The Nature of Life

Sometimes I hear and see things I don’t want to hear and see.  That’s the nature of working in the field of psychiatry. The other day I sat down with someone who said little but I could see the terrible pain and tortured thinking on the face of the individual. They had lived in oppressive conditions for a number of years. They’d witnessed horrible deeds done by other humans. They’d heard terrible stories of atrocities. They struggled to tell about these things but I didn’t need to hear. I could see the stories in their face. In their eyes. In the way their body slumped. The way their hands moved.

Sometimes atrocity and horror can’t be explained or described. I’m well aware of that. I have my own demons from jungles and paddies of Vietnam. They haunt me almost daily but I’ve never been able to fully describe or explain what I witnessed. What I smelled. What I touched. Even watching old film footage fails to capture that atmosphere of terror and evil.

This is the nature of life in our world today. Evil persists. Sometimes it triumphs. We can lose ourselves in the darkness of it. We can turn to evil as our own way of living. We can allow it to crush us.

There is another part of life, however. Only days before I met with the individual so much in pain we reunited with my wife’s niece, Richele, and her husband, Dan.

When we were young we saw Richele once a year in Erie, Pa. during our annual trip with the kids to visit their grandparents. After she and Dan married, it became the periodic funerals of my wife’s family members.

We met at funerals and always told one another we needed to quit meeting like this. But we’d leave shortly after the funerals and wouldn’t meet again until the next funeral. The last meeting was at the funeral of Richele’s father. My wife’s brother.

I think we might have thought we'd seen each other the last time. Even with some talk about them coming to Denver in the fall. Those are things we'd always say at funerals.

 Sometimes life brings us surprises that are positive and very welcome. Sometimes life brings us unexpected times of genuine love. Richele and Dan came to Denver for business conferences. They wanted to meet for an afternoon they had free.

For one glorious autumn day we shared a ride into our beloved mountains with them. The sky was the pristine blue of a Colorado day. The sun was warm and bright. And the company was fun and comforting. We walked the tundra with mountain winds chilling our faces. We peed behind bushes. Drank lattes and coffee in Frisco. Beer in Breckinridge. Walked the streets of the mountain town. Ate dinner near the 16^th Street Mall in Denver. We talked about our lives and politics. And kids. We enjoyed one day of life together.

For one special day, life wasn’t about the rigors of work or doing household chores. Or pursuing our interests in making things better. It was just life. And family. We toasted one another. Hugged each other and parted ways in downtown Denver. And told one another we loved each other. That we should meet again before ten years passed.

It’s the nature of life. And sometimes life is good.