In the early morning hours of Sunday, June 12, 2016, over three hundred people were dancing and enjoying themselves during Latin night at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The magic ended around 2 a.m. Sunday morning when a gunman started unloading his rapid-fire guns into the crowded dance floor. Three hours later he would be shot to death, after killing 49 persons and shooting 103 others. Those who live in the area spoke of hearing the gunfire without knowing the immensity of the tragedy until the next day. It is thought that the percussion of the music masked the gunfire.
I received the call to go to Orlando on Sunday afternoon and was on a plane the next morning. The two weeks I spent in Orlando were purposeful and sequestered. The only way I could function was to “stay in the bubble” and not watch any outside news or coverage. I knew from past events that exposure to media would reduce my ability to help people in real life. I did not find out that both the Eiffel Tower and the Sydney Opera House had been lit up in rainbow colors in memory of the Pulse nightclub victims until months later.
I kept trying to find an analogy, a metaphor, that could accurately represent what had occurred in Orlando. The best I could do for a hypothetical comparison was a gay plane crash with the majority of the passengers from Puerto Rico. And while each disaster is unique, as an adult gay man, Orlando felt very personal. My “tribe” had been attacked, and I wanted to do all I could for the community. And so as thoughts turned to recovery of the bodies, funerals, and tending to the emotional wounds, I wanted to be there to provide comfort and help people not feel so alone.
After a tragedy, once family members have been notified, the aforementioned reunification and notification center is closed and a family assistance center (FAC) is opened. While the reunification and notification center provides short-term help, the purpose of the FAC is to help and support the victims, their families and friends, and even the greater community, over the first few weeks. The Orlando FAC at Camping World Stadium (formerly the Citrus Bowl) opened the Wednesday after the Sunday morning shooting. FACs remain open until immediate needs are met, then may transition to an existing charity or humanitarian organization to continue meeting intermediate or long-term needs.
Among other issues, the family assistance center helps surviving relatives with arranging flights, death certificates, and more. In Orlando, American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, and United Airlines all were in the family assistance center, donating flights and assisting relatives flying in from Puerto Rico and the Caribbean to claim their loved one’s body. They also helped make arrangements to ship the bodies home by air for the funerals or burial at home without charge. The city of Orlando provided free burial plots to relatives who could not afford them; funeral costs were also donated. Florida Hospital and Orlando Health donated all medical costs for the victims and survivors that came in through their emergency rooms the night of the massacre.
In the Orlando FAC, there were also the consulate generals of Mexico and Columbia assisting with any emergency visas that needed to be issued to family members of the deceased. Death certificates in Florida are issued through the DMV with support from the Florida Attorney General’s office. Normally the process can take weeks, but with everyone under the same roof in the family assistance center, these needs could be expedited and met.
Of course, before bodies can be sent home or funerals can be planned, victims must first be identified. If an ID, such as a driver’s license, is found on the victim, identification may be straightforward. If not, the medical examiner or coroner may need to interview family members about identifiable signs: clothing, tattoos, birthmarks, jewelry, and so forth. They may be asked to visually identify a loved one’s body. However, after a plane crash or mass shooting, the physical injuries are sometimes so extensive as to make conventional identification impossible. Instead of being escorted into a morgue to look at a body under a sheet (as often happens in the movies), family members may be asked to provide a hair or toothbrush to collect DNA to assist in the identification process.
After 9/11, there was much discussion about what to do when bodies (or parts of bodies) were found. Each time remains were recovered at Ground Zero, a whistle blew and a team including a chaplain brought the remains out to the temporary morgue or by ambulance to the disaster mortuary. The chaplain gave this blessing:
We give thanks for this individual and that they may be in heaven and at peace,
We pray for their family and may they be restored,
We give thanks for the people who helped find this body.
The prayer was simple and brief by design and used inclusive language that all major faith traditions could embrace. Spoken with sensitivity and authority by the chaplain, this blessing was uniquely comforting not only to the immediate team bringing the body out of the pit but also to the larger community of workers and general public.
Once the difficult tasks of identification and the practical concerns of burial have been addressed, thoughts turn to providing emotional comfort to those left behind. Memorial services, funerals, and vigils are perhaps the most common rituals that occur after a tragic event in an attempt to honor a person’s life and provide comfort to those mourning their loss. While some religions have liturgies specifically known for funerals and memorials, community services need to be more inclusive and affirming and not do harm with language that excludes or wounds. Oftentimes, the most moving part of a memorial service is a moment of silence.
One big difference between private deaths and more large-scale events like the Orlando shooting is that elected officials often become involved in public tragedies. For example, in the Pulse nightclub shooting, a decision had to be made as to which memorial service would “get” the governor and which one would “get” the mayor. In this instance, the mayor was the more desirable catch, as the Florida governor did not have the greatest record with the LGBTQ+ population there.
