A Sorrowful Sunday

John Samuel


This was my saddest Sunday in Oslo. The drizzle in the morning conveyed the mood of the otherwise cheerful city in the summer. Yesterday most of the people were grappling with sense of shock and disbelief. And on the Sunday morning, a sense of sorrow engulfed the city. From the morning, I could see from my window, hundreds of people going to the church with flowers. On a usual Sunday service, there would be only few people, mostly grandparents who come with their grand children. This morning it was different, I could see hundreds of people in silence going to the church. I too decided to go to the church next to my apartment. There was no music. There was no sermon. There was only silence, candles and flowers. They lit the candle stood there in silence. Everyone was in a mood of silent prayer. It was rather unusual to find so many young people in the church.

As I walked around the city I could sense the deep sorrow of a Sunday. My friend this morning told how two of his neighbours managed to escape. There were ten of them hiding in the toilet and one of jumped in to the water and swam to safety to another side. There were three young people of Sri Lankan origin; they saved themselves by hiding in the bushes.

As I walked past the road to the Prime Minister’s office, I noted the young soldiers who stood in sorrowful silence. They were hardly twenty or twenty two. More than ninety people who died are of their age. They hardly look like military men, except for their uniform- as they too stood there with a silence of a deep sorrow.

The square in front of the cathedral at city centre was filled with thousands of candles, heaps of flower, and lots of toys. The Prime Minister and King attended the Sunday service at 11 am. I went to the cathedral for the special mourning service in the after-noon. I have never seen more than hundred people on the usual Sunday service in the city cathedral that could accommodate at least six hundred people. Today there was no space; the church was overflowing. As the coir began to sing the hymn, I could see the channels of tears on many faces. We all stood together in a prayerful moment, where everyone was mourning for their dear children or a friend or a relative or a fellow Norwegian. So many parents lost their only one son or daughter. The youngest one who was killed was just thirteen years. As I too have teen age son, I could sense the rather unspeakable and unbearable sorrow of few parents who were in the Cathedral. After the service, I too spent some time in silence in the square where a thousand of tales of sorrow was shared in pindrop silence. I could only hear soft drizzle- as if the nature too shed tears for those young kids. My Norwegian friend told me about two young girls who got killed and their cousins came with stuffed dolls that they shared in their childhood. Many teddy bears and Barbie-dolls in the midst of flowers and candles told the intimate sense of the loss. Those toys belonged to the kids who were shot down. I thought of my own son of the same age. It was difficult for me to hold back the tears.

Many of them were young leaders with immense qualities and promise. The annual summer camps where they showed their talents, promises could have helped them to move to mainstream politics or policy roles. The Prime Minister Stoltenberg and the cabinet ministers, the labour party leaders grew up participating in the annual summer camp in every July. And many of those who killed could have become leaders of Norway or at a world stage. It was not be so. Those young people were the one who dreamt for a just, equitable and sustainable society. They represented the best of the social democratic values of Norway. And they were just blooming. - Most of them in their teen age. Another young man, poisoned with another indoctrinated ideology of hate, decided to shoot them down.
They were at their prime of dreams and imagination. I could only say a silent prayer for those parents and family who lost their very dear children at their prime; those children who were celebrating their youth and dreams. And the dreams got shattered.
It is a cruel world.
I too lit a candle.