@ibstubro – I almost put a disclaimer after my first comment, because I was sure there were more…
The recent events of Aurora, Sandy Hook, and the Boston Marathon Bombing have happened so close together. If events occur while I’m at work, as Sandy Hook did, I am taking care of my patients and performing my duties. Only 9/11 interrupted my work day, and only because I worked in a hospital that was close enough to NYC and Newark Airport that we were put on emergency status.
Also, it is often the first incidence of a trauma that shocks us and stays with us the most – so those occurring earlier in our lives often hit us hardest. Columbine was the ‘meaningful’ to me because I coincidentally was in the area that morning; and VT because I coincidentally was in CO again.
I did shed tears for the kids and the teachers of Sandy Hook as I heard and read their stories. I’m moved to tears pretty easily, so I don’t use tears as a measure of significance. In my reply, I was considering what events had me in a funk or that I was compelled to keep tuning in to learn the latest about them. Some of these tragedies I choose not to follow much, because it feeds the media’s drive for sensationalism (I’ve hardly watched TV since the summer of OJ Simpson made me do disgusted by what was considered ‘newsworthy’). Also because I could be pulled back down into depression much too easily if I take on too much pain by empathizing with the victims.
Certainly natural disasters have also affected me. The tsunami, Katrina, Haitian earthquake, Japanese earthquake and tsunami, tornadoes and more tornadoes, etc. Hurricane Sandy hit my state. My local news anchors a few miles up the road watched their cars get washed out in the studio’s parking lot. A friend barely escaped her home and neighborhood as the storm surge pushed a wall of water down her street. Many people are still displaced and still fighting with the regulators trying to get their homes rebuilt. Again – so many events in close succession. It could be overwhelming if I let it.