We’ve all been there. It’s the first high school party we attend or the first day at a new job and we’re in a room full of people we barely know. It is new and unexplored and we are scared but excited and ready to see. But everyone seems to pass over us as if we’re not really there. So began my first day of second grade.
I stand in the middle of the school yard, trying to find my place in the world of spinning children, reaching out wherever I can. Can I jump rope with you? Is there room for me? only to be turned away, again and again. I give up and go to the shelter of a quiet corner.
But it is not a shelter. Jimmy and Ted find me, and these words come, each holding little daggers: Field. Dork. Bozo. When my tears come, they find new words. Crying. Sissy. Weakness.
That afternoon I was afraid of school and a shame that keeps me quiet. By morning, the panic is so severe that when it’s time to walk to the bus stop, I hide under my bed instead.
Mom would sneak me into the living room and my parents would sit with me as the story of my first day came out between tearful gasps. They listen, but the bus is approaching and they’re already late for work, so they all suggest hurry up. It gets better and in short, Don’t let it bother you.
This is what lingers – not the insult in the corner, but the rush, It gets betterrejecting Don’t let it bother you. It’s the feeling of being alone with a wound.
Two wounds
The first wound is trauma, loss. For me, in second grade, there were those two boys whose words cut like daggers. Today, it could be an unannounced diagnosis in the emergency room or a police officer knocking on the front door. This is the first wound life itself. For two million years it has come to each of us, for it is what it means to be human: We lose what we love; what once felt that some slips from our hands. (Bonanno, 2004)
The second wound is different: These are the people who never came, the ones who should have come and taken us and held us tight, but didn’t. (Herman, 1998) There has been no second wound for two million years. Why? Because we lived in villages and there, when trauma and loss occurred, our people put everything aside to come to us. (Asatsa et al., 2025)
Imagine a young Tewa, in the village world we left behind. He is young enough to still beg for a ride on his father’s shoulders when life deals him a loss too great to bear: His mother dies without warning.
Without a plan, the grandmother throws herself on the ground next to Teva. Uncle leaves his day job and joins them. By evening, a circle of villagers appears around Teva.
No one is in a hurry to promise that it will soon stop being vulnerable. They do a simpler, deeper job. They offer peace that tells Teva: Nothing is expected of you. This space is yours to do whatever you want. They sympathize by assuring him: We hold the pain with you; you don’t take it alone. And slowly, in the shelter of their company, Teva begins to cry, really cry, the kind that comes from the brain and shakes the body as it goes.
Her people stay with her through it all: the heart of the storm, the calm after it, and the tide sadness which follows. They stay for more than an hour or two: they stay for days, steady as rock, rising and falling as grief passes through her.
Three days later, Teva will feel it. The loss is still here… of course, because her mother isn’t coming back. But he also feels something new: This grief does not consume him; it becomes a delicate note in the music of his life. Little by little, she is remade, broken but beautiful: to herself, to her people, to all life.
Road
In the world we were born into, the countryside has disappeared and been replaced by a global consumer culture. So when the first wound comes (and it always does), instead of the circle that forms in the evening, there is only us, only with trauma and loss. We are left with a question Where is everyone?
And… where is everyone? Think of the story of the good Samaritan who was beaten and left bleeding on the side of the road. A priest comes, but he quickly moves to the other side. A Levite, who was a respectable man, comes next to him and passes by without stopping. Why? Because the priest and the Levite are important people who have a place to stay, clothes to wear… and they stay late. Haste, not laziness, is the problem. (Darley and Batson, 1973)
This is what happens in our consumer culture. We move too fast to really see each other and rush through each other’s injuries. And when enough people rush past us, we rush past ourselves. We become our parents in the hotel and say to ourselves: Don’t let it bother you. And when enough injuries and the losses are not satisfied, they fester and grow until we fear each other, the very people we are supposed to heal.
Coming home
what now We begin with a realization: The silence and compassion that once surrounded Teva, that long ago sustained and healed her, is still here. We just need to know where to look.
It is alive in therapists’ offices with the lights on; in the basements where AA meets; around the folding chairs, where sad groups gather; in the church where the pastor stays for a long time after the sermon and sits with us until the words come. Here are some of the places scattered today, waiting behind doors that we must be brave enough to still do the ancient work: They meet our trauma and loss with calmness and compassion, they bind the broken into beauty.
When we return to these places often, something changes. Silence and compassion move within us and we carry them out the door. We notice wounded people on the side of the road and instead of rushing past, we become Good Samaritans ourselves.
To find a therapist, visit List of current psychological therapies.