When helping plan memorial services and funerals, keep your focus on the families. Ask yourself, “Who is this for?” Listen to the families. What do they want? Even severely traumatized and grieving persons have valuable insight into the wishes of their loved ones and how they want to commemorate their lives. Some may not want a big memorial service. Family members don’t even always want the president or other high-ranking official to visit. Sometimes, a visit can delay recovery operations, so I personally discourage high-ranking visits until all victims have been recovered for the sake of the families involved.
In the late 1990s, when an Egypt Air plane crashed in the Atlantic, a memorial service was planned on the beach facing the ocean. A large tent was erected and the chaplain in charge arranged all the chairs so they were facing the sea. There was an empty stage with a lectern. The chaplain left briefly to attend to other matters and returned to find local politicians had added chairs for dignitaries and politicians on the stage, so that they could address the grieving and convey their condolences. While they might have been well-meaning, the chaplain knew it was more important to keep the ocean as the focal point for those assembled. He removed all the chairs from the stage so that the view would be unencumbered. The officials were asked to take their seats amongst the congregation, keeping the focus on the water and offering time for reflection. The memorial ended up being a beautiful service that allowed those assembled to gaze at the light on the water during the prayers and readings for the dead.
Another way to provide comfort in the week after a tragedy is by helping to arrange a site visit. This has become an established comforting ritual in many catastrophic disasters, whether it be a plane crash in the forest, a boating accident on a beach, or a nightclub shooting. Many family members request to see the actual disaster location where their loved one took their last breath. Generally, site visits are held in silence with the only sound being the sobs of family members.
Reactions to a site visit are as varied as the individuals attending. Some feel that there is a sense of closure and acceptance, showing them there was no way that their loved one could have survived. Others are simply still in shock and going through the motions—getting on the bus to the site, taking a bottle of water, grabbing a few tissues. If families do not want a site visit, then don’t impose one on them. It may be too painful, and the emotional wounds may still be too raw. Of course, no site visits can be made until all victims have been recovered and any smoldering wreckage cools off. Sharp metal and unsafe areas are roped off and security is tight to restrict the press or the uninvited.
Sometimes it isn’t possible to visit a location directly, so we have to be creative in coming up with a meaningful ritual that will still keep everyone safe. For example, after the 1999 Alaskan airplane crash off the coast of California, a boat trip was planned to take family members to the crash site. This was in the middle of the ocean, about thirty miles off-shore. However, we became worried about distraught family members possibly trying to jump overboard in order to “join” their lost loved ones. After a traumatic event, many family members are not thinking rationally. So instead of a physical visit to the crash location, we decided to arrange a ceremony where friends and relatives could put flowers in a basket on the beach closest to the crash site. A helicopter then took the basket to the actual point of impact and was videotaped dropping the basket of flowers into the ocean. In this way, survivors were able to participate in a meaningful ritual while also keeping everyone safe.
In addition to a site visit, the creation of a place to leave flowers, photos, and other mementos has become common after mass casualty events. Often, spontaneous shrines are set up at sites where people have died. Children want to bring teddy bears; adults wish to bring candles or flowers. After September 11, chain-link fences around lower Manhattan were covered with flyers of those lost, stuffed animals, flowers, votive candles, posters, cards, and banners. The site may not be religious, but if it’s where your loved one died, it is sacred. You can help by finding out if leaving objects in a given spot is permissible, making sure the items are not in a dangerous location, helping get the grieving to these sites, or taking a picture of the memorial spot if desired. Perhaps the afflicted will want a picture of it down the line but not right away.
There’s a reason bringing a casserole dish after a death is such a cliché—it is comforting. I grew up in the 1950s, and my comfort food is tuna casserole. One can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, elbow macaroni, and one can of tuna fish combined provides an emotional anchor no matter where I am in the world.
Food is a great way to provide comfort and support in the weeks following a disaster, but make sure it is easy to store or save for later if not needed at that moment. You might decide to give a gift card to a local restaurant or start a meal train online where the grieving can comment or decline a delivery if it’s not needed on a given day. And while bringing a home-cooked lasagna to your neighbor is a kind and loving gesture, for a more large-scale operation, food safety regulations make this type of donation impractical. Donating money is a better way to provide comfort in this case. Finally, be sure to take into account culture or religious considerations. After the 2004 Florida hurricane, a Southern Baptist mobile kitchen was serving ham and cheese sandwiches to a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. They had to be gently reminded that Judaism prohibits eating pork. Remembering, however, that food is necessary sustenance for grieving friends and family is important. Sometimes the ease of having a packed refrigerator reminds those who may not want to eat that they have to eat.
Providing warmth, whether in the form of a cup of coffee or a blanket draped over a person in shock, is another way to comfort. There is a tradition in upstate New York for church women to knit shawls for breast cancer patients because hospital treatment rooms sometimes can be quite chilly or downright cold. So when Continental flight 3407 crashed outside of Buffalo, New York, in February 2009, local churches delivered shawls to the families and loved ones waiting in the family assistance center for updates. The shawls, in both examples, provided comfort and warmth, and a reminder that there were many “out there” who cared and wanted to do something to provide comfort.
