Your Child's Fear

My brother and his 3 year old son Logan were over the other day for dinner. When they arrived the lights in the hallway just beyond the frontdoor and entrance were turned off, they came inside but Logan wouldn't move beyond the illuminated entranceway. My Dad greeted them and called Logan over to him, but my little nephew whine and clung to his father.

I didn't get it until my Dad asked Logan if he wanted to play with his toys which are kept in a closet near the frontdoor. Logan took one look at the unlit hallway and ran to his Dad's side.

It made me profoundly sad to see such a young innocent boy already touched by fear.

I remember being young and scared, and fear when you are young is amplified by innocence, by the very fact that everything is new and strange. Children live in an uncertain world mollified by the warmth and surety of their parents.

I discovered later that Logan is scared of snakes as well, a fear that his mother shares. I guess you can pass on your own fears to your children. You would think one would do everything possible to keep a child from developing an irrational fear.

Saturday

I had to go to the doctor’s office today. When I say ‘office’ what I really mean is the walk-in clinic, because in British Columbia it is virtually impossible to get a ‘family doctor’ to whom you could go regularly and who would know you and your history, and most importantly with whom you could make a scheduled appointment. The walk-in clinics are first come first serve almost invariably.

It’s been seven weeks and my burn is healing very slowly. It looked like I had re-infected it. But it was a Saturday and the clinic I usually go to was closed, so I figured I better get down there earlier than later.

I got lucky. The wait was only an hour. I sat and waited while people came and went. I wasn’t without entertainment.

That particular clinic has the worst privacy policies I have ever seen or heard of in the medical industry, and trust me, I’ve dealt with the medical industry my whole adult life. This is how it goes: you walk up to the front desk, they ask your first and last name, they loudly ask you if you still live at address, then they ask you to tell them why you want to see the doctor.

You read that right, the secretary wants you to tell her why you're there in front of a waiting room full of waiting patients. It's bad enough that when they take you in, they put you in an examination room and leave the door open, so that anyone walking by to another examination room can see you, including people you know.

The first time I went there, I was behind someone when they asked that last question. When it was my turn, I told the secretary that my herpes was flaring up. I succeeded in shocking her momentarily until I told her I was joking. I was there for a burn.

So this time, as I waited, I entertained myself by eavesdropping on how people would describe their malady – at first, as they walked in, I tried to guess their problem and then listened to see if I was right. I was wrong every time. I guess I had better stay out of the medical industry.

The oddest problem I overheard was this huge late middle aged dude who came in with his wife and was forced to announce that he had lost part of a Q-Tip in his ear. I guess the wife rolled her eyes at the secretary and they both laughed at him.

Have you ever noticed that laughing at men, especially husbands and fathers, has become not only culturally acceptable but also encouraged by our culture? It's everywhere from talk shows to sitcoms to standup comedians to movies. Are women really that insecure? It's irritating to see men treated like monkeys to be laughed at. I have caught myself making fun of myself as a man because I know women find it funny. I regret it now, and even though I feel a cultural pressure to be self effacing, I try to resist it.

Humble, yes; weak, no.

When Death Is A Relief

Last weekend on Sunday a friend of mine got the news her son was dead. He was a drug addict, heroin mostly. He had been in and out of rehabilitation centers for years. He had gone to jail for fraud and larceny, crimes he committed to support his habit. He had stolen from his family, friends. And last week at 36 years old, he collapsed in the bathroom of a donut shop. His name was Jay.

Jay was one of God's children. I can't help thinking that he was exactly the kind of person Jesus would spend time with and try to help: shitty upbringing, never caught a break, mental health issues in the family, addiction, incarceration, heavy doses of self hate. The degrees of separation between a guy like Jay and someone like me are marginal. Life is that fragile. If I had had different parents, or maybe a different type of accident than the one I suffered, an accident that got me an addiction to pain medication perhaps - that is how thin the line is between the paths towards good and bad lives.

I have heard it said that God gives us challengers we can handle. I want to believe that's true. I've even heard myself say it.

The irony is that knowing I could easily be in their shoes doesn't make me more likely to embrace addicts and people with troubled lives, to take them in and show them compassion and love. But I don't feel humbled. Knowing I could be them, rather, makes me more wary of them, because I know what I would be like in their shoes, and that is a scary person.

I am ashamed to say it. But what would I be if I didn't tell the truth.

Whitney Huston died a few days ago. I have no idea if it was suicide or not, but as far as I can tell, Whitney could as easily overdosed on purpose.

These deaths made me think about people and their lives. There are so many people living in pain every day, psychological pain or physical pain; it doesn't surprise me people want to bury their pain with drugs or simply end it all. I used to think suicide was selfish. I don't think that anymore. If you are in so much pain that all you can think is to find a way to end it, if your life is really that dark, then all I have for you is compassion and understanding, that and the suggestion that you wait just a little longer.

I used to hear suicide earned you a ticket to hell. I guess Catholics used to teach that, a so called mortal sin. I don't know if they still preach that doctrine anymore, but I do know you won't find it in the Bible. The Bible, in fact, has very little to say about taking your own life. I have little doubt it's a sin, because essentially you are committing murder as your final act as a living person.

Suicide, specifically, seems to have a devastating effect on those that are left behind, maybe because it's relatively rare, maybe because it's such a statement of pain and sadness and hopelessness, maybe because it carries the stigma of mental illness. I don't know. I just know I hear people say, "there was a suicide in that family, or that person's father committed suicide, or something like that" - and I've heard that a suicide in a family makes it more likely that there will be another.

But living in pain or without hope can become unbearable. Some people don't understand this but it's true. The rehab center I went to after had my accident had three floors. The rooms on the second floor housed patients that did not need fulltime help or that were on their way out and learning to live on their own; the third floor was occupied with the brain damaged and stroke victims; and the fourth floor, the one I stayed on, was occupied with people who needed fulltime help, mostly quadriplegics, severe burn injuries, and the severely arthritic. These last two types of patients taught me a lot about pain, about how much a person can take.

I had a roommate with burns over 60% of his body. His truck flipped over and gasoline ran into the cab and lit on fire. At first when they changed his bandages, he would scream through clenched teeth and moan for hours even though they had him pumped full of pain meds. But he was a family man; he had something to live for. Hope is huge.

My great aunt committed suicide much like Whitney Huston probably did. She drowned in the bathtub while overdosed on pills. My mother tells me she had been depressed for years thanks to an asshole for a husband and his overbearing mother who had moved in with them. I have to think that a loving God would have mercy.