Exactly one year ago, the Dominican Republic he stopped. The tragedy of the Jet Set burst into our lives with a violence that we did not ask for or expect, robbing us of loved ones and robbing us of the feeling that the world is a predictable place. Today, a year later, we find ourselves at that delicate threshold where time has passed, but the pain has not disappeared. And that, although it may not seem like it, is also part of healing.
One of the things we learned with data, with Dominican science, is that this tragedy did not hurt only where it was expected. In the days following the collapse, we surveyed more than a thousand people across the country. We found that a significant portion of those reporting symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety were not present that night, nor did they lose an immediate family member. He simply lived here, and the tragedy followed on the news, on the networks, on the audios that circulated non-stop. Collective pain is not a metaphor: it is a real phenomenon that happens to the body and mind.
The first anniversary has a particular weight. For many mourners, reaching this day brings a strange mix: the relief of having survived the first year, the guilt of having continued living, the surprise that the pain still hurts, and sometimes almost shamefully the amazement of having been able to laugh again. All of those emotions are valid. Time, by itself, does not heal. What transforms pain is not the passing of the days, but what we do with them.
Our research clearly identified what helps and what hurts. Keeping the pain hidden, not talking about what we feel, pretending to be strong, remaining silent so as not to be a burden turned out to be associated with greater emotional distress. Silencing the pain does not dissolve it: it compresses it until it finds another way out. On the other hand, feeling accompanied, having someone who listens without judging, turned out to be one of the most powerful protective factors. Science confirmed what grandmother already knew: those who cry with others heal faster than those who cry alone.
Remembering is not going back. Emotional health is not about erasing those we lost, but about learning to handle them in a different way. Memory rituals such as lighting a candle, gathering together, saying the loved one’s name out loud allow us to honor without getting stuck. If today you feel that the pain is still as acute as the first day, that your life was paralyzed, please seek professional support. Asking for help is not giving up: it is the bravest act a mourner can perform.
May love for those who have left drive us to live with more compassion. May we accompany each other in fragility, always remembering that we are not alone. The mentioned data comes from the García-Batista et al. study. (2025), published in Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health. DOI: 10.1017/gmh.2025.10097
The author is a professor, researcher and director of the Emotions, Health and Cyberpsychology Laboratory of PUCMM
