A fiery crash occurred near my workplace yesterday that took the life of one of the occupants of the vehicle. I’ll admit that my first thoughts lamented my commute home for the evening, but I almost instantaneously chastised myself for the reaction. In fact, I began to feel terrible about the whole situation – a human life here one minute and gone the next. Think about this – a life-altering event for those who knew this person becomes a minor aggravating annoyance for many others.
I saw a cat run over by a car one day while riding home on the bus from elementary school. I can still visualize it twitching on the ground well after it’s life was taken. I spent the next half-hour on the bus upset over the situation and instantly ran to embrace my mother for comfort when I got home. Unfortunately, it was very easy to find her in the house as she was bedridden.
The first day I came home and found my mother in bed, I remember her explanation to me: she had something the size of a grapefruit in her tummy that didn’t belong there. The word ‘tumor’ did not compute. I remained in a state of semi-ignorance for months. The horrifying, epiphanal moment occurred months later. My father and I were watching a television news magazine. When a piece came on about a diet that was supposed to help fight cancer, I saw him grab a pen and paper and start writing things down. It took me a few days to work up the courage to ask my mother to tell me the truth.
I barely cried when my mother died – outside of a time or two during the funeral, I didn’t shed a single tear. In fact, I went to school that day and took three final exams and even went to a teacher’s house to take another after school. The tears, the pain, the anguish had all come about a month before while I was on class campout. I called home to find out that my mother had gone to the hospital once again. I knew what I had seen over the past few months since her mother passed away. The changes in her body, the bouts of confusion, the slow eroding of who she was kept growing and growing. I knew she was there, but already gone. For years I thought I knew why I didn’t cry when she died. Yesterday, for the first time, I could finally admit to myself why I truly didn’t. I didn’t because her death was a blessing.
My father is no longer with us. He lived a very full 69 years on this earth, yet every time I hear someone accomplish something in their seventies or beyond, I’m reminded of the years that were taken from him.
For a good portion of my life, I worked as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. Those who work in this occupation regularly interject themselves into the tragedy of others – I didn’t see death often, but I heard it constantly. If you work long enough in that profession, homicides and other senseless deaths morph from tragedies to notches on your belt courtesy of an increasingly jaded attitude. I did reach a point, however, where the barbs of death did start to penetrate the armor I had created for myself. In some ways, that’s why I actually felt better about my reaction yesterday – it seems I am finally reclaiming my humanity.
In just the past few minutes, I exercised that humanity. I was going to describe two of the worst calls I had towards the end of my dispatching career until I realized that I was only putting notches in my belt by doing so. Perhaps I’m not humanity is not as reclaimed as I thought.