JimFormation

The other day, I published a bit about having lunch with a dead guy. It is a true story, but I think a little explanation is probably due.

When I was a kid, I worked in the local hospital. I was friendly with the guy who ran the hospital morgue. I ate lunch at his desk a couple of times per week. His desk was in the corner of the morgue. Bodies on the tables was not unusual.

One afternoon I walked in and there was a guy in his mid-30s on one of the tables. He was on his back, naked. His legs were slightly bent; heels were raised above the table. His arms didn’t touch his sides and, like his legs, appeared to float motionless, effortless in the air.

“Suicide,” my buddy said, pointing to a small, perfectly round hole in the short hairs of the man’s temple. The smallest trickle of blood had slid out of the hole.

“Shot himself. Small caliber,” he continued. “The bullet went in and bounced around inside his skull and scrambled-egged his brain. Look, no exit wound.”

I was surprised by my internal reaction. I was mad at the guy on the table. “What the fuck did you do?” I asked in my head. “What were you thinking? Do you see where this got you? No where. It’s useless, absolutely useless. What a waste. A disgrace. Look at you now, you’re nothing.”

Nothing.

Pause.

The moment before you pull the trigger must be the loneliest moment. I cannot imagine the sheer and utter hopelessness. The overwhelming despair and confusion.

BANG!

I worked with a guy who once told me that his life wasn’t worth living. That there was no impact he could make in the world. He was nothing more than a grain of sand being dropped in a vast ocean.

I thought of the story of the boy who walked down the beach throwing clams back into the ocean. “What are you doing,” asked a passing man.

“I’m saving clams,” the boy answered.

“Look at this beach. It’s littered with clams. You can’t possibly throw them all in. You can’t make a difference.”

The boy picked up another clam and, without pause, he threw it into the ocean. “I made a difference to that one.”

In a way, that’s how I live my life. One clam at a time.

It’s the advice I gave my co-worker. Sure, there is badness and ugliness in the World. And I realize that, in a big sense, few of us will make a difference. That if any of us disappeared today the World wouldn’t notice. It wouldn’t miss us.

But maybe we should forget about the Big Picture, and reach down, and pick up a clam.