J.

Last week I heard that J. killed himself. I was surprised to hear that, as were most people I know. He was friendly and sociable, helpful and well known. He worked at the thrift store, and if you live in Bisbee you go to the thrift store if you need to get something, get rid of something, just feel like shopping or getting out. It’s our version of the mall. I did not hear any of the details at the time.

     Sometime later a friend said that she had heard that J. had been a user of a certain street drug. Hearing that became one of those moments when I could clearly watch my thoughts and feelings emerge and take shape. The hearsay was irrelevant to me; the sadness of his passing and my imagining his pain or anguish was unaltered. But, I did think of how sometimes, some of us tend to hide behind that sort of reasoning, as if this made his suicide more comprehensible and in some way, more remote as something that could happen to us or someone close to us. Even the possibility is a threat and so we create distance and separation.

     YET, and I can say what I am going to say without having to exclude our individuality, if we finally face our own mortality and the full kaleidoscope of the human condition as it lives in us, we might not feel so threatened and compelled to build boundaries. Even though we are all born with and into different circumstances and create more conditions as we live, there is a basic condition of the mind and the ways it responds to life that is prior to our differences. It is not ours in the sense of yours or mine, but ours in a collective sense. I don’t know what the pain J. suffered was, but I know what pain is, and I think we are all capable of responding in ways that harm ourselves. If we don’t, we are fortunate and it is by the grace of the whole world. We should bear witness to those less fortunate.

     I grew up in a Jewish home and being aware of the holocaust was akin to learning how to walk or talk. As I grew older there was a shift and I realized how important this awareness was to all of humankind, not solely as a horrible event in Jewish history. There are reasons why the world should never forget, that it is not enough to forgive, punish, and pay retribution. Remembering is the only true justice because what we need to learn over and over is its very possibility. It can happen again (and has with no less horror.) This kind of expression of hate, violence, and fear is part of the full array of being human. It does not belong solely to the other guy or other nation or some other time. This acceptance of who we are, individually and collectively, is the starting place of healing and transformation. Denial lets our demons and fears rest in the dark until another day.

     Often our world seems too big, too incomprehensible, and plain old too crazy to respond to in the ways we would like to. I’d like to share one of the greatest of inspirational sayings and teachings that I know, one that has been etched into my mind; from Mother Teresa: “You   cannot not do great things, only small things with great love.” I hold the belief that when we break the boundaries between ourselves and others we make ourselves available and capable in ways we cannot quite fathom beforehand.

     I am sorry of J.’s passing. He must have been hurting. His helpful friendly manner showed that he had a lot of love and compassion to share. I hope his passage will be guided by that love and that compassion.

Be well.