Some things just stay with you. They are often things you would prefer to go away and stay away.
Why is it that I have trouble remembering the name of someone, which I want to remember, but can’t ever let go of other events or thoughts that I would prefer to never think of again?
I don’t know the answer, but I sure wish I did. This post is the product of one of those things, that I cannot eradicate from my memory, no matter how much I would like to. It remains afresh in my mind in all its particulars, all it’s nuances, all its frightening implications and yes even shame. It comes to mind when someone says something, or I see something, and the whole matter is triggered again. I go over it in my mind, and ask the same questions. I find, sadly no fresh insights.
They say that such things keep recurring until we work through whatever psychological garbage needs to be cleared. That may be. I was not personally engaged in this event in the sense that I feel any direct responsibility for it. I was mostly a witness. Sadly, it has led me to a conclusion that I fail all to often to put into practice. Perhaps that is the reason it returns periodically to disturb my equilibrium.
As some of you know, I was once a lawyer. I worked in a public, though privately held poverty law office. One of my colleagues committed suicide. This occurred I would say in the area of twenty years ago, give or take a few. We were an office of less than thirty attorneys so you could say I knew him fairly well.
We did not get along, in fact we had a couple of rather public shouting matches. He was not a personality I enjoyed. He was a black man, only child of an older couple. He had gone to UofM law school. I went to WSU. There is no comparison nationally, UofM is in the second tier of universities nationally, right behind the ivy league schools.
He was adamant that he had gotten in there through his own great talent. A number of black women begged to differ with him, arguing that he had to thank a number of blacks who had carved the way before him in the civil rights movement, and affirmative action as well. He arrogantly denied that. Since he was a fairly lousy attorney, I tended to think he got lucky.
As I said, we didn’t get along. He was a strange man, always kind of exploding into a room and doing physical antics to attract attention and gain everyone’s view. In a conversation, he was dominating and would argue condescendingly until you gave up and agreed he was right. He never failed to remind me that I had gone to MSU as an undergrad, and “pat pat on the head” everyone knows that it doesn’t compare to the prestige of the Wolverine nation.
Now Michigan people and MSU people always scrabble about their school being better. MSU was a land grant college meant to teach agriculture in the early years. It is still referred to as the farmer school or ag college, sometimes the cow college. As I said, UofM is a rung down from the ivy league crowd. Still, over the years MSU has attained its fame. It has one of the best veterinary schools in the country, perhaps the best. It has other claims to fame.
The jousting between grads of both schools goes on in good humor for the most part. With BH (his initials) there was a decidedly mean spirited one-up-man-ship going on. He wore a pin in his lapel notifying the world that he was from UofM. He was singular in this respect to any other attorney I knew, and I knew some that had gone to real ivy league schools such as Yale.
He was married, about a year or so, and had just had the pleasure of becoming a father. He gave no outward sign that anything was amiss in his life, other than confiding to a friend that the long nights with the baby were unpleasant. No one had reason to believe that there was trouble in his marriage. Nothing after the suicide ever came to the fore to explain it either. No skeleton in the closet as it were. No hidden homosexuality, no criminal behavior, no scandal about to explode onto the legal scene. It remains to this day, as far as I know, inexplicable.
It was not an accident.
A week before his successful suicide, he had a botched one. He jumped off the Belle Isle Bridge. It is not an especially high one, separating the mainland from the city owned island park. He was fished out the of the drink by a passing boat and lodged in Detroit General psychiatric ward. A couple of days later he was released, having promised that it was a mistake and he wouldn’t do it again. A week later he jumped from his apartment terrace, a twenty five story drop. He got it right that time. No doubt his wife is well off now, since I’m sure the hospital paid the price for what all would agree was some culpability.
We had a private psychiatrist brought in to have a session with us at the office. Some cried, others talked, I kept my mouth shut. Our relationship or lack of it was known, and I felt my sentiments would not be well thought of. No one of course said anything unkind to me, I just felt many would not think my sympathy quite sincere. I dutifully attended the memorials and funeral. I remained silent.
I find suicide just not understandable except in one instance, that of terminal and painful disease. I can see ending the pain. Barring that, I can’t imagine the mind that can do this. I simply can’t. Macabre as it may seem, I still wonder what he was thinking as he fell. I can’t imagine how you make that final catastrophic move from which there is no return. How do you “step off” into oblivion? I don’t know as there is an answer to the above.
But every time I return to this event, those questions come forth. As time went on, I felt the nagging shame come over me. No I do not inappropriately take any responsibility for this. We were not friends, he didn’t confide in me. He had friends and loving relatives as best I can tell. He was liked by a few at our office and tolerated with a smile by most. We conducted ourselves in a business like manner, I just had no interest in socializing with him.
The shame is that we don’t and will never know why. But I cannot help but feel that my rejection such as it was was one factor in his decision. It may have been one of ten thousand, of which five hundred were singularly more important, but I didn’t contribute to the reasons for living in his mind.
I try to live by that, and I fail. I try to remember that I never want to be the final straw in someone’s life. Yet, I find myself all too often being brusque, rude, insulting, dismissive, unkind, arrogant, superior, and a whole host of negative things to other people from time to time. Mostly on the Internet, that great anonymous persona machine, I can slither into and out of so easily. I don’t have to meet you anywhere in my life. You are neither family, nor neighbor, nor friend, nor workmate, nor part of any of my physical world. I can dismiss you with the flick of a mouse. And so, I and you and we, are often most mean to each other.
And who knows when we, I or you, are that last straw? It haunts me, and I pray for God’s grace to again see Jesus’ face in each person I encounter. Even those who have no face, and are but a name, or pseudonym. The devil is that this person who was not my friend has had a greater impact on my life than many who I know well and care about. I bet he would be amazed at that, I bet he would.
***The title of this blog comes from a great line in the last episode we have seen of “Wonderland” a HBO series offered through Direct TV on channel 101. The show is about a NYC hospital and more specifically its psychiatric wing. The doctors and their personal travails are the focus, but there are usually a couple of “cases” that are woven through the show each episode. This remark was made by a man to his wife after she had been diagnosed with “Pick’s disease”, an Alzheimer’s like dementia. Her symptoms included increased sexual drive directed toward nearly any chance encounter and the desire to eat and taste nearly anything at hand. She had picked up a model of the human brain, and absentmindedly started to lick it. Find it and watch it. It’s quite simply wonderfully done.
****
Credit for the poster at the top: “Person at the Window”, by Salvador Dali. Obtained from http://art.com.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Existential Ennui 