Touching the Void

Touching the void.  That phrase is from a book about the Herculean struggle of survival by climber Joe Simpson.  Joe fell into a crevasse while he and another were climbing in the Andes.  He was, understandably, left for dead by his partner after falling 150 feet into the frozen chasm.  But Joe marshalled his strength, despite having already sustained a significant leg break from an earlier mishap, and began the punishing fight for his life.

It was epic.  But Joe survived.  He is alive today and able to share his story.

It's kinda like that for us.  Police officers.  While our struggles don't literally involve some breathtaking landscape, gale force winds, constant hypothermic conditions, or a seemingly endless abyss, in the mind's eye they do.  And they are real.  Just as real as Joe's...only not as dramatic and certainly not so to the point where motion picture producers are giving us a call.

We sustain injuries.  Posttraumatic stress is an injury and there's a shit ton of us that have it.  It's like a shattered leg.  We need our minds in order to react quickly, reason properly, and experience compassion.  Without healthy minds, we are limping around.

So, how does that play out when we step into a "crevasse"?...a call for service where an infant is not breathing, a woman's face is smashed in, or a young man's head is blewn apart?  Do we rise up and begin that exhausting journey up and out?  The vast majority of us do.  Every single day, sometimes many times a day, we have to, but we do it.  It can be painstaking.  "Can be"!  Ha...who the hell am I kidding...it is.  It always is.  Some just robotically move through it quicker.  They're able to process the event expeditiously and they have good internal - and external, when needed - coping skills.  Yet, many others need time.  And help.  We struggle with the oftentimes relentless pounding to our mental and emotional spirits.

This past year or so has been a blessing for me.  I have had the great privilege of speaking to some incredible leaders, pioneers, and heroes within my profession.  Last year, I presented about the work I have done developing my department's wellness program (feel free to check out and share www.BodyArmorWellness.com) at a C.O.P.S. national conference.  This year, I spoke at two more conferences and, in 2018, God willing, hopefully even more.  After each session, I am met with individuals, members of my brotherhood, who felt a link with me after I shared my own story of tragedy and triumph.

During one of the law enforcement wellness conferences this year, I was sitting at a table in the hotel restaurant just passing the time and watching some baseball.  (You know I have nothing else to do when I gotta watch baseball.  Don't get me wrong...I love America's game as I used to play it for almost 14 years when I was a kid, but it's just a hair above golf when it comes to watching the game on the telly and its excitement level.)  I'm just quietly sitting when this patch lands in front of me and onto the table.  I immediately turn around and see him walking away, turning his head slightly to smile and give a quick wave.  I get up and mildly jog over to him, so as to not seem to overly zealous to show my gratitude.  I mean, come on, we're still cops.  I catch up to him.  He had talked to me following my session the day before.  He didn't come over after I was done presenting.  Instead, we had ran into each other in the lobby of the hotel and recognized one another.  We began talking.  Well, he did most of the talking.  I listened.  When a brother starts talking to you and opening up and sharing his demons, that's what you do.  Don't interject.  Don't interrupt.  Don't offer advice or your opinion.  Just listen.

To say I was honored, that he would share with me, is an absolute understatement.  I was blessed.  I had connected with him and he needed to feel that connection.  Afterward, we gave a "guy" hug and went our separate ways.  Yet, the next day he gave me his patch.  What does that mean?  That means he purposefully pocketed that thing in the hopes of seeing me again.  The giving of a patch is time honored and a significant gesture within our law enforcement community.  But this was a little different.  It was an indication of his gratefulness that I had shared my story, that it had connected with him so he knew he was not alone or weak for having his own story or stories, and that it had helped him, however slight or however temporary.  That is pure gold for me.

During these past twelve months, I have had many encounters like this.  Each one is a connection.  Each time, I'm listening.  And each moment, a brother or sister rises up a little higher out of their own crevasse.

