Damn It, You’ve Got to Be Kind

The other day I came home to my wife sobbing. There she sat on the couch, her body trembling, tears pouring from her eyes.

Alarmed, I dropped my bag to the floor and ran to see if she was ok. I asked what had happened, and she explained that her coworker’s son had died, drowned while swimming in the river with his friends. The kid was 18 years old, preparing to start school at the University of Virginia in the fall.

I had met this coworker once before. She is a nice lady. Truth be known, I don’t know her very well. As a matter of fact, neither does my wife.

Or, maybe that’s not entirely fair. They’ve worked in the same office almost every day for the past year. But they didn’t spend time together outside of work. They didn’t talk on the phone. We never had her over for dinner. In other words, they were close in the way that agreeable coworkers are. Neither my wife nor I had ever met her son.

I say these things to describe my own thoughts, as the story first started to become clear in my head. My initial reaction of dread turned quickly to relief when I found out that the tragedy wasn’t as close to home as initially expected. I secretly invalidated the strength of my wife’s cause for grief.

Yes, I’m guilty of being emotionally coarse. And I think that’s how most people are. We don’t have true empathy until tragedy enters our own inner circle. But it always does. The key is remembering that.

Somehow my wife is able to keep this in perspective with no problems. Despite my own skepticism, this tragedy affected her deeply. For several days afterward, she cried intermittently. We talked about it at length, and I offered to help in any way I could. But I kept thinking that if the death of a kid who she didn’t know affected her that intensely, I couldn’t imagine how she would handle someone in our immediate family dying. And of course someone eventually will.

Meanwhile, another important event was occurring as a backdrop to all this. The Brexit vote had just occurred in the U.K. The news media was on fire with stories of doom and gloom, and many cynical comparisons with America were made. Even worse, the first two days afterward saw massive stock market routs that took a chunk out of my retirement funds.

The deeper I thought about it and the more I read, I became convinced that the Brexit was the first domino in a greater trend. I saw it as a sign that Western Civilization now sits on the precipice of epically dangerous times. At risk of oversimplifying, the world has become a chaotic place, where the twin evils of socialism and fascism have clawed back a not insignificant level of legitimacy among influential people. Where racial, religious and political violence dominates the headlines. Where an uncertain America lurches between partisan extremes, with no transcendent leaders in whom we can trust.

My outlook for a few days went decidedly rational and guarded. I spent a day tinkering with my family’s finances. Then I spent another couple days moving stocks around. My wife and I put together a bug-out bag. I took a handgun safety class at the local shooting range, and started researching security systems.

This went on for a week or so. I tried to be supportive of my wife’s simultaneous sadness, but my feelings about the issue were hardened. In scattered moments, I even resented her visceral, emotional reaction, passing it off as weakness.

Then something happened. My mother was rushed to the hospital for an emergency surgery. It was touch and go.

All my macho-driven calculation dropped away in an instant. Sitting in the waiting room at the ER, surrounded by the worry-sickened faces of my family members, I became acutely aware of the gravity of the situation. As my mother sat on the precipice of life and death, it dawned on me that if things didn’t go well, I would never see her smile again, hear her laugh, or spend an evening telling stories and sharing memories with the woman who raised me and taught me everything I know about compassion.

I am no stranger to death. I have witnessed several close friends and family members pass away in my life. But this was a dark realization.

Then a funny thing occurred to me. In the midst of that traumatic moment, my wife who has become closer to my mother than even me, was a rock. She was loving, supportive, under control and eager to help. I could see that she was terrified, but only because I know her so well. To the naked observer, she was composed.

Without going into the gritty details, my mother made it through surgery and everything is ok for the time being. The stock market rebounded and saw an excellent couple of weeks. And my wife has moved on from her mourning phase. All the dysfunction of those days seems to have passed. But the episode impressed upon me two important lessons for the future.

The first is that the news headlines will continue to be bad because we live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people and chaotic events. We are, for the most part, on our own in this battle, solely responsible for taking care of ourselves and our families. No one will do it for us. So it is important to stay in shape, be aware of our surroundings, prepare for the unexpected and have emergency plans in place. My instincts, on that at least, were on target.

But to truly cope with an uncertain and cruel reality, we have to do something more. We have to cultivate a kind heart. We have to be sensitive to the sacredness of life itself and understanding of the difficulty of loss and sorrow. Because tragedy will strike. Bad things will happen. To our friends, colleagues, family members and us. It doesn’t make you weak to feel and express immense pain at the notion of heartache.

Maintaining both a calculated flexibility and an open heart is the key to balancing the emotional and material worlds. No matter how kind we are, we’ll still need to eat. But no matter how tough we are, we’ll still have to face the great unknown that’s coming sooner or later.

So give money to charities, participate in your community and put yourself in touch with the less fortunate. Be good to your fellow citizens, and support those in pain. But also buy a gun or take a self-defense course. Just in case.