buckle up your overcoat

I had not intended to post today. I am not feeling well. And I admit to pandering. I wanted to elicit sympathy before I told you that I have -- a head cold.


There is something odd about our empathy gene. If I were to tell my friends that I am feeling ill due to a spleen malfunction, they would all want to know more -- asking very solicitously what they could do to ease my burdens on this mortal coil.


But tell someone you have a head cold and what you will get is either indifference or The Typhoid Mary wave to stay away. The cold is the Rodney Dangerfield of maladies. Probably because it is common -- we all have to deal with one now and then.


My solution is to drink as much Nyquil as I can, and still be able to operate at work. Thus, my reluctance to post. (I was going to work post-nasal drip in there, but I am just too tired.)


And then I received an email that has caused me to seek my own empathy gene. This morning on NPR I heard a tale that we Oregonians hear quite often this time of year. Two young men had been swept off the rocks at the beach by waves near Newport. One was recovered; the other was not found. The rescuers recovered only his white hoodie. I remember being touched by that fact. The only tangible connection with a soul lost to tragedy.


Tonight when I opened my email, I was greeted with this piece of news:

I solicit your prayers on behalf of former [Salvation Army] officers and current soldiers of the Portland Moore St. Corps, Toni and Dwayne Halstad. Last night they received the horrible news that their 23-year old son Dwayne Jr. was drowned in waters off the Oregon coast at Newport Bay. The Coast Guard has been unable to recover the body.

The pain of Dwayne and Toni hit me immediately -- as if I had personally lost a friend or relative. But why?


I have no children. I have not even met the Halstads as far as I know. Is it because we attend the same church?


I really do not know. And I am not certain that it matters. What I do know is that the same empathy I felt with the recovery of the hoodie is the same emotion I felt when I knew the loss was closer to home.


I have been thinking of empathy a lot lately. The sense that we are all in this together, and someone else's loss diminishes my humanity a little bit, just as an act of kindness somewhere increases it.


As I lay my Nyquil-besotted head on my pillow tonight. I hope to share a prayer -- a thought -- for two grieving parents who represent each of our losses during this day.


I wish you each a day of peace and better deeds tomorrow.