Wine is Fine . . . .

Since Memorial Day, it seems as if the world has moved at full throttle (5 points to you if you picked up on the two Ozzy references in the first 17 words, including the title). How many pictures have I taken? Not many. How many real photographs have I made? Even fewer. The plan to take a side trip to Yosemite fell through (but the consolation prize was dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Napa Valley). Case after case after hearing after hearing after client after client. The practice of law business of a law practice is a hell of a grind. I am now staring down the barrel of the next 3 months, and there doesn’t appear to be much of a break in sight. I’m not complaining; many people would beg to have a job to go to every day. I’m just drained of motivation.

One of my all-time favorite movies is The Shawshank Redemption. There’s a line in the movie where Andy says, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” Somewhere near the time that line was uttered on a network television broadcast of that movie two weeks ago, Joelle Glaysher of Bentonville took her life. How she did it—although shocking—is not important. Why she did—none of it was worth dying over—is not critically relevant either. The first thing many people would say about Joelle after meeting her is that she was beautiful, and indeed she was a pretty woman. She was happy (not so much, it turns out), and she had the biggest smile in the room. I could go on. Seriously, she was just the All-American girl next door, and everybody loved her. To say I was shocked upon learning of her death would be the understatement of the year. This is the second unexpected death of a dear friend from high school in about 14 months. I guess that’s where we are now—no more weddings and babies and reunions. Is it really going to be the case that our own funerals are next on the list of life events? I hope not.

Suicide is an everyday occurrence. According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control, for 2006 it was the eleventh leading cause of death in the United States, with one death occurring every 16 minutes. With more than 33,000 deaths annually in this country attributed to suicide, most of us surely know at least one person who has committed it. And for all who have succeeded, more have attempted it. Death is a part of life. We’ve all lost friends and family members, expectedly or not. We all are aware of the pain and grief that comes from losing a loved one. For me, I can right off think of four people I knew that took their own life. One was a friend of mine from church camp, who killed himself while we were freshmen in college. Two others were family friends of my wife’s family (one of whom I didn’t know well and the other a dear friend). And then Joelle.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about Joelle’s death is the aftermath. Two of her close friends practically radiated their pain and confusion. They were angry. They were frustrated that they couldn’t make sense of things. The mix of emotions I saw in their eyes was something I had never seen before. It’s hard to think of Joelle as a statistic, and because she was my friend she will never be one of the 33,000 who take their lives each year. But the truth probably is that she got busy dying long before two weeks ago. I’m sure that’s true of a lot of suicide victims (and if Blogger allowed footnotes I’d put one here to the effect of “Who, exactly, is a suicide 'victim'?"). I’ve pieced a few things together about what her burdens were, and then learned of a few other things that piled on in the days prior to her death. None of it was worthy of dying. I think I understand where she was—life as she perceived it was dragging her down. I don’t comprehend the despair, but I understand what motivates it.

Why is it so hard for us to get busy living, but so easy to get busy dying? I’m not sure I know the answer to that question. It’s very easy to get busy doing nothing. Being complacent—at work, in school, as a parent, as a spouse—is an American art form. Not really dying, but not really living, either. “Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes.” (Another footnote here to say that I didn’t even think of the next line of that song until after I typed this one.) Some of you know I’m a fan of Atlanta-based photographer Zack Arias. I posted this previously, but his video “Transform” is a challenge to the lethargic. Watch it. If you’re not busy living, you’re just rotting away.

So get busy living.