I remember being at the FAC in Orlando and meeting Eduardo. The twenty-two-year-old survivor from the Pulse massacre was on crutches and trying to navigate the family assistance center. Five nights before, he had been hiding under bodies in the nightclub, and I reassured him that it was normal for him to still be in shock. Eduardo had come with friends, but they were nowhere to be found. After a quick tour of the FAC, which included everything from emergency childcare to a full buffet, I brought him a Red Cross blanket, which was quite a popular item in the over air-conditioned space. I spent some time just chatting with him, and when it was time to leave, I helped him navigate the heavy center doors. Years later, I still remember those moments with him and how we had both seen death.
After a tragedy, even well-meaning officials can make mistakes or have lapses in judgment. In 1994, a US Airways flight crashed killing all 132 passengers and crew outside Pittsburgh. High school student volunteers were brought in to help. However, the task they were given was to use plastic cafeteria trays to take body parts from one disaster mortuary tent to another. High school volunteers clearly do not have the training or mental strength to serve in this capacity! A seasoned disaster recovery official quickly ended this practice, thanked the teenagers for their time, and sent them home.
Another example of people meaning well, but ultimately failing to provide appropriate care and support, occurred after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Eight buses from New Orleans arrived in Houston in the middle of the night from a Jewish nursing and long-term-care facility in New Orleans. Hospital chaplains at Texas Medical Center were called in to be with these elderly evacuees, many of whom were from Alzheimer and dementia units.
A nurse’s assistant had been tasked with organizing medical records for the large group as each bus had patients and residents from unique units in the Jewish home. That meant that some husbands and wives were separated due to their physical health for the long twelve-hour bus ride between New Orleans and Houston. The chaplains immediately noticed that the well-meaning (but misguided) aide had written the number of the medical record file on each evacuee’s arm in permanent marker, apparently not realizing that Jewish people imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps during World War II often had their prisoner number tattooed on their arm.
When we experience a traumatic event, the stories we tell ourselves about our lives can suddenly and dramatically change. This happened to many of the families in the Pulse nightclub shooting, whose children had emigrated to Orlando to find work and also a culture of openness and tolerance. Oftentimes, family members of the dead were doubly impacted by the loss of a child and the news that their child was gay. This experience brought me back to my early days in hospital chaplaincy and my motivation for returning to ministry to work with AIDS patients. It was not unusual to have a similar connection: disclosure of an acute illness and the revelation of homosexuality. Some families find their beliefs evolving, as they mourn both the child they thought they knew and the one they’d never get to know. But one body in the Pulse nightclub shooting was unclaimed—perhaps the family could not bring themselves to acknowledge the homosexuality of their child.
For those who survive a disaster with life-altering injuries, the adjustment to normal tasks of living is daunting and complex. Special care needs and rehabilitation efforts may continue for the rest of one’s life. How do you reach out and comfort in such a situation in the first weeks after a disaster? In the military, one knows the risks of life-ending or life-altering injury. “Thank you for your service” may be appropriate words to use to comfort a veteran’s family for the sacrifices they have made. In case of a random event, the words may be harder to find, but “I can’t imagine what this is like for you” is usually appropriate.
In any tragedy, there is a fine line between comfort and distraction. Well-intentioned persons may seek to comfort someone going through a life-changing experience, but instead of comforting, they may be trying to soothe their own anxiety. Instead of seeking to distract someone from their pain, starting a conversation about their feelings may be more helpful.
And sometimes, healing begins when families come up with their own words of comfort. This happened in 2007, when a tour boat capsized in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and three persons drowned in the rough, windswept bay. Two of the deceased were a honeymoon couple, and the third was a six-year-old girl. They were not related, but the two families now had a forever bond, losing loved ones in the same boating tragedy. One might assume that each family would mourn their loss independently. But the family of the honeymoon couple was comforted by believing their loved ones had “stayed behind” so the little girl would not be afraid. Ironically, the family of the girl believed their daughter had not abandoned the young honeymoon couple, so they would not be afraid. Together, these families were able to comfort each other with the belief that their loved one did not die in vain.
Help plan (or attend) a memorial service, taking into account the needs and wishes of those closest to the victim.
Help arrange (or attend) a site visit. Encourage loved ones to take pictures if they wish.
Leave a token at a spontaneous shrine. This is especially helpful for small children, who may not be old enough to attend a memorial service or site visit.
Bring food. Drop off flowers. Knit a shawl.
Say something. Send a card. You don’t have to find the perfect words—silence hurts more. Let loved ones know you are thinking about them.
Be specific in your offers of help. Offer to walk the dog, mow the lawn, pick up the kids from daycare. Think beyond the casserole.
Be a listening ear. Don’t offer advice unless specifically requested.
Waiting by a hospital bedside for days on end is draining—offer to spell them. A quick shower and a change of clothes can do wonders to help people keep going when enduring a major tragedy.
If one day at a time seems too much, take it one hour at a time. Or one minute at a time.
Connect with others online to provide support and information.