Uncertainty Ahead

The streets are glistening after a three day rain.  Both the front and back yards are slick with dead leaves and the remains of broken branches.  The weather is conflicted, not able to make up its mind whether to be muggy and unpleasantly still or sullen and cold and November-ish.  At times I know exactly how it feels - we are soul mates one moment and the bitterest of enemies the next - change, as some famous  Greek philosopher wrote, is the only constant.  All we ever really know is that there is uncertainty ahead.

Don't weary, my daddy used to tell me but he did and I do, sometimes about silly, foolish things and always about things I can't control.  It's an inherited trait I really could do without but if I have nothing to worry over,
I can invent something in a flash.

According to the evening news, my friend Daniel is currently lying in charity hospital with life threatening injuries, namely a gunshot wound to the chest.  After a marathon night of music and alcohol, he staggered home - to the wrong house - and when his key didn't work, he tried to break in and was summarily shot multiple times by the homeowner.  No charges have been filed.

Lucky it was a handgun and not a sawed off, Daniel writes on social media.  I suppose I could be glad that he hasn't lost his dry wit but truthfully the humor escapes me.  His 30th birthday is still ahead of him, he has a wife, a three year old child and a three week old baby.  He's alive by no small miracle and the medical bills will be astronomical.  I'm glad he can still smile but what of the nightmare his family and friends have been put through, what of the homeowner who pulled the trigger?  

He freely admits to being an alcoholic, of having black outs from time to time.  He apologizes publicly but makes no mention of getting help.  It hurts my heart to see his friends compliment him on what will be his new and impressive street cred.  The social media debate that breaks out after the shooting devolves quickly and battle lines are clearly drawn.  His defenders post impassioned pleas for understanding and forgiveness, his detractors are ready and willing to lock him up and throw away the key.  He's an irresponsible drunk or a troubled young man who made a tragic mistake.  He got what he deserved or he's a victim.  I read over a hundred comments and there's not a mention - not a single, solitary mention - of the fact that alcoholism is a disease.  Plenty of sympathy, boatloads of support.  Lots of cruelty and truly hateful rhetoric.  Gun nuts bragging that he'd if it had been their house, he'd would be dead.  Self righteous condemnations of his poor choices.  Reminders that everyone makes mistakes and too many get well wishes to count.  Prayers for his family, prayers for the shooter.

It stuns and saddens me that amid all this very public airing of very private dirty laundry, not one line is written about the truth.

God protects fools and drunks, my daddy used to tell me.

He never said who protects us from each other.