“If you are good for nothing else, you can still serve as a bad example.”

(Peter L. Berger, American-Protestant theologian)

            For over twenty years, they somewhat struggled through life together. It was not much of a challenge. They had everything anyone could want and so much more. Their only child was healthy and seemed to know what he was doing. In fact, the entire “picture” of their life together seemed less burden and more bounty. They would want for nothing, yet they would fight to gain more. Life seemed easy for this little family living out in the country. Life can change in the blink of an eye. One day he came home from work and his entire history had gone missing. The furniture was gone. His family was gone. Everything was gone but for some clothes and a few scrapings. His wife and child had betrayed him. He just about went out of his mind. The worst part was the reason, a reason everyone seemed to not mention, not ever. When his son came out of the closet months before, it had done little to provoke. When the same child expected him to still go to his wedding after robbing him blind, the line was drawn in the sand. To this day, they have not spoken. He was forced to carry on without them both. He needed time and space but he never really got what he needed. He just wanted to know why. No one ever said. He was abandoned in the silence. He was haunted by the question, haunted by the love he still carries to this day. A few years after the wedding from hell, she was building her life again. One summer day, not long ago it seems, she was with her mother in the country heading home. I will assume life looked pretty good from the passenger seat. The truck hit that side directly. She was decapitated, while her mother survived. Father and son were devastated by the news but managed to go on in life without her. If the truth be told, she might as well have never been here at all. So far, they continue to go forward without each other as well, not that anyone really cares.

“Your life is a personal lesson. For everyone else it is a loud example.”

(Richelle E. Goodrich, American author)

            The group of them played in the area on many occasions. The warehouses in this commercial and industrial district granted adventure each and every time. Two brothers always led the way. The other children simply went along for the ride, always ready to abandon the ship if it started sinking. There was little consideration given to silly things like danger and legalities. This clan came for an escapade, not the details. The five boys ranged in age from nine years through twelve years. They were only looking for fun, not trouble. The Milk factory called out to them the moment they spotted the logo. Chocolate Milk would be their reward. All they had to do was find a spot to enter the operation. Once they had accomplished this feat, the rest was just so damn easy. A few arms full and the gluttony began. They drank so much that they made themselves sick. The brothers refused to lay down and die. A liquid diet always makes for a grand food fight. Eventually, both were covered in the brown. Carton after carton flew about with casual disregard. The price was about to be paid. It only takes one empty chocolate milk carton to knock down a hornet’s nest. The hive dropped and both the boys were swarmed and assaulted. Their crew now abandoned ship and fled as fast as they could from the torrent. The brothers were not so fortunate. From head to toe, both suffered one sting at a time. The experience seemed like hundreds of painful pinpricks, each coming after the other. The swarm was unforgiving and followed them even as they ran away in terror. By the time they arrived home, they both looked like a case of the Mumps had covered all their visible body parts. Their heads and necks were swollen. Their arms and legs were swollen. The horde had consumed them both. The greatest casualty for the boys was having stingers removed from almost every area of their bodies. They both stood in their shame as their mother plucked out each needle as if they were eyebrow hairs. No explanation was ever gathered from either of the boys. They never returned to that area of their city. It was a place they did not want to bee.

“Maybe the best way for you to get us to summon our better selves

 is for you to show us yours.” (Téa Leoni, American actress)

            At nineteen years of age, he thought he knew everything. He most certainly acted like he did. The 1984 red Firebird was filled to the rim and he headed towards the highway to smoke a joint. When he took the onramp just a little too fast, his bottle of water fell to the floor from the front passenger seat. He continued on and merged with the main road. The way was rather silent, with little traffic on the westbound lane he just entered. His speed increased to unsafe. When he finally reached over to pick up his bottle of water, the car swerved, hitting the roadside gravel and tossing him into abandon. He fishtailed and crossed the median into oncoming traffic. The car rested after flipping around to an eastbound position. He clipped a minivan which ended up in the ditch. A line of cars began to form behind him. The fleeting idea that he was going to die left well enough alone and he floored it and headed for safety. He just wanted to get home. He immediately left the chaos and went back onto the city streets from which he came. He zigzagged, panicked and made his escape by flight. He took the indirect way home, thinking he could evade the police and avoid consequence. Eventually, we all pay for our sins. In most cases, the cost is not so immediate. It was not long before the police appeared, and six cop cars surrounded him. It was like he was a criminal. The dark winter evening settled in at the edge of the road and his misery began to consume him. Regret hung like stockings on any Christmas Day. The holding cell was an instant reminder of the deed he had so stupidly committed. The act he would always remember and the shame would always linger. Given the chance, he would surely go back and do it all again. He would purge the entire experience. He would learn all the lessons without all fuss. Too bad for him that life doesn’t work that way. 

“If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.”

(Catherine Aird, British author)

            The chest pains came between smoke breaks. Sometimes the discomfort was so severe that it laid him out on the floor. He would occasionally think he was about to die. It could have happened. He was playing with fire. When the threat would subside and some time had passed, he always ended up with a fag in his mouth. One after the other, he would suck a little more on death at least once an hour. He would even get up in the middle of the night to drain one. All those years built up like the plaque in his arteries. For weeks he tried to ignore the pain. It always passed so it was easy to dismiss. His physician referred him to a cardiologist. He had eleven cigarettes on the way to the appointment. It was the stress test that almost killed him. He almost fell on the floor. It felt like he was having a heart attack. A Cardiac CTscan was the next hurdle. He was not surprised by the images brought before his eyes. He had a block, primarily caused by smoking. Oh goody, he thought to himself. Each doctor that he left, each appointment he would keep, only gave him more reason to quit. Not that he needed one. In secret, he had a puff every now and then. There were even times he consumed heavily. It still owned  him on occasion, even when he went months without partaking. The medication they gave him does a most excellent job of hiding the problem. He feels so well that he sometimes forgets. Day after day he adds to this fate, puffing here and puffing there. Every once in awhile the angina reminds him, whether he wants it to or not. He carries on as if there was nothing to concern himself with, dragging away his lifetime, adding to the walls that have built up within him. He wishes it would end, that the power it has over him would fade like smoke, then he has another.

“You will finally have dignity when you realize that you are not on the path,

but have become the path for others.” (Shannon L. Alder, American author)

            The world constantly reminds her of the loss. Her husband is long gone. Her parents have joined him. Her son was the latest to go. Almost everyone she has loved in her time has disappeared without warning, always leaving her alone. She has gotten used to the pain, used to the loneliness and the emptiness and the weight of it. Her life has become a period of grieving. It has gone on for so long that she doesn’t really know another way to be. Her daily grind is more memorial service than anything else. When she rises, she cries. When she falls, she cries. The sorrow seems constantly with her although so many years have gone since then. At work, she is crippled by her secret state. They call her Mrs. Freeze for a reason. She can never let the facade shatter, not even for a minute. In public, she is exactly the same way. Her demeanour tells the story. She is unapproachable, stoic and elusive to any real contact. The world goes on without her when she finally arrives home at the end of the day. The place is like a temple to the dead. Pictures of her loved ones cover almost every surface in each room. There are monuments. Fragments of hair, the clothes someone wore, even the empty cologne bottle she got out of the trash on the day her husband died. Every morning she sits all alone. Every evening she is by herself. She will not take the chance again. She would rather be alone than to ever feel that way again. Her grief has become a touchstone of sorts, a constant reminder of how she will never again let things be.

“We ought not to let either our joy at their faults or our grief at their success be idle, but in either case we ought to reflect, how we may become better than them by avoiding their errors, and by imitating their virtues not come short of them.”
(Plutarch, ancient Greek biographer/essayist)

            We all spend our lives trying not to do the things that bring us damage or chaos or even conflict. While we learn from our own personal experience, we can also learn from observing others. How those others behave, the mistakes they make along their path can teach what we ourselves should avoid doing on our own journey. Sometimes, other people will inspire us. The product of their actions speaks volumes about how we should behave. We emulate. We recognize. We learn. Sometimes, people and the baggage they carry are a prime example of what not to.  

“Be careful how you live. Someone is always watching and will look to you as an example, an excuse, or a warning. The message some choices send is why struggle to do the right thing when you can do the wrong thing and be happy. Should we be happy or should we be right?” (Donna Lynn Hope, American author)