I remember hearing about the death of Brad Nowell, the lead singer of Sublime who overdosed on heroine, when i was just a teenager, and i remember thinking, how selfish can one man be to not think of his kids first?
Then i grew up and became a parent and began to realize that nothing is ever that simple.
In the world of parenthood, i guess society, i.e., singles and the perfect parents, are quick to judge individuals who are doing their best to raise their children and basically learn how to be an adult. Now I don’t condone daddy for shooting up while baby Bobby cooks dad’s heroine, but in the world where we can’t escape being human, maybe we should stop assuming we would do better.
One thing this country sadly lacks and could possibly be to our detriment is compassion and unity. WE are divided by our homes, our neighborhoods, the schools we go to and the jobs we have. We judge each other based on the colleges we went to and the degrees we received. Blue collar workers think white collar workers are wimps and white collar workers think blue collar workers are dumb.
We judge and judge until we are locked away in our single family homes, letting our televisions lead the way we think. We are disenfranchised from our neighbors and communities to the the point that suicide, drug and alcohol abuse and adultery are just common in today’s society. We are being deprived of true connections, so we escape into other realms, which are much more selfish and destructive than disparaging lack of social interaction.
We fear what and who we don’t know, and lock ourselves away to our own destruction and to the point of destruction.
I have lived in many places, from Atlanta to San Diego and Los angeles up to Fresno and back, and the one thing that I missed most above anything else was the neighborliness i remember from my childhood living on the lanes of Pierpont. Never anywhere else, even in east Ventura, have I met and befriended so many people in such a short amount of time. And with this friendliness, this sheer community has transformed my working days and free time into something i would never run from.
So when it comes to life, reaching out and being a community is vital to our health. Instead of judging from afar maybe we should walk in and ask if someone needs a hand. I have never heard of anyone who actually died from being killed with kindness.
I can’t help but wonder if i were there with Nowell, if my neighborhood were there, if we were all there to help, maybe this legend wouldn’t be dead. Maybe Kurbain wouldn’t have shot himself if his neighbors kept insisting on potlucks every Sunday. I wonder if the dual murder suicide up in Fresno that happened near my friend would have occurred if when the guy with the gun who lost his job, some people stepped in and helped him with his kids, maintaining his house… anything would have been better than that.
I also have a friend who was born as an epileptic with serious stomach problems who can’t find a job. She has to find a really good job wtih REALLY GREAT benefits because she was born with some severe health problems. I told her I thought it would be great if the strong helped the weak by having universal health care for every american. She suggested that i might be happier living in a communist country.
I am not sure when the individual was deemed stronger than the mass…but as a single parent myself, this is no just time for ‘every man for himself.’ I would love my neighborhood to be like that everywhere. And fortunately for me, II have no shame believing in a community that cares.
And no, i am not a communist.