Friday, April 8, 2011

The Most Depressing Thing I Heard All Week

A much-respected public figure and member of my community died suddenly on Monday. He was only 51, and he left four children, the youngest of whom is only nine years old. It's a flags-at-half-staff kind of death, and it has sent a shudder through the close-knit town I live in.

This death marked an unwelcome, but inevitable change in my perspective, too. More than any other death that has touched my life, and this includes close friends dying in their (and my) teens and early twenties, this was the first time I felt sharply, if it happened to him, it can happen to me. It isn't as though I just found out I was mortal, but I have clearly moved from worrying about what would happen to me if this person or that person died, to worrying about what would happen to them if I died. And this week's news was all the evidence I needed that it can happen. It does happen.

But none of this was the most depressing news I heard all week. I also recently, though not this week, got news that a friend of mine has eight inoperable brain tumors. She is not yet 32. Devastating, but still not the most depressing thing.

And I learned that a little girl I know and love who is in kindergarten has a tumor. Chemo once a week indefinitely. She may have a good prognosis, but this has wrecked her childhood, at least for now. Sickening. Heart-rending. Not the most depressing thing.

The most depressing thing I heard all week happened in a casual conversation with a couple of other men who are 40-ish. We were talking about the sudden death, and how awful it was, when one of them inadvertently dropped the bomb. We were saying that it makes you think about how you live, and wonder whether you should behave differently, make some sweeping changes. Make your life what you want it to be, and what your wife and kids need it to be. Then he nailed us all. He said, the thing is, none of us will do any of that. We'll be upset by this news for a while, and then we will just forget about it and go back to the way things were. And he's right.

Naturally this brought me back to last summer, watching my dad waste away by the minute. As I stood vigil, I promised myself I would make something positive out of this loss. I wasn't sure what, but I would take the energy and the frustrated feelings of helplessness, and do... something. Maybe it would be small. I'd be more patient with my kids. Maybe it would be large. I'd start the family business Dad always said he would want to invest in. Maybe I would start that novel already. Take a trip. In some way mark the time before the bad experience and the time since.

Have I made significant enough changes to satisfy my need to make my father's loss mean something? That conversation made me review the scorecard. I said in my Spring Renewal post that I had set some personal goals, and had been making progress toward them. It's true, but I have stalled out lately. I need to re-light that fire. And I said in the Patience post that kids deserve patient adults, and that I was struggling to get some mastery over that. Also true, but not nearly enough. It is still too easy to raise my voice, and too easy to forget that they need me to be patient, even when I have always known that my kids deserve kindness and patience. What else? No novel, no business, no life-altering moves.

While I hope there is still time to create something positive from the ashes, you can never really know. I've got a good life, and one that I'd be envious of if I were outside looking in. But there is a lot I more want to accomplish - a lot more work I have to do if I am going to make this life, as I said, what I want it to be and what my wife and kids need it to be. What the hell am I waiting for?