Honing The Edge of Loss
These are days of depletion, of withered hopes, of long hours, of loss. That feeling that the little ship inside me has run onto a jagged shoal and now there is a little slick of acid growing in the waters around it.
I have been interviewing for a new job, and have been quite hopeful that I was going to get it. But because of some remarkable bureaucracy jiggles and inflexibility, the moment has passed and I did not get the job. I made the mistake of allowing myself to believe that I was going to be awarded the position, and that belief lightened my mood at work and made things tolerable, even enjoyable. When I was in the Corps, a Marine who was nearing his end of tour on a particular duty station was said to have “short timer’s attitude,” which was attended by a slackening of attention to his current work or commitment, knowing that in a few days or weeks, he would be making the big swoop, off to a new adventure at a new duty station. The short timer’s attitude definitely puts a spring in the step and helps one to shrug off things that just a few months ago would have induced a state of anxiety, rage, or incredulity. I allowed myself to develop the short timer’s attitude, and now I am paying for it. Now, I arrive at work and know that my ticket has been cancelled, my reprieve revoked, and that I must settle in behind the gray walls and…what? Endure? I suppose that’s the best word I can find.
My mood has not been helped by a physical injury. I fell a few weeks ago outside and injured my shoulder. I have come to believe that it may be partially dislocated. I’ve tried the recommended methods for popping it back into place, but have been unable to do so. Sleep is at a premium these days, because no matter how I position myself, the pain soon awakens me, and then I awaken Mrs. Orr with my tossings, and it is a brutal business. But I am not quite desperate enough to seek professional medical treatment. I want nothing to do with those people right now.
Yesterday, I learned of a friend’s death. She was young enough to be my daughter, a kind and soft-hearted woman, devoted to her husband, always with a little smile on her open face. I spoke with her husband on the phone, and he told me while sobbing of how her life ended.
We were at home Friday night, and she was lying on the couch. She didn’t seem to be feeling well and I asked her, Are you okay, honey? She said My hip hurts. So I was rubbing her hip, and she said it felt good. I noticed that I could feel her skin through the sweatpants. Her hip was hot, like it had a fever in it. After a while, my arm got really tired and my hand was kinda cramping, so I said Honey, I need to run to the bathroom. I’ll be right back. She smiled and said Okay, and I went to the bathroom. I was gone maybe three minutes. I came back in and she was still lying there. I said something to her, I don’t know what, maybe Can I get you something to drink? but she never answered. I looked closer and she wasn’t breathing. I called her name and she didn’t answer, so I freaked out and started shaking her and calling her name. I slapped her face and tried to force her eyes open, but she didn’t come around. I felt for a pulse in her neck and in her wrist, but I couldn’t find one. I called 911 and kept trying to bring her around while waiting for them. They got there in about 15 minutes and started working on her while they loaded her into the ambulance. I rode with them and they worked on her all the way to the hospital. When we got there, they took her right to the ER and kept working on her, with shots and that defibrillator thing. But she never responded, and they finally had to give up and told me that she had passed on. The young doc pronounced her dead just before 10 that night.
Stricken, I asked him several questions about her health, her medical history, that sort of thing. his answers were bland, as was her medical history for the most part. And then he said something that made my breath catch in my throat.
She was fine. In fact, we were talking about how healthy we both are. We just went and got our Covid booster shots four days before this happened. I felt a little under the weather after I got mine, but she seemed fine.
We talked for a while longer, and I asked him to please keep in touch and let me know what Mrs. Orr and I might do for him, and then we hung up. And I sat and stared into the living air and listened to the litany in the temple of my mind.
The booster killed her. This phony Covid bullshit killed her.
And I believe this.
My heart hurts and my shoulder hurts, and all the pain is sharp and is growing sharper, and I wish my wife and I were sailing away from all of this, sailing on a gray sea with the wind at our back and ravens scouting ahead of us.
~ S.K. Orr
13 Comments
Brian
I’ve been thinking about this post and your sad story in the comments above. I have many of the same thoughts that you do and many similar experiences.
You and I were both police officers before moving on to greener pastures……and as you know, just about every pasture is greener.
I worked for about 2 years on “patrol”. Most of what we did was responding to 911 calls. It was a pretty large Metropolitan, department and we basically went from “job to job”……for 2 years….ugh. The good news was that we did very little traffic enforcement; “Traffiic” being a seperate unit.
For close to a year I worked in Emergency Services. This job got me out of the usual routine but put me into the less frequent, and more serious, “action”. I was in my early 20’s, not a cowboy, but I liked the adrenaline rush. (This, while realizing that I would be miserable in a few more years if I didnt move on.)
The suicides are still very hard to process….more than 30 years later. (One man shot himself while we, from the top of the basement stairs, tried to talk him out of it.)
I got the nickname of “the black cloud” because the violent and intense calls seemed to magically come when I was working.
Maybe I was the “black cloud” because God knew that I would later turn into a guy who prays for these seemingly hopeless people. At the time I wasn’t practicing my faith. One or two of my former squad-mates have seemingly “reverted” as well.
