Life and death are complicated. They contain moments of ease, and they can also be messy – both literally and metaphorically. I confess that I sit here in judgment.
the "whole" truth
Speaker for the Dead
A long time ago, I read Ender’s Game and what stuck with me all these decades later is the Speaker for the Dead, who is a eulogist who tells the true, full story of the deceased. That resonated with me because I always felt like funerals never told the truth about the person who died – or at least they didn’t tell the whole truth.
So, let me share the “whole” truth that I know about my best friend from college. The day I received the phone call, I was told that she died early that morning in a car accident. No other details were shared with me in that phone conversation, but I knew her and I suspected from that knowledge what had happened.
News reports now confirm what I suspected upon hearing the news of her car accident. Initial reports indicated that she drove south in the northbound lane and her car struck another car, killing that driver as well as herself. I waited for the full truth to come out. The first facts to emerge included the time of day, the location, and the names of the two fatalities. The "final" fact was confirmed about two months after the accident.
impact
Context Matters
The innumerable comments made on her employer’s announcement of her death highly praised my friend and her passion and compassion. These comments were from her supporters, her admirers, her friends. The Speaker for the Dead had not yet arrived.
I’m not sitting in judgment here; after all, I am a friend of hers as well and can speak highly of her good qualities, of her being a fiercely loyal friend. However, I knew more was to come.
Then, a few comments filtered in and pointed to her messy death. The Speaker for the Dead could show up now with not just her best qualities, but also the qualities that made her a human being including virtues and flaws. These new-to-the-scene voices chimed in choosing the word that had previously sung her praises and was now used in a less-than-flattering way.
She went from having a positive impact to the metal-crunching impact that took away the life of another human being. These commenters wondered why everyone was ignoring the facts of the situation, which did include a family now mourning their dead husband and father – who had been innocently driving home from his night shift – because of her decisions and actions.
of me
My Judgment
This and world allows us to see both the virtues and the flaws of a person if we choose to do so, which brings me to my sitting here in judgment.
I am not judging the people who experienced my friend in the best ways possible and who are mourning the loss of their mentor, their teacher, their colleague, their sister, their daughter, their mother, their grandmother, their friend.
I also am not judging the people who are devastatingly suffering from her actions.
I sit here judging me ... the me who has always been self-righteous upon hearing about a drunk-driving accident, who has always judged those involved in something that I would never do. It’s been so simple from where I sit to sit in judgment of others and their decisions.
I am sorry for all the times I decided that I knew better. Because now I know the other side of the story. I now realize and recognize that I sat in judgment of innumerable people in stories where I knew only a small portion. I had no right to sit in judgment.
ands
Some of the Things
I don’t know everything about my friend, but these are some of the things I do know:
A) Her life was exceptionally difficult, perhaps starting a couple months after her birth when her young father was killed by a train.
B) She had a passion for teaching, which included high expectations for her students and for her colleagues.
C) She had high expectations for herself as well.
D) She drank a lot and truly believed she could “handle” all that she drank.
E) She was fiercely loyal to her family and friends.
F) She did not tolerate stupidity or ignorance.
G) She encouraged and inspired many of her students to do better for themselves and their community.
H) She respected those who were confident and compassionate even when she disagreed with them.
I) She chose friends who were interesting or different.
J) Almost from the moment I met her, I realized death was her enemy. She ran from it every chance she could, and it chased her relentlessly throughout her entire life.
my heart aches
The Final Lesson
Thus, I am not surprised by her manner of death – both sudden and violent. That’s how life showed up for her in large part, yet her capacity to love was just as large. She is both an inspiration and a lesson to be learned. She is love and she is struggle. She is rich and she is poor.
All of us have our own ands, so I thank her for sticking with me for more than 40 years and teaching me many valuable lessons that my own life would not have given me the opportunity to learn.
The final lesson that I learned from her? That I was sitting in judgment when I clearly never should have been. It’s easy to quickly decide from afar through the lens of news reporting how someone should have made a different decision.
It is much more difficult to admit that someone you love is flawed and that they have been judged by others because of the pain and suffering they have caused.
Although my heart aches for the family and friends of the other driver and my heart aches for my friend, who fought her whole life to be the best person she could be in spite of her circumstances, I am also grateful to have the opportunity now to bring compassion to others’ circumstances and leave my judgment behind.