For Whom the Bell Tolls

When you can’t try to ease the suffering of others without risking feeling your own pain as a result, what do you do? A month of loss made me reflect on what it all has in common and how to keep from shutting down.

“Stiffened wounds test their pride
Men of five, still alive through the raging glow
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know
For whom the bell tolls
Time marches on“
Metallica “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

About a month ago, a friend made a connection with a homeless gentleman living in one of the many encampments that have sprung up across my city. He is older, in poor health, and has two dogs. My friend, whom I will call Angelica, put the call out to her circle of friends to donate to help get him off the streets while she sorted out the best options for permanent help for the man I will call Neil. He turned down shelters that did not allow pets because he refused to part with his fur family, which I completely understand. She found a budget motel sympathetic to Neil’s situation and willing to rent him a room without charging extra for his dogs, and he settled in. I donated enough to pay for two nights and gave a few bags of groceries, dog food, and treats to help this little family. 

Over the next few weeks, Angelica kept us updated about Neil. No program that could accommodate his needs had any openings, and it became a juggling act to try to keep him and his dogs in a soft bed in a heated room until the system – a deeply flawed one – came through. 

I never told anyone about what was going on until today when I shared it with a friend. Why the silence? Because I felt flooded with so many emotions. I could talk about how sick it is that the highway underpasses of cities now commonly fill up with people with no place to call home. I could talk about how I have to cling to the nearest piece of furniture so as not to lose my mind when I think about the sinful amount of suffering that animals endure. But it’s more than that. 

I felt guilty about wanting to tell my friends about this man and how I helped out. I couldn’t think of any context for speaking about it without feeling that, even without meaning to do it, I was simply setting myself up to sound like a heroine. “Oh, how sweet of you to help this guy and his doggos! You’re such a great person!” The risk of being perceived that way creeped me out, and I kept my mouth shut. 

I also struggled with guilt about climbing into a comfy bed with a full stomach in a warm house because who was I not to pay for more groceries and more time in the motel? Questions swam through my head as sleep evaded me. Was I really a good person when I could put off buying a new office chair I need so much and instead give the money to Neil but didn’t do it? How much more could I give? What was too much for my budget? Must I overthink every single fucking thing about this? My subconscious absorbed this Tasmanian devil of emotions about the entire situation, and I had a nightmare so upsetting that I woke myself up screaming in the dark.

Over the weekend, Angelica found an injured old cat and rushed her to the animal E.R. She posted asking for assistance, and I texted her to let me know the amount of the bill because I wanted to help out. I won’t go into the injuries this sweet fur child had because it’s too upsetting, but ultimately, no happy ending was possible. When I read Angelica’s update that she had “sent her to the angels”, I cried hysterically. 

It hit me quickly that the tears were somewhat about a kitty I never met, but they were more about my own loss. I had to make the terrible choice to put my beautiful Siamese cat to sleep two and a half weeks ago. He almost made it to his 18th birthday, but after battling kidney disease like a warrior, I had to let him go. 

It’s also partly about the recent death of a long-time friend from my theatre days. He was in his 70s and the death was not unexpected, but the loss is still palpable.

That same night that the rescued cat went to the Rainbow Bridge, Angelica alerted us that Neil had been released after a brief hospital stay that consisted of a patch-up job, which was all the doctors could do. He wanted his dogs back, and Angelica had a decision to make. This man is likely not long for this world, and if he dies under the tarps he uses as blankets behind some building, this likely dooms the dogs to suffering, starvation, and death. She told Neil he could not have his pets back, and that she would make sure they received the care they need. He became furious, and their relationship broke down. 

I had to take breaks from work today to ponder all this, which led me finