Great Losses

Today I learned about two great losses. The first was a well known incredibly talented man - Robin Williams, the other, is only going to be well known postmortem, Michael Brown. Robin was 63 years old, had a wife, kids, incredible career, and all the money he would ever need. Michael was 18, just graduated high school, was about to start college (first in his family), had two younger siblings, a loving mother and father, had all the possibilities of the world in front of him, and barely enough money for his family to make it paycheck to paycheck. Robin was Caucasian. Michael was African American/Black. Robin struggled with addiction and mental illness and committed suicide. Michael was shot and killed while surrendering unarmed to a police officer. Michael would have known who Robin was. Robin would have mourned Michael's wasted death like the rest of us. These deaths bring up so many issues that are near and dear to my heart - racism, addiction and recovery, mental illness awareness, suicide prevention, police ethics, classism, power dynamics, and more. I cannot think about the death of one of them without juxtaposing it with the totally preventable death of the other. They were both tragic deaths. I certainly have my own opinion on which is more tragic, but it matters not. The world lost two important souls today because our society closes it's eyes to the most vulnerable populations. It's time we said, "enough is enough!!!"

Tonight, I had to explain to a nine year old about both deaths, as she inevitably picked up on the news of the day through talk, tv, and the Internet. Why do people commit suicide? Why would the police shoot an unarmed man? She lives in a city most of the time and sees tragedy more often than I even know. Yet, she still has that young girl curiosity and although I don't want to lie, I don't have all the answers.

I guess I kind of know. I've been so close to suicide in the past. In 2008, I hated myself so much that I believed I did not deserve to live and I just wanted the pain to stop. Once recovery and therapy started, I was able to quickly move away from that mindset, but it was a very scary time. 

As for the hatred and power behind the extreme racism and fear that must exist for the violence by officers against unarmed people of color, I do not know that feeling. However, I imagine that it is really built in extreme fear as fear drives so much of our negative choices and behaviors in this world! Police actually shoot their weapons rarely and there's a lot of protocol that goes along with the decision to shoot. Somehow, these officers from all over the U.S. are finding some fear based instinct overcoming their police trained protocols, and they are shooting. It's a horrible reality. Couple that with the fact that racism also plays a pervasive role in how long a sentence someone gets in prison and people of color are consistently targeted by the justice system. I don't agree with the riots, but I certainly understand the anger.

I think Robin Williams would try to use some humor to defuse the situation, though. 

"Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they've got nothing to lose."

"We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture."

"If women ran the world we wouldn't have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days."

Well, you get the idea.

I'd like to think that had Michael survived, he'd had beaten the odds and graduated college. One day, he would have gotten married, bought a house, and had a career he loved. He would have had three children, like his parents. His kids would watch Netflix and one day would stumble on an old Robin Williams movie -maybe Mrs. Doubtfire or Jumanji and Michael would have watched with them.