life and living

there have been a series of suicides both in the town where i teach
and our football rivals down the road the last couple of years. these
struck me, not because someone killed themselves. i understand how
things can become too heavy a load to carry. trust me, i do. these
struck me because they were all highschoolers. they haven't had time
to accumulate a load so heavy that they think their best option is
death. they shouldn't have accumulated that sorta load anyway. and i
wish that they could have seen that life is a trip, one we just can't
tell where it's gonna lead.

the most recent was a topic of discussion in the teacher's lounge over
lunch the other day because the boy who died was the cousin of a
couple of our students. the idea that there's gotta be something that
flips the switch, a chemical imbalance, or something, that sends
someone over that cliff came up. we've all been down. i know i have. i've
been down where i thought the best way up and out of the pain was
death. but that's all it ever was, just a thought. i never took
action. i never set a plan to off myself into motion.

i remember reading an essay of Camus's in The Myth of Sisyphus in
which he stated that people decide to commit suicide once a trigger
happens in their world. someone makes an offhand remark, the bus is
late, something small and seemingly insignificant happens, and
suddenly the person believes at that point that life is not worth the
trouble. i found that very profound. it's not despair or desperation
that does it, but sheer apathy.

i remember finding a connection between that and stories i read of the
holocaust. the people the survivors knew wouldn't make it were the
ones who had given up on trying to groom themselves in some way, of
not caring about how dirty they were. they had given up on the little
things.

maybe it's the little things that matter most. maybe hope is not some
grand gesture from the universe we all seem to want when we're clawing
our way from the bottom of a pit. maybe instead it's a good cup of
coffee, reading a well written book, someone saying, "thank you," when
you hold the door open for them, my children taking my hand when we
cross a street. that's what has helped me overcome despair, helped me
keep on, has let me fall asleep at night with the soot of the day
fresh on my skin to remind me of the little victories that have made
survival a life.

and what is good, phaedrus,
and what is not good...
need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
(from zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance)

indeed.

if i could give you a gift today, i'd have you let the good bolster
you, and have the bad make you stronger for having endured it.

ghost