Your post has encouraged me to pray for those souls from my past; many that I had forgotten…….also the PO’s, many of whom had such messy personal lives, and a former partner, who also committed suicide.
admin
Brian, I really appreciate you giving us a glimpse into your past and some of the experiences that shaped you.
I believe making a focused, deliberate attempt to pray for people from our past, including those who have already died, is essential in avoiding the bleak mental, emotional, and spiritual landscape we see before us today. I will also confess that I am terribly inconsistent in my efforts to live a virtuous life, and that despair and discouragement ride on my shoulders, whispering at me most of my waking hours. The sheer overwhelming volume of open, blatant evil is enough to keep me off balance sometimes, and this is made even worse by looking around at other people and observing how dead their eyes are, and how nonchalant they are about horrors in their own lives and families.
Every hour, I am driven into silence, which I believe is absolutely crucial for spiritual survival today. We are too noisy, and we seek noise, and the noise obliges by blurring and hurrying our hours.
Again, thank you so much, Brian.
bruce g charlton
What follows is a hunch – treat it as such.
My impression is that you have adopted a spiritually defensive stance against an onslaught by purposive evil. The answer lies not in further defesive measures, but in moving into spiritual attack.
The necessary must come from your own insight and inner spiritual resources (since appeals to external resources have failed).
Understanding is the first step and may be sufficient – if not, then after the nature of attack is identified, known, felt with clarity; perhaps you will discern what you, personally, need to do.
admin
I do appreciate your telling me of your hunch, Bruce. Your impression is quite correct…I am in defensive mode. I can’t recall a time when I have ever felt as passive, impotent, and defensive. Compared to me, Hamlet was a tower of decisiveness and quick action.
I am already heeding your counsel and examining myself for insights so keenly that it is to the exclusion of much else in my daily life. I am cheered by the fact that my desire to attack is now growing hotter, and I like to think that when/if I can uncover what I must do, I will see it clearly and attack viciously and without hesitation.
Your counsel means much to me, my friend.
Genie
“He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.”
— Thomas Aquinas
If you search Thomas Aquinas and anger, there are some scholarly writings online that suit our current situation. My counselor says anger is good if it leads to action, bad if I stew in it or prolong it and uselessly spin. Take that for what it’s worth. Too bad you aren’t next door, I’d have you over for a glass of Widow Jane and a good rant. My husband’s getting tired of listening. 🙄
James
Genie, I appreciate you posting this. I can make use of this as well.
admin
Good stuff, Genie. Many thanks for posting it.
James
S.K.
A dear and trusted friend once told me that
“You may never know what worse luck your bad luck saved you from.”
JAMES
One foot in front of the other S.K.
We never get more than we can handle.
admin
“We never get more than we can handle.”
James, I don’t believe this. I’ve personally seen many, many people crumble under what was heaped upon them. Some years ago, I knew a troubled young man who was a beautiful soul. One night his troubles got the best of him. He hung himself in his bedroom. At his funeral, his mother told me that before he slipped the noose over his head, he had put on his stereo a loop of a Johnny Cash song, with the words, “Jesus, help me, Jesus help me, Jesus help me” playing over and over. These were the last words, the last sounds he ever heard. He stepped off that box and into eternity pleading — and letting a very screwed-up Arkansas hillbilly plead for him by technological proxy — for the one who said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” to save him. And yet, his mother found him swaying and ice-cold.
I’ve known many, many people who have been handed WAY more than they could handle. Oh, well, perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps they didn’t pray hard enough. Perhaps they weren’t pious enough. Didn’t tithe heavily enough. Said the wrong words in the wrong order. Thought the wrong thought at the moment the bell rang or the candle was lit.
No. No.
I’m sorry. It won’t do.
I believe, based on experience and not on what some theologian told me, that most of us get WAY more than we can handle.
I don’t have the answers. But I can’t accept these prefabricated pious Band-Aids any longer.
James, I do appreciate what you’re trying to communicate here. And I appreciate your thoughtfulness and concern. But I cannot accept any longer the passive idea that we’ll be put on the Dean’s List if we just grit our teeth while The Dean bends us over the cannon and flogs away.
James
I will be in prayer for you brother.
Look for the good, it’s there.
Michael Wirth
Dear Friend – my emotions are following a sine wave – agonizing grief then murderous rage back to painful sadness then back to…
It seems the evil one is advancing without restraint these days – I can only hope that the great Judge, our Saviour, is not far behind.
May Christ the Lord surround that husband with His peace and comfort and may ‘eternal rest be granted to his wife O lord – let perpetual light shine upon her’.
You and Mrs. Orr are in my prayers – please pray that my anger depart from me.
admin
Michael, I agree…evil is advancing with no man to check it. It’s difficult to know how to think about these things.
I know that my friend will be comforted in knowing that you are praying for him and for the repose of his wife’s soul, and thank you for the blessings you offered on behalf of her.
Mrs. Orr and I thank you for your prayers as well. But my friend, we will not pray that your anger depart from you. Anger is good and natural, as long as it does not run unchecked and distort your soul. To see evil and NOT be angry….that is the real danger. We will pray, rather, that your anger fuel righteous action. And may it be so with all those of us who feel fettered against wickedness in these evil days.