through all the emotions is a great way to get the point across.  I wonder what a workshop for the survivors would be.

I cannot bear to write about the Brown Family or the many other right now ... it is too hard.  But, I relished this piece on how the police in San Antonio have figured out a protocol (and services) to deal with the mentally ill.  After all the many pieces I have heard on the militarization of the police (and the many thoughts I have harbored as well on the issue), it was wonderful to hear how this works.  Just to hear the police officer, skeptical at first, extolls the benefits of the safety net system they have created brings me hope.  I have always felt that police officers should get more training on the psychological aspects of their job than new weaponry.