It's with a heavy heart he bends down to pick up glass and splinters alongside his people in Oslo.
It's with an even heavier heart he dress himself in the red, familiar red-cross uniform and helps looking for missing people in the waters outside Utøya.
It's with a heavy heart he watches the stories of eyewitnesses and politicians of on the news.
He feels the pain of the wounded, the pain of the waiting, the dead and the grieving.
Seeing his people crying, seeing King and commoner standing together, sharing their tears, their sorrow. It makes him sad, but it also makes him proud.
Proud that in a situation like this, hid people unite and stand together rather than blaming each other. They put their differences aside and lean on the shoulder of their neighbors, be they Norwegian or foreign, left winded or right winded, young or old, friend or stranger.
There is a time for everything, and they all know and agree with him that this is a time for support, not hate.
He cries as well. Cries, thinking of the young people who lost their life for absolutely no reason.
Cries thinking about the ones left behind who will have to live with the memories.
Cries for all those who have lost someone.
Cries for losing a part of himself.
Many words have been spoken after the tragedy. Some in hate, some in despair. Some will be forgotten, some will be remembered forever.
He knows that even in the darkest of situations, there is light. And in the horror he has seen hope.
"If one man can show this much hate, think how much love we can show together" a girl, a survivor from the massacre spoke. It's true and it's important. More important than anything.
The Kingdom of Norway will stand united through this, and maybe not soon, but eventually he'll be standing tall again. Burdened by the deaths and the grief, but also lifted up with the new hope of his people. The enemy is not at the border, the enemy is within. And now his people, all of them. No matter if they're Christian, Atheists, Muslim or anything else, must stand together.
And that gives him hope. That gives him the strength to carry on.
That makes him Norway.
A nation that keeps his head cool even in the darkest of situations, that fights back with even more democracy rather than seeking revenge.
He finds pride in that.
He finds hope in that.
It makes him the Kingdom of Norway, a small nation where every fallen is brother and friend.
Disclaimers:
- "If one man can show this much hate, think how much love we can show together" Stine Renate Håheim, survivor of the Utøya massacre.
- We are so few people in this nation, every fallen is brother and friend – Nordahl Grieg