We - police officers, the peacemakers - touch the void every day.  Every single day.  For years.  Most of us make it out.  Some stumble and need our aid.  But there are those that never make it, simply because they have fallen one too many times and can no longer rise up.  It is for those heroes that struggle or are on the edge of the abyss that I persist on this path.  Talk to each other.  Listen.  And connect.  You never know whose hand you'll reach out and grab.

Excuse Me Little 3-year old Boy...What Did You Say?!

So, I just got home from an evening shift.  It's a Sunday.  Yes, I know, statistically Sundays have the greatest number of use of force incidents.  At least here.  But that's because anything 00:00 hours or later is the next day, so when something happens Saturday "night", it's probably really Sunday morning.  I digress.  My point is, it's a Sunday and people, or should I say the general public, think that Sundays only involve church and football.

Anyway, to the story...I was cruising around, er, patrolling, when a car just pulls away from the curb directly in front of me.  No signal, no nothing.  Well, you gotta signal.  It's the law, right?  Yes, it is.  I conduct a stop and begin to walk up on the car (always passenger side, always) when I notice the driver stroking the head or body or something of the passenger.  I can't see what it is.  The passenger seat is completely reclined back, so my first thought is that it's this dude's woman.  But it could be a dog.  It's neither.  It's a boy.  A small, cute-as-hell little man in his Spidey shirt.

I go through my thing - license, registration, and insurance card.  As the driver is rifling through the glove box, I'm standing there next to this cute kid.  I smile.  He's absolutely adorable.  And then he says something to me, kinda in a whisper probably because he's so small.  I can't quite make out all of it, so I replay it back in my mind as quickly as I can before I ask the little man to kindly repeat himself.  I got an idea, but I ask him to say again what he just asked me.

He does.  "Are you gonna shoot us?"

What?!  I'm sorry.  I must've missed that or misunderstood you.  You - in all of your three years of life experience - just asked me if I am going to shoot you?  Are you fucking kidding me?!  What in the fuck has this kid been exposed to, lied about, or brainwashed into?  What the fuck has happened to our society where we, the ones who chose this profession - the one that answers your 9-1-1 calls, runs towards the sound of gunfire, rushes to your aid, risks body, and sacrifices mind - have become so vilified that a 3-year old, whose presumably only exposure to "news" and current events are what comes out of the mouth of his pre-released-with-a-GPS-ankle-braclet-and-a-protection-order-against-him-for-domestic-assault-on-that-kid's-mother dad?  Am I gonna shoot them?  What do I say to that?  Seriously?  Help me out.  I was dumbstruck for a moment and then probably blurted out some stupid ass response that I can't even remember now.

Little man, the reason you're sitting in the front - fully reclined - seat of a car is because your dad wanted to pick you up some grow-up-to-be-a-big-boy food at...drum roll...7-11.  And the seat is fully reclined because pops knows that what he's doing is wrong.  Why is it wrong, you-cute-as-hell little thing?  Because you need to be in a child's seat.  A child's seat affords you the greatest protection, if, heaven forbid, you two get into a collision.  So, bottom line, your sperm donor placed your little impressionable life in jeopardy.  That, my friend, is unsat.

Oh...did I forget to mention that dad had a suspended license, I mean, learner's permit for...you guessed it, failing to pay child support.  And I'm the asshole, right?  The kid asks me if I'm going to shoot them because I've been portrayed as evil.  The wrongdoer.  Unreal.

So, I give the dude some paperwork and tow his car.  I tow it because I know he'd just do it again.  He walks away bent.  A few minutes later, he's back and still can't believe that I'm towing his car.  Driving on a suspended license or driving privilege in Maryland is an arrestable offense.  I maybe saved your kid's life.  We'll never know, really.  But you're gonna give me shit about towing your car?!  Go fuck yourself.  You made your bed.  Sleep in it.

This culutral war that we find ourselves in, clearly, does not have a foreseeable end to it.  Not with that narrative.  Just when you think...you hope...that there is a finality to it, somewhere out there, a little boy pushes that horizon back a generation further.

Add that to the others I carry.  Guaranteed that stays with me.  Guaranteed.