The Truth and Meaning of Life and Death

         I have been quite a pessimistic person. Most people would equate that with being a teenager, but I would like to say in as little an elitist manner as possible that I feel that my pessimism stemmed from something much deeper than hormones, girls, or even a family history of depression. I’d have to say that until the summer of 2008, I was still struggling with the impermanence of life and the futile uselessness of the average day. I was an atheist, and I was still dealing with death.

Every person, at some point in his or her life, has had to deal with the idea of mortality. Oftentimes, the first experience involves the death of a pet or in some cases a grandparent that leads to the confusing realization that nothing in life lasts. Everything is impermanent. This first encounter can even be seen as the primary step on the path to maturity. While the small mausoleum in my backyard (in which are entombed Ninjas I-VII, Brownie, Freckles, and the algae-eater fish my family never actually bothered to name) may wish to disagree, I would have to say that my first experience with the concept of death occurred within the tan hallways of Lucy V. Barnsley Elementary School, when I was calmly removed from my classroom and told that it was very likely that my mother had died in a fiery crash at the Pentagon.

I can vividly recall returning to the classroom with a distinct lack of vitality. I can recall being told by a fellow student that I looked scared. The truth is that, at that age, I didn’t know enough to be scared. I was concerned, to be sure, but the possibility still hadn’t dawned on me that my mother might be dead. It was inconceivable. Such things could never happen to me. To us. My family was fortunate. We were lucky. God wouldn’t ever let us die! The only logical conclusion was that this wasn’t actually happening.

I was left alone with my thoughts and bubbling ignorance until approximately 3:00, when my sister showed up in a beat up silver Volvo 240 to remove me from the school. Her own school (a private Catholic girls school by the name of Stone Ridge) had, upon hearing the news, gone into lock-down, refusing to allow the students to leave. Most of the girls were chattering amongst themselves, but my sister (who never was one for “girl talk”) demanded that the school let her go to pick up her little brother. They said no. When she showed up at my school, the administration staff of Lucy V. Barnsley didn’t fare much better.

She drove me home in silence. I’ve never been more acutely aware of a lack of sound. All of the planes were down, and my sister refused to turn on the radio. There were no honking horns, and the pavement of Washington DC was almost barren. The cars moved mechanically where there was traffic, but the nation stood silent, listening for news. All save a little silver Volvo that eventually turned into a driveway at 21022 Blunt Road. My sister and I got out of the car, and entered the house.

My sister immediately went into the kitchen to call my mother while I set down my bags. It turned out she didn’t have to even pick up the phone. A blinking light was waiting for us, and as I entered the kitchen myself, I heard a garbled message from my mother, trying to jokingly tell us where the life insurance was.

It ultimately turned out that my mother was all right, but I never forgot that day. The dark truth had formed in my mind. It wasn’t about to leave anytime soon. It was there for my middle-school graduation, it was there as I placed third in three events at the Junior Olympics when I was twelve, and it was there when I applied for my first job as a lifeguard the summer before my junior year. The dark truth. Nothing we do matters. Everything dies.

I was absolutely terrified my first day. I had received lifeguard training, knew above and beyond the standard first aid (both my parents are doctors), and had been swimming since before I could walk. I wasn’t afraid of the physical nature of a rescue, I was afraid I would miss it. That, up in the lifeguard chair, I wouldn’t see someone drown, and that whatever happened to them would be on my hands. As a matter of fact, I was so scared of being responsible that I requested to do clean-up duty.

Being on clean up is essentially being manual labor. Not only do you essentially have to do whatever no one else wants to do all day, but also you have to stay late and clean up everything. The pool, the locker rooms, the sauna, and the weight room all have to be in perfect shape before you turn the lights out to leave. This did not simply entail picking things up off the floor; the lifeguard given this unholy duty must bleach the tile floor beneath the urinals. This what I was doing as the rest of the lifeguards were in the process of leaving after the 12-9 PM shift. I had a mask over my face, and my eyes were burning as I dragged the smelly rag back and forth upon the slightly yellow tiles in the Men’s Locker Room. A single elderly man remained in the locker room and another lifeguard came in to tell him to hurry up. I stood up and asked the other lifeguard if I was using the bleach correctly, and as we discussed the proper way to handle chemicals, we heard a groan. As we turned toward the showers, we saw the old man steadying himself with the wall, and we asked if he was okay. He murmured yes, and as we started to turn away his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the floor. This would have been a simple situation except that his head hit the tile handicapped shower seat on the way down, and that once he hit the floor he started convulsing.

In those moments, I experienced the same dreamlike state I had felt on 9/11. I didn’t think about the fact that he was naked, or even that it was my first day of work when I ran to him. I didn’t think at all, I just reacted. The other lifeguard was still standing up, and had his bag with him. I told him to give me a towel and I used it to wrap the old man’s arms to his side. I recalled what my parents had taught me, and figured that the man must be having a seizure. This, coupled with a strong likelihood of a neck injury meant that I needed to do my best to keep his spine aligned. Thus, I swaddled him like a baby with two towels, and held his head steady in my hands until my supervisor showed up. I stayed long enough to deal with the ambulance and paper work, still lost in that same dreamlike state. My mother was waiting outside in the car when I emerged around midnight, stinking of urine and bleach. I told her the story, about how I reacted and she laughed. She told me I’d made some mistakes in treating him, but I’d done better than anyone else on duty that night could have. She said she was proud of me, and asked if I wanted to drive home. I told her no, my hands were still shaking.

As I lay down to sleep that night, I realized something. That man had been conscious when the ambulance came and he’d looked at me. His eyes said thank you, and he whispered it to be sure I understood. I still don’t know his name. I don’t need to. That man taught me something that night. He reminded me that while everything ends, each moment of life is eternal. It lives in memory. I saved that man’s life, even though he was elderly. He may not live much longer because of my efforts, but he had many more eternal moments to live, because I was able to save him. So, almost a decade apart, I learned the two halves to the ultimate truth of life. It is true that everything dies and nothng lasts, and therefore nothing we do actually matters in the grand scheme. However, this means that the best indication of who we are, the best examples of human action lay in the actions of everyday, of doing the right thing in spite of its uselssness. I was correct on 9/11. Nothing we do matters. It is unfortunate that it took ten years for me to realize that, if that’s the case, then all that really matters is what we do.