Somebody is to Blame for This

This is not a post about programming, or being a geek. In all likelihood, this is not a post you will enjoy reading. Consider yourselves warned. I dont remember how I found this Moth video of comedian Anthony Griffith. It is not a fun thing to watch, especially as a parent. Even though I knew that before I went in, I willingly chose to watch this video. Then I watched it again. And again. And again. I watched it five times, ten times. I am all for leaning into the pain, but I started to wonder if maybe I was addicted to the pain. I think my dumb programmer brain was stuck in an endless loop trying to make sense out of what happened here. But you dont make sense of a tragedy like this. You cant. There are no answers. My humor is becoming dark, and its biting, and its becoming hateful. And the talent coordinator is seeing that theres a problem, because NBC is all about nice, and everything is going to be OK. And were starting to buck horns because he wants everything light, and I want to be honest and tell life, and Im hurting, and I want everybody else to hurt. Because somebody is to blame for this! The unbearable grief demands that someone must be to blame for this unimaginably terrible thing that is happening to you, this deeply, profoundly unfair tragedy. But theres nobody. Just you and this overwhelming burden youve been given. So you keep going, because thats what youre supposed to do. Maybe you get on stage and talk about it. Thats about all you can do. So thats what Im going to do. Five weeks ago, I was selected for jury duty in a medical malpractice trial. This trial was the story of a perfectly healthy man who, in the summer of 2008, was suddenly killed by a massive blood clot that made its way to his heart, after a surgery to repair a broken leg. Like me, he would have been 41 years old today. Like me, he married his wife in the summer of 1999. Like me, he had three children; two girls and a boy. Like me, he had a promising, lucrative career in IT. I should have known I was in trouble during jury selection. When they called your name, youd come up from the juror pool – about 50 people by my estimation – and sit in the jury booth while both lawyers asked you some questions to determine if youd be a fair and impartial juror for this trial. What I hadnt noticed at the time, because she was obscured by a podium, is that the wife was sitting directly in front of the jury. I heard plenty of people get selected and make up some bogus story about how they couldnt possibly be fair and impartial to get out of this five week obligation. And they did, if they stuck to their story. But sitting there myself, in front of the wife of this dead man, I just couldnt do it. I couldnt bring myself to lie when I saw on her face that her desire not to be there was a million times more urgent than mine. Now, Im all for civic duty, but five weeks in a jury seemed like a bit more than my fair share. Even worse, I was an alternate juror, which meant all of the responsibility of showing up every day and listening, but none of the actual responsibility of contributing to the eventual verdict. I was expecting crushing boredom, and there was certainly plenty of that. On day one, during opening remarks, we were treated to multiple, giant projected photographs of the three happy children with their dead father – directly in front of the very much still alive wife. She had to leave the courtroom at one point. The first person we heard testimony from was this mans father, who was and is a practicing doctor. He was there when his son was rushed to the emergency room. He was allowed to observe as the emergency room personnel worked, so he described to the jury the medical process of treatment, his son thrashing around on the emergency room table being intubated, his heart stopping and being revived. As a doctor, he knows what this means. On day two, we heard from the brother-in-law, also a doctor, and close friend of the family. He described coming home from the hospital to explain to the children that their father was dead, that he wasnt coming home. The kids were not old enough to understand what death means, so for a year afterward, every time they drove by the hospital, they would ask to visit their dad. I did not expect to learn what death truly was in a courtroom in Martinez, California, at age 41. But I did. Death is a room full of strangers listening to your loved ones describe, in clinical detail and with tears in their eyes, your last moments. Boredom, I can deal with. This is something else entirely. As a juror, youre ordered not to discuss the trial with anyone, so that you can form a fair and impartial opinion based on the shared evidence that everyone saw in the courtroom together. So Im taking all this in and Im holding it down, like Im supposed to. But its hard. I feel like becoming a parent has opened emotional doors in me that I didnt know existed, so its getting to me. Sometime later, the wife finally testifies. She explains that on the night of the incident, her husband finally felt well enough after the surgery on his right leg to read a bedtime story to their 4 year old son. So she happily leaves father and son to have their bedtime ritual together. Later, the son comes rushing in and tells her theres something wrong with dad, and the look on his face is enough to let her know that its dire. She found him collapsed on the floor of her sons room and calls 911. A week later, I was putting our 4 year old son Henry to bed. I didnt realize it at the time, but this was the first time I had put him to bed since the trial started. Henry isnt quite old enough to have a stable sleep routine, so sometimes bedtime goes well, and sometimes it doesnt. It went well that particular night, so Im happy lying there with him in the bed waiting for his breathing to become regular so I know hes fully asleep. And then the next thing I know Im breaking down. Badly. Im desperately trying to hold it together because I dont want to scare him, and he doesnt need to know about any of this. But I cant stop thinking about what it would feel like for my wife to see pictures of me with our children if I died. I cant stop thinking about what it would feel like to watch Henry die on an emergency room table at age 38. I cant stop thinking about what it would feel like to explain to someone elses children that their father is never coming home again. Most of all, I cant stop thinking about the other 4 year old boy who will never stop blaming himself because he saw his Dad collapse on the floor of his room, and then never saw him again for the rest of his life. Somebody is to blame for this. Somebody must be to blame for this. Now I urgently want this trial to be over. Im struggling to understand the purpose of it all. Nothing we see or do in this courtroom is bringing a husband and father back from the dead. The plaintiff could be home with her children. The parade of doctors and hospital staff making their way through this courtroom could be helping patients. The jurors could be working at their jobs. My God how I would love to be doing my job rather than this, anything in the world other than this. A verdict for either party has immense cost. Nobody is in this courtroom because they want to be here. So why? I dont know these people. I dont care about these people. I mean, its in my job description as a juror: I am fair and impartial because I dont care what happens to them. But finally I realized that this trial is part of our ride. We get on the ride because we know there will be thrills and chills. Nobody gets on a rollercoaster that goes in a straight line. Thats what you sign up for when you get on the ride with the rest of us: there will be highs, and there will be lows. And those lows – whether they are, God forbid, your own, or someone elses – are what make the highs so sweet. The ride is what it is because the pain of those valleys teaches us. Sharing this tragic, horrible, private thing that happened to these poor people is how we cope. Watching this play out in public, among your peers, among other fellow human beings, is what it takes to for all of us to survive and move on. Were here in this courtroom together because we need to be here. Its part of the ride. Ive heard and seen things in that courtroom I think I will remember for the rest of my life. Its been difficult to deal with, though I am sure it is the tiniest reflected fraction of what you and your family went through. I am so, so sorry this happened to you. But I want to thank you for sharing it with me, because I now know that I am to blame. Were all to blame. Thats what makes us human. [advertisement] Hiring developers? Post your open positions with Stack Overflow Careers and reach over 20MM awesome devs already on Stack Overflow. Create your satisfaction-guaranteed job listing today!
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/09/somebody-is-to-blame-for-this.html



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