Empathy in high gear or just waves of grief?

Is nothing off limits?  On Sunday, Catherine and I went to see the new Beauty and the Beast movie for the second time at the matinee (two for the price of one.)  At some point afterwards Johanna asked if we were listening to the soundtrack on YouTube which we weren’t because we didn’t know it was there.  On Tuesday,  I got the bright idea to look it up.  Not sure if it was a mistake but it certainly felt like one.

I was listening to the Beast’s song Evermore because I enjoyed his character more in the live action and the song was new.  The creators added character depth by adding the element of loss and suffering by revealing that at a young age, Belle and the Beast lost their mothers and Belle’s father lost his wife when Belle was just a baby.  It was easy to connect to their loss and how it continued to affected them.

As I listened to the words to Evermore, certain lines started to jump out at me and unintentionally I connected them with Bernadette!  Lines like, but not limited to:

I’ll never shake away the pain.   I close my eyes, but she’s still there.  I let her steal into my melancholy heart.  It’s more than I can bear.

Now I know she’ll never leave me, even as she runs away.  She will still torment me, calm me, hurt me, move me, come what may.  … Waiting by an open door,  I’ll fool myself she’ll walk right in and be with me for evermore.

I rage against the trials of love. …  Though she’s already flown so far beyond my reach, she’s never out of sight.

Now I know she’ll never leave me, even as she fades from view.  She will still inspire me, be a part of everything I do.  …

I know the song is about someone who loves someone else in the romantic sense, but love is still love.  When you let someone into your heart, it doesn’t matter who they are, it tears your heart apart when they’re ripped away.

Once I related to the Beast’s pain via my own, I couldn’t hear the song without crying and longing for Bernadette.   Kind of ruined Zoe’s birthday for me because by suppertime my eyes stung and my head ached.   Hence, the thought that it was a mistake.   It just seems like nothing is off limits in it’s ability to touch and stir that pain, not even a fiction story with fiction characters.  Is it always going to be this way?

It happened again yesterday.  While doing my regular errands in town a memorial card for little Casey James Ball caught my eye.  It was up on the round community events bulletin board just outside Staples.  He died March 20, 2017, the day before his second birthday.   I didn’t need to try and image the unimaginable pain his parents were in at that very moment, just one thought of them and the tears started to flow – in the middle of the mall.  Oy!    And there didn’t seem to be anything that distracted me from their pain for the rest of the day. Everything was as dreary, dark, and cold as the rain outside.

Is it empathy or just the stirring up of my own pain?   Right now I suspect that it’s more the latter and that these events brought it back to the forefront of my mind after the business of life mercifully allowed it to take a back seat for a little while.  Maybe one day it will be more empathy than grief.  I suppose time will tell.