For those of you who are familiar with my prior writings, you know that I often like to communicate through humor. But today I’m feeling almost overwhelmingly sad, and I’m trying to channel that energy into something constructive and useful.
This past weekend was a busy one for the county Medical Examiner’s office (which is mostly me). There were two unexpected deaths, one each on Saturday and Sunday. Both mornings I had been trying to sleep in, but was wakened by the ringing phone and a request by dispatch to come to the scene. I will not go into particulars, but the scenes could not have presented a greater contrast. Scene one was a study in abject poverty and chaos; scene two a study in affluence and order. One case involved a grown man, the other a young child. The man’s death was accidental and highly preventable; the child’s death was natural and completely unavoidable.
In so many ways these two deaths represented polar opposites, and yet in one important way they were exactly the same. They both involved loving parents who are now experiencing the unspeakable sadness of the unexpected death of a child.
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In many ways I am well cut out for my work as Medical Examiner. I have a relatively calm demeanor; I don’t really mind being called at odd hours of the day and night; I have a respectable degree of medical expertise; I have an inquisitive and generally analytical way of thinking; I am a keen observer; and I no longer faint at the sight of blood.
But I have another quality that at times can make this job overwhelming. I have an overdeveloped sense of empathy. It’s as if while the rest of my senses have been walking for exercise, my empathy has been doing Cross Fit while taking steroids.
Empathy, of course, is the ability of one person to feel what another person is feeling. I have this in spades. I can’t watch those “fail” videos on YouTube that cause my sons to belly laugh because I feel the pain. I know they are just silly videos of silly people doing stupid things (generally involving high speed, a solid object, and a head or crotch), but the effect they have on me is real pain. I have to leave the room and cover my ears.
So I’m feeling really sad today, almost overwhelmingly sad, because for just a moment I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like. I investigated two unfortunate deaths this past weekend. With the gentlest of footsteps I entered each of the scenes, made note of the contrasts between the two, of the chaos and the order, the poverty and privilege, the drug pipes and the infant Tylenol, the dirty clothes and the neatly folded diapers. And today I allowed myself to remember something I saw: a baby gate at the bottom of a set of stairs. For a moment my empathy overcame me, I became for a brief instant the father of the baby. I am looking at that gate and I realize it isn’t necessary anymore, and I know what that means, I know what has been lost, and I can feel the wail of grief in my throat and the tears burning my eyes. And I am talking again to an elderly mother, miles away on the other end of a phone. She would like an autopsy of her grown son who had always been so healthy, so she could know for sure what had killed him. “But I don’t have any money,” she said.
“I didn’t wake up this morning thinking I would learn that my son was dead.”
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I would like to channel this sadness I am feeling into something constructive and useful. But I am afraid you will think me crass, think that I am using two terrible tragedies to promote an agenda. So I’m going to keep it plain and simple.
What I am about to say is not political, it is moral. It is not about donkeys and elephants. It is about empathy and sadness.
Our nation is walking toward the edge of an abyss, and on Nov. 8 we will be staring down into the pit. Will we step back, or will we jump in?
There is too much pain and sadness in this world. Can you feel it? I know I can.
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