The dance of grief and hope

Eli Sharabi, the former hostage, must face a monumental task. He has to figure out how to live again — not just remain alive, but live — even after experiencing what he has experienced, suffering what he has suffered, lost what he has lost.

He has to live with the firsthand knowledge of human malice and evil; most of us have read about such malice and evil and know that it exists, but our knowledge is theoretical. We know that it’s true, but on the deepest level we don’t quite believe it. (And that’s a very good thing.)

Mr. Sharabi knows that people can be evil. He’s lived it.

Many of us have lived through the deaths of people we love. It’s hard. But, thankfully, few of us have lived through the purposeful murders of our spouse, children, or brother. Mr. Sharabi has, and he still talks about hope. He embodies resilience. He moves forward.

Mr. Sharabi is demonstrating to us one of the most delicate dances we human beings can do, the complicated minuet between love and loss, grief and hope, looking backward and looking forward.

How do you remember the people you loved without living airlessly in the dead past? How do you move on without leaving them behind? How can you laugh and love if they cannot?

It’s a dance everyone who’s had to confront loss has to choreograph for her or himself. The music, the tempo, the steps, even the stage all are different for each one of us, but the basic task, the need to create that dance, remains.

(And while we’re at it, can we reconsider the words we use to describe it? Yes, death creates loss, a gaping hole, an inescapable void, but the person who died is not lost. If, say, a child were lost, the parent would search for her endlessly, tirelessly, unrelentingly, until she found her. That’s why Demeter followed her lost daughter Persephone into the underworld. That option is not open to the rest of us. Lost is not dead. Dead is dead.)

Mr. Sharabi is working on figuring out the balance, and he’s doing it in public. He’s showing us that grief and pain can coexist with love and hope, and at times love and hope can come out on top. He’s modeling clear-eyed, realistic resilience, the ability to incorporate the lessons taught by grief and pain, turn them into fuel, and use them to propel yourself forward.

He is inspirational. He has survived the inconceivable. He knows that terrible things can happen, and that we can overcome them. He knows that we will survive.

—JP

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