How To Survive Tragedy – 2
Having lost both my wife and son in recent years, I can sympathise deeply with the Norgroves, who lost their daughter, Linda, in Afghanistan.
But they refuse to apportion blame and just want to celebrate the good times and the work their daughter did.
The Mirror in common with other papers describes their feelings.
There is never any point in apportioning blame, as that gets in the way of trying to make sure that it doesn’t happen again, by changing attitudes and making the world a better and safer place.
This extract shows that they are doing that.
Mrs Norgrove said: “She knew I wasn’t keen on her going back but there was no way as a parent I would stop her doing that. I knew that she’d grown to love Afghanistan and love the people and I knew that that’s where her heart was and she wanted to do humanitarian work there.”
Her husband said his daughter was a “very adventurous girl” and was determined to go to Afghanistan four years ago when she worked for the United Nations.
“At the time I said to her that our worst nightmare was that she might be kidnapped,” he said. “But at the end we had to accept that she’d been adventurous, she’d done risky things before.”
The couple, from Lewis, had just climbed a mountain when they were told she had been abducted while looking into the development of agricultural projects in the east of the country.
The couple have now set up The Linda Norgrove Foundation to promote the causes she supported.
The charity will fund women and family-orientated schemes in the war-ravaged country.
Good luck to them and the Foundation.
The Anonymous Widower 
They are good and sensible people. Blame and hate would harm them more than it hurts anyone else. I have a favourite prayer/philosophy whatever you want to call it:
(God) grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference
Grant me too
Patience with the changes that take time
Appreciation of all that I have
Tolerance of those with different struggles
And the strength to get up and try again
One day at a time.
I live it on a daily basis, asking myself which category sistuations fall into, it is now a natural way of doing things, part of me and the way I function
Comment by liz | October 30, 2010 |