Life and death and doing more

I’m in the back of a courtroom, where soon the bailiff will call, “All rise!” and the day‘s docket will swing into motion.

Attorneys I know and like stand in a small cluster in front of the room. They are talking of work, maybe, or of their families. In the jury box, inmates in orange watch the gentle hubbub of waiting. One looks curious, anxious. The other looks like he’s been here before. The deputies look at their phones. We wait, quietly.

Last week – or maybe it was the week before – a nurse called to tell me I have cancer. She was new to delivering such news, and I felt bad for her. It’s OK, I told her. Her voice still shook. Someone would call soon with more information, she said. She couldn’t tell me anything more, just that one bit of information. I have cancer.

Decades ago, that news would have equaled a death sentence, or close to it. Not today. Today we have new medications, new therapies, and new approaches, and fewer people die, at least from the kind of cancer that’s in my body. I’m told I stand a good chance of landing among the not-dying, despite the rampant cell death the coming chemo will cause. But you never know. Cancer still kills people all the time.

I choose to believe I’m going to live.

But I can’t help thinking there’s merit in living like I might die.

Court is underway now. The judge is a temp, covering for the regular judge, who’s overseas doing cool National Guard things. A handful of defendants have taken their turn before the temp: a man asking for drug addiction treatment so he can get a construction job; another who got drunk when he was a teenager, had sex with a younger teen, and now gets beaten up by people who find out he’s on the sex offender list.

When my mom found out she had cancer, she knew it would kill her. I wonder, sometimes, what she thought about as she neared her finish line. Did she contemplate what makes a life well-lived? Did she weigh what mattered to her most? Did she wonder if she’d done enough?

Pale and bleak in the harsh light of you-might-die, my days take on an alarming Lack Of Merit.

I’ve done this, I’ve done that. I’ve impacted people. I’ve said nice things and made people happy. I’ve loved.

It’s enough.

And it’s not enough.

A woman is standing in front of the judge now. Slim, 30-something, nervous. Her name is familiar. It’s on a spreadsheet on my computer. Two decades ago, she was part of a kerfuffle over a baggie of oregano passed off as marijuana and sold for $60. Another girl involved in that transaction is now dead, shot in the head and left in the woods a few years ago.

I look at the slim woman, with a lifetime of drug use and trauma behind her, and wonder if her trajectory ― or the trajectory of the dead woman ― could have changed had someone, one person, done something differently 20 years ago. I wonder if anyone is making sure her kids, and the kids of the dead woman, have a better chance at being OK.

The time I have left is limited. Maybe not by the cancer. But it will end. And with it will end the time I have to do what matters most.

Yes, I want to leave behind a family that’s strong and loving. I want time with my kids, my granddaughter, my husband. I want to be dear to my friends and an example of my Savior’s unflinching love for me.

But that’s not enough.

Loving is the truest and most powerful thing I can do, but I’m made to do more. I want to do more. I need to find that more and do it. Now. Because time is fleeting.

Yesterday, I wrote a news story for a weekly small-town paper. A 67-year old grandfather, regular church attendee and school volunteer was raided by the FBI, who found hidden in his home several hard drives containing potentially millions of images of child pornography.

People don’t like it when I talk about stories like that. Nobody wants to wonder if the people they trust have a stash of kiddie porn in their ceiling tiles. People living nice lives don’t want to talk about drug addiction, or homelessness, or mental illness, or gun violence, or sexual assault. Pastor’s wives like me shouldn’t care about things like that, people tell me.

But that’s my more.

I care that people abuse children and men hit women and traffickers sell drugs that could kill my neighbor, my friend, my child. I care that courts and police and attorneys and laws and prisons all exist to make things better and sometimes make them worse, not just for Bad People but for entire communities. I care that we all have the power to do one thing ― if only we are willing to see it ― that could change someone’s trajectory and even save their life.

My dad, when he was alive, used to sing a song based on a Bible verse that’s become a battle cry to me. “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Your more probably doesn’t look like mine. That’s OK. You can find your own way to be a just, merciful, and humble warrior in this limited, lovely life of ours.

Do it now.

And know that you are enough.

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Full disclosure: The meh photo I’m attaching to this post is totally illegal. Michigan courts only allow reporters to take photos in court ― and I was not there as a reporter this time ― and only after filing the proper paperwork. I snapped this anyway, chuckling evilly under my breath.

After seeing, to my delight, some of its results in court: Shoutout to sheriff’s departments that have instituted the IGNITE program at their jails. The program is changing lives for the better and creating safer communities. Rah.

To those of you who regularly read all the way to the end of my long posts…first, thank you. You help make my more possible. Second, I want to be more intentional about writing about the stuff that drives me ― specifically, the factors that contribute to violence, trauma, and desperate lives, and our role in addressing them. I don’t want to use this space for that, at least not often. So I need to find a new space. Where and how? No idea. But life is short. Gotta do the thing that matters. More info to come…and, if you have suggestions for me, for heaven’s sake, share ‘em. Reach me via email any time ― julie.j.riddle@gmail.com.