Do April Showers Wash Away Blood?

The meaning of the cruelest month of the year, and other stories from April

Earl Mikell

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain

                        - T.S. Eliot

            Yet another April comes to pass, with yet another April tragedy. This time it was the massacre at Virginia Tech, in which 32 innocent lives were taken through an act of senseless violence. It brought up, for all of us, memories of violent Aprils gone by, with the Columbine massacre the most prominent of all, and the Rwandan genocide the most haunting of all. And as it is with each passing year, it always seems that every April is punctuated by such scenes of horrific or bloody violence, and we are always left behind to pick up the pieces, and wonder why.

The month of April, in history, can and should rightly be judged to be the most tragic month of the year. For it is in April we have witnessed shocking assassinations, senseless massacres, silent deaths, violent bombings, long wars and so on. We have the assassinations of President Abraham Lincoln and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., the slaughter of innocents abroad and at home in Rwanda, Armenia, Cambodia, Columbine, and Blacksburg, the Oklahoma City bombing, the quiet death of South Vietnam in 1975, the American Civil War of April 1861 – April 1865, and the Armageddon of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich’s final days of infamy in 1945.

Why do such heart-breaking moments occur in April, with more prevalence than other months, and why do we remember them more than the other months? Considering the latter in terms of memories, the other eleven months do have their tragic footnotes to memory and history, but for the most part they do not stay with us long after the last drop of blood is spilled. April is always singled out in that we are always haunted by the memory of images from such days of drama, long after its occurrence, like the students running out of the school building at Columbine and the haunting yet gentle snowfall of the morning after, the firefighter cradling a dead baby in his arms at Oklahoma City, and the helicopters lifting off the US embassy roof during America’s indecent exit from South Vietnam.

We remember these images for the rest of our lives and beyond, but, once again, why do they happen in April? It is interesting to note that when they happened, people often couldn’t make sense of it all, calling so and so senseless and sudden, like the Virginia Tech massacre, and also often couldn’t find and consider a clear metaphysical rationale, outside of the killer or killers’ own, for them. At such times, we often think of why it happened in the immediate moment, but never when it happens. We don’t often go far enough to consider the plain question of why it keeps happening in April. It seems strangely contradictory: April is supposed to be the month where flowers bloom, picnics happen, students graduate, everybody coming out of the winter into the sunshine. And yet instead of the joy of such events we have deaths and tears.

Maybe it’s because it’s a futile exercise in thought. Maybe it’s because the question will never be answered well enough to satisfy us. Or, for the religiously-inclined, maybe it’s God’s will. However, in assuming such thoughts, we are instead clashing with our own tendency, in the wake of such atrocities, to seek such meaning in everything that happens in life and death.  If we seek meaning in such lives and deaths, in such horrific action, in general, then shouldn’t we think it logical and appropriate to also seek the meaning of why, going outside the life, the death and the incident itself, and when it happens? And so, if we agree to such a postulation, then it should be logical to consider why it happens in April.

It happens, because death has to happen, and death, in its’ unnatural form, is always a reminder of human flaws and failings. Since April is supposed to be a month of joy, of our exit from winter, death intrudes upon our lives to remind us that somewhere, someplace, someday it is not a joyful time, because someone or something chose to exhibit the worst of humanity, or failed for a brief fleeting moment to display the best of humanity. If it’s not happening here, then it’s happening someplace out there. It reminds us to be thankful for the joy we get, because one day there may not be any to be had wherever we are, in April, as we begin our spring.

And it happens, because it’s a warning to us. It’s a warning for those who survived or witnessed such death, to fix the physical, mental and moral flaws within our modern way of life, like governmental incompetence, appeasement, glorification of violence, apathy and reluctance (in the case of the Rwandan genocide), or be fated to suffer the same fate these victims of Aprils long since past suffered. Such a warning lesson in April is cruel, because the warning itself comes in the form of death, not a note or e-mail. And it is crueler still, that with the passing of each tragic April we still have to keep realizing though such bloodshed that we have yet to take heed of such a costly lesson.

In finally contemplating such a question and finding a real answer, once we have advanced to such a point, that is, we will invariably find our own meaning for why it happens in April. And with such a meaning found, then comes the search for closure and a final, long time in coming, end to the bloodshed and the beginning of many a peaceful Aprils. But first, before the search begins, we must ask ourselves one more question. Do April showers wash away blood? The answer, heartbreakingly enough, is no, at least for the moment.

No, because we still have not learned our lessons from their deaths, from their warnings. No, because we will always have to remember why their blood was spilled in April, at least up until the day when we can finally celebrate a string of many a joyful April, because such cruel Aprils will have by then become nothing more than a period of an awful time in history. Such joyful Aprils will only happen if we learn our lessons, heed our warnings, and along with that completely and irrevocably learn how to continually exhibit the best of humanity day in and out. Then perhaps we will be able to change our answer to yes on that glorious day, and enjoy a simple April shower outside, without the blood on the ground. And we will never ever have to ask ourselves again why.

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