For the Want of New Curtains

A few weeks ago, the wife of a colleague and friend lost a long battle with cancer. I never met her. Our colleague, brother-in-arms, and fellow taker of blood money kept the entire matter very private. Had others not told me, I would never have known simply from talking with him.

My cellmate and I snuck out into the sunlight, and I somehow managed to sneak into the church without being smoted by God. The church proper had already filled, and the expando wall was pushed back so that the rest of us could sit in the fellowship hall. The walls were a cheery yellow, very discomforting for the surroundings. All around me sat other attorneys, people that I battle with on a regular basis. People that I look up to, admire for their various strengths and areas of professionalism. I don't think I have ever told any of them that.

Pictures of the beloved spouse were looped through a pc-slide show. She was smiling in each, even when it was evident she didn't feel well. For all the money I spend each year in patching up camera bodies, film, processing, storage... it occurs to me I have too many pictures of mountains and trees, not nearly enough pictures of my children or my wife. I am torn between compulsively checking to make sure my cellphone is turned off, and sneaking outside to call my wife. I feel a primal need to hear her voice.

During funerals, I often wonder if the stories told about the departed are embellished. I didn't wonder this day. Three advanced degrees, loving mother, patient wife, full-on personality, truly passionate for the arts. This was a woman who inspired good things in other people, she brought something so simple, yet so hugely important, as a little day to day happiness and joy to the people around her. Dammit, I never met her.

A local dance company, so the story goes, developed dance routines around the music of Lyle Lovett, based on the overly enthusiastic, and devout appreciation, that she had for Lovett's music. It was really a compromise, to secure her promise not to play Lovett's music in the office so loud. The troupe showed up and performed her favorite dance of the group. I am not a fan of modern dance, but this day I was a fan. Even a reformed Texan such as myself had to fight back hard tears when, as the dance routine finished, the final cowboy on stage went down on one knee, bowed his head while removing his cowboy hat, and laid it reverently on the floor near her picture.

Some people, I suppose, are put on this earth to inspire greatness. She clearly was one of those people. I was hoping like hell no one else in the church knew that I had threatened to sue the dance company a year ago, and that the matter had not been resolved. It is true that there is no yin without yang, no good without evil. One just gets tired of being the evil sometimes.

I wondered, as I guess those posing as grown ups eventually must, what would it look like if I gave up my meat sack, and had to go to the final reckoning with St Peter and his friends. The list of songs would be easy enough, just drop in some Stevie Ray Vaughan, some Dave Matthews and hit shuffle. Finish the day with Amazing Grace, because I am still hopelessly naive.

But other than my beautiful wife, my angry ex-wife, and the children I have collected like some men collect cars... who would care? What positive impact would I have had on anyone's life? Other than other lawyers, who would know anything about what I did during the daylight hours? There are a slew of local judges that could tell about the time that they suggested I forgo a legal career and consider dentistry school, or the times that my legal arguments might have been more readily accepted had I sang them to the tune of a Lyle Lovett song.

Yesterday I stood before a judge and tried to explain why my 77 year old client with a bad ticker should not be forced to submit to a modern day inquisition. My client's health concerns, it seems, have to be weighed against the parties' right to submit him to an inquisition. Have I failed yet again, or am I simply acquiescing to a system that increasingly makes little or no sense to me?

I have already done irreparable damage to two of my kids, the others, it is probably just a matter of time. My wife loves me without question, but she also thought Dumb and Dumber was a modern cinematic classic. I have toyed with a novel for nearly two years, that I have talked about and day-dreamed about more than I have really worked on during that period. Once every three months or so, the planets align such that I have the opportunity to leave the office a few hours early, with no business, networking, volunteer, or family obligations requiring my immediate presence. In this huge Metroplex, I don't know what to do with myself. To avoid a panic attack, I just keep working, or surf the Internet until I am required to be somewhere. My greatest achievement as a lawyer? This year I will bill well over 2300 hours in client services. How the hell does anyone tell that story and make it meaningful at the end of a person's life?

I am deeply troubled by these questions. Clients are coming soon, my cellmate points out it is time to leave. I feel some small measure of guilt in response to the wave of relief, because the room is suddenly too small and I cannot breath. I spend more time with my cellmate most days then I do my own wife, but today it does not take a rocket scientist to determine she is as deeply troubled by these questions as they regard her own life. With a touch of self-loathing, I see other attorneys leaving early. The monster is hungry, and we have to keep it fed.

Each day we have the same discussion that is now imminent... what am I doing with my life? My cellmate wants to spend more time with her son. She has been in her new house since January, and she can't find the time to get some damned curtains for her kitchen. Such trivial matters, such as the want of new curtains, legitimately take on greater importance when their absence exposes the absurdity of the whole. I really need to hear my wife's voice. At 70 miles per hour, I am at the head of a convoy of hired guns racing back to the office.

I shouldn't complain, all of my children are beautiful and healthy, my wife loves me more than I deserve, and statistically my income is probably in the top quarter in the wealthiest nation on earth. I will probably have to work until I die, or until I am drooling and in a wheelchair. That's my fault. The last week or so, I have spent more time tickling and tackling my children, or trying to heal the hurt I have caused my kids. I hope like hell that I do enough of it that, someday it means as much to them as it means to me now.

I never met her, and now she has brought good into my life, and into the lives of my children. Wishing I had a boat, so I could go out on the ocean, and wishing that I had a pony that I could ride upon my boat. I would name my boat... "Formerly Living".