OPINION

PHILIP MARTIN: Keeping hope (and friends) alive

So on we worked,

and waited for the light,

And went without the meat,

and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory,

one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet

through his head.

-- E.A. Robinson, "Richard Cory"

I remember going to the hospital. I remember the name of the girl who made him so upset.

She was pretty. She was a year behind us, so when he was a freshman at Louisiana Tech she was still in high school. He went with her to the prom and got teased a little about that.

I don't think she was his first real girlfriend, but she may have been.

What I don't remember is getting the call. Was it from his mother? Was it summer? It was hot. He was probably in summer school, which means I probably was working in Shreveport when it happened. I think I would remember driving up from Baton Rouge if it hadn't been summer. My memory is an unreliable narrator: I can't put a year on it. He was in college, and his roommate, who later became an NFL strength coach, had a long-haired guinea pig; they used to style its fur with a mustache comb. That I remember.

Also the hospital, its stomach-clenching antiseptic smell and shadow-repellent checkerboard linoleum. I remember the nurses, all white hose and shoes and clattering officiousness.

Or so it seemed. From their perspective, he was needlessly occupying a bed, needlessly occupying them. He hadn't been serious, the ones who meant it went out in the woods with a gun. They didn't drink whiskey and take pills and call the girls who'd broken up with them to tell them goodbye. I'm sure they perceived him as self-indulgent and soft.

He wasn't; he was a tough kid who grew up poorer and worked harder than the rest of us. He was a boxer and a basketball teammate, and I was always a little nervous when we went out together on a Friday or a Saturday night because he really liked to fight. I loved him.

But this episode--what I called in my father's voice in my head a "stunt"--made me angry. And ashamed for him.

That wasn't right, but it is how it was. I perceived it as an ugly, aggressive act, and attempt to wound the nice girl--and she was a nice girl--who finally had to tell him she wasn't interested in continuing (or escalating) whatever relationship they had. She fired him. So he tried to hurt her.

And I imagine he did. And his mother too; as well as other innocent collaterals.

Though we never talked about it, he knew what we all thought and it didn't take too long for him to acknowledge the cruelty of his actions. He wasn't too hard on himself, but he felt appropriately bad about it. He went on and did well. He had a career, money, daughters who became doctors. Every now and then we touch base.

I don't remember what I said to him in the hospital, but I should have been more compassionate. I'm bad in those situations, the vulnerability of friends in flimsy gowns with tubes in their arms leaves me feeling scraped out. It reminds me how provisional our waking time is, and how deep a sleep will eventually overtake us all. I'm not the person you want to cheer you up after you come out of your coma.

We feel things differently when we are young. We are stupid and self-dramatizing. Our hearts break and it is as though some vital mainspring has sprung. When we are young we can imagine no repair.

But there is repair. Sometimes--most times--we can be put back together. We can scoop our insides off the sidewalk and move on. We need to know this.

Now it is stupid to repeat Nietzsche's Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker (usually translated as "what does not kill me makes me stronger") in this context. What doesn't kill you can leave you crippled, gun-shy and neurotic. What doesn't kill in the moment might get you down the road.

You probably don't want to adopt a facile aphorism once used as the slogan for the Nazi's Hitler Youth camps as your personal motto.

I couldn't pass a pop quiz on Anthony Bourdain. I was aware of his persona but didn't watch his show. He was probably a very interesting man, and as celebrities go, probably as authentic as those who live significant portions of their lives in front of cameras. I feel bad for him in the abstract way people might feel bad for anyone who has experienced so much pain that tying it off presents as an attractive option. But my guesses about him are not worth giving breath.

These days people talk about depression as a medical condition subject to be treated like any other disease. But your life position also has something to do with your state of mind; it's not irrational to be depressed when you're stressed about your situation. All of us are complicated and capable of getting in a position where we no longer care if we lose so long as we can make sure our rivals don't win. All of us are capable of self-destructive pettiness.

But we're also capable of living for something larger than ourselves. We're capable of compassion for others, we're capable of kindness. And sometimes kindness is enough to kindle hope.

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Editorial on 06/17/2018

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