The Guy Fell In: Do Over

When death comes to a house near you, it is always a shock. Even when it is expected, we still experience that feeling. It is so final. This person has died, there are no do overs. It is over. I wrote this story, The Guy Fell In, the other day. It was a story about the goings on of my town, and my life. In that story, I was the dispassionate observer. A witness to the rescue of a stranger and a participant in my own life. In the first story, a man was rescued. In this story he dies. In the first story I did not know him. In this story, I did. I am no longer a dispassionate observer. I am now saddened.

The man at the heart of this story has a name. It is Allen. He was pulled out of the Mill Creek Canal by fire/rescue workers. That is what we know. Word on the street is that he was beaten up and pushed into the canal. The canal is cement. It is about fifteen feet down. He was hospitalized and it is reported that he did not recall how he ended up in the canal. His head injuries were so severe that he was sent to a larger hospital in another city. Where, I read in the newspaper, he died. I cry now, for him, for his lost life. For the life of his family and his many friends in this town.

I think my point in the first story was about the interconnectivity of life. It still is. In fact it is even more profoundly so. I bear witness. That is what is changing me. I was there. In the moment it was experienced a certain way. I was affected enough to write about it the next day. The truth of the moment was really very different. When the actor becomes personally related to us we feel the sadness. That is why starving children around the world are still starving, because we are not relating to them. One shift in the narrative and what was once tolerable is now not. So I write again. Do over. The first story was the lie. This is the truth.

The worst part is that I was three blocks away when his fatal moment came. That is what is hard to wrap my head around. I was drinking coffee at Starbucks. Downtown Walla Walla is about six square blocks. The corner he was in was under bridge construction and the side of the street has no lighted businesses at night. So my moment has changed forever, as his was forever ended. That is the fact. Life is a gift. The regard that we have for the others can bring both happiness and pain. The open heart feels. The closed heart never heals. I am changed by my experience. Life is now more interconnected than ever to me. I feel my relationship with my community deepen. I continue to bring my life of joy to Walla Walla. Even through my tears.