Life and Death

Sorry I haven't been around lately, dear readers. Things have been quite hectic at work and my past two weekends were jam-packed with family fun. My aunt, Susan, came for a visit in New York and we had a great time together. I dragged her all over the city and wouldn't let her Marco Island behind touch the seat of a cab. We took the subway everywhere. Or we walked. I would imagine she was pretty tired when she got home and definitely relieved to have her car back.

This past weekend I was back home in Chicago for my mother's birthday. I will withhold her age as she doesn't look like it anyway so it doesn't matter one bit. At one point she said she was officially old, but I think Leah and I convinced her to put that thought off for another ten years or so. We had a very full weekend in which we saw a play, had a wonderful long birthday dinner, had some drinks, went bowling and shopped. Somewhere in between I also managed to have drinks with Rob and Nicole, and brunch with Melissa. I was a tired girl when I got home at 12:30am after my flight on Sunday night. Working till 3am the next day didn't help.

Don't worry, I'm back on track and well rested again as I write this post. Of course I face Friday and Sunday deadlines that threaten my relaxation/sleep level and my weekend, but that's what it's like right now with everyone pushing to get projects done before the holidays. My December should be wide open.

Between these two wonderful weekends I experienced a very unusual thing while I was at work. Last Wednesday, a little under an hour before I got in a construction worker fell from 19 stories up directly across the street from my office. He landed on the scaffolding below, and was pronounced dead on the scene. Out the windows in the office, I had a view of his body near the edge of the scaffolding wrapped in a white bag or tarp, with a puddle of blood spattered on the sidewalk below that had dripped down. Detectives and crime scene people were up there taking pictures, checking out the body and clearing the scene as office workers looked on. Below, the yellow crime tape only sections off the area with the blood, allowing people to pass right under the scaffolding, where the officers work above with his body.

It first strikes me that it's kinda creepy that everyone walking under the scaffolding is walking directly under a dead man. Then I observe that almost no one takes notice of the pool of blood on the sidewalk. It's not a small pool. One lady followed her dog under the tape to let him take a sniff... oblivious to the substance he was sniffing, and ignoring the yellow tape. The cop standing nearby stopped her, I'm sure in a "what's wrong with you lady?" kind of way.

It occurred to me that I should take a picture. Not because I'm morbid or entirely obsessed with CSI, but to capture this moment about how life is. The day started for this man working side-by-side with his brother refacing a building. In short time his brother watched him fall to his death. As my office mates and I watched the police work, somewhere the family was in mourning, and the brother getting the name of a therapist. Meanwhile, New Yorkers go about their days. Walking directly underneath this poor man, and next to his blood on the sidewalk; thinking about being on-time to work, or late for a meeting, or on the way to an interview. Maybe looking forward to lunch with an old friend or buying a special present for an anniversary or birthday. Probably not thinking about death.

And this is how life is. One family is having the worst possible day, while another is prospering. It ebbs and flows. We never know when tomorrow could be a horrible day... or a wonderful day. Luckily the majority of them are going to be just plain old normal days.

So I did take a picture. Because I would have regretted not doing so; because this moment spoke to me like art should, but most doesn't. It is posted below (don't look if you don't want to). You'll see a small sliver of white above the Bank of America sign... that's the guy wrapped up. You'll see people paying no notice to the blood on the sidewalk; even with yellow tape, an orange cone and a cop surrounding it. Think about it and make your own conclusions about how you live your life, not that any of you are bad people (surely you aren't 'cause you must know me and therefore must be nice). But maybe think about taking an extra moment to notice a pretty sunset without assuming there will be another to follow. Or telling someone how much they mean to you for no reason other than that they should know. Or don't be a jerk to strangers out in the world just because everyone else is. Okay, maybe that last one was directed at my New York-specific readers, not that any of them are actual jerks.

That's just some of the stuff this picture makes me think about. I hope to be a better person everyday because of something horrible that didn't happen to me, but merely happened around me. And that's something he left behind that he will never know. He altered my perceptions a little, and maybe yours too. Not too shabby for a guy I never met.