Friends. I lost my job on Wednesday. My life is like too many others' in this regard. But I suspect there is a difference and I want to share it with you. Please read on - there's a larger point made by the end.
When my wife Nancy was 6 her mom was murdered (case still open) and shortly thereafter Nancy's father began sexually abusing her. Nancy survived childhood and despite her abuse became the most empathic, caring person I've ever know. We married in 1974 shortly after meeting. I was always attracted to dark personalities and Nancy was indeed dark along with being funny and exceptionally intelligent. We moved to NYC in 1979 and I got a job as a software engineer and she got one as a librarian assistant at Columbia University. We lived in a high rise on 93rd and 1st with a view facing Spanish Harlem. In the early 80's Nancy's demons surfaced in the form of depression and anxiety and "acting out". The diagnosis was PTSD though I think it was called something else at the time. She had to quit her job as her health deteriorated and she went from 135 pounds to under 100 pounds in a few months. At times Nancy's behavior was the sort that destroys marriages. I saw her problems as a reflection of sickness and refused to abandon her. Those words "in sickness and in health" were part of a solemn promise and for whatever blend of nature and nurture I take promises as seriously as one can. It took 7 years for Nancy to recover. During those seven years Nancy's behavior exposed her to unpredictable risks. Nancy has always been, and still is, very pretty. On top of that she was vulnerable in the way that predators can sense instantly. She was raped by "a friend", robbed and otherwise used and abused over these years by the usual cast of characters that life has to offer. I was always there to pick up the pieces, along with dedicated health providers, but my own personality was beginning to change from my exposure to so much pain. I began to develop an empathy that initially got me labeled as a bleeding heart by friends. I suspect many in this community can relate. I didn't just drop my spare change into the cups of the homeless people whose ranks swelled owing to the horrors of "de-institutionalization" during the 80's. Rather, I tended to stop and talk to these people to see if they could use practical advice. More often than not these poor souls taught me something about survival on the streets. But I'm digressing. The point is that I began a long journey of getting involved with people who needed help, not because of a proper sense of charity, but rather, as a result of feeling what I imagined they felt. One look into their eyes was all it usually took.
We moved back to our hometown in Pennsylvania in 1987, mainly to find a calmer environment. We enjoyed 14 years of prosperity and relative good health. I owned and ran a successful software engineering company that employed 12 people at its peak. Then 9/11 hit. I lost my company and sold my modest home in the bursting dot com bubble. I had good reserves and eventually was able to find a job. However, owing to all the stress Nancy's old demons began to resurface. In 2005 she began the old familiar pattern of anxiety, depression and seeking out the company of questionable friends. She moved out. I was devastated and threw myself into my work until a pivotal event occurred. In the summer of 2005 the local police stun gunned a friend during a traffic stop. He was then 66 years old. He's a 5'2" Italian immigrant who was well known and well liked in the community. His English is broken and he "talks with his hands" a lot. I threw my self into the cause of getting the police to explain how their taser use policy justified their actions. They refused to release the dashboard video and refused to reveal their taser policy. You can see the details of my effort at mlcop.com. I made a few appearances on TV news and I made a few public speeches at official meetings. My bleeding heart took the next step into full blown activism. I went from a wall flower to a confident and apparently effective public speaker. I used the issue to craft a campaign mailing using demographics and psychographics and highly customized and targeted language to help elect a democrat to the municipality's commission. This democratic candidate was sympathetic to the notion of sunshine for the secret taser policy. The morning after "my" candidate won I called my friend's son, Tony. He was perhaps a closer friend than even his father was to me.
Tony didn't answer the phone. I made some other calls and within minutes I learned that he had died in the night. Eventually I learned that his death was brought on by a combination of extreme weight, steroid abuse for high school football and what the press reported as "cocaine toxicity". We had all hoped, prayed and thought that he had kicked his addiction problems. I literally ran to his house.
My empathy and imagination kicked into overdrive as I helped the family through their ordeal. He left behind 3 kids, the youngest of them 2 years old. Later that night as friends and family gathered, I held his grieving wife in my arms. She pleaded with me to tell her if Tony knew that she loved him. Apparently the problems caused by addiction led her to say some harsh things and her fear was that Tony thought that she hated him. Then Tony's parents went through a similar ritual with me. First his father, the taser victim. Then his mother. Did you ever cry yourself into dehydration? The following days, weeks and months were gut wrenching for me as I found myself in the epicenter of so much grief. My own grief was in there somewhere but it was nothing compared to the vicarious grief of others.
This experience repeated itself when my Mom died in 2006, the victim of our pathetic health care system. It repeated itself again when my sister died at aged 52 from insidious complications of Crohn's Disease (and our pathetic health care system). I always found myself soothing others' grief almost as if I were taking if from them and storing it inside myself in some vast, impermeable reservoir. Nancy ran out of options with her lifestyle and I took her back in. We have been making progress since then, both as a couple and as wounded souls.
When I came home to tell Nancy that I had lost my job, the pain and fear in her eyes triggered my usual reaction of wanting and needing to console her. At some point I went into the bathroom to wash my hands. When I looked into the mirror I was paralyzed by my own eyes. Fear. How will I care for my afflicted wife without insurance? Grief. What have I lost? Despair. How will I live? For the first time in my life the old familiar feelings, like the ones triggered by all those eyes that had captured me over the years, were authentically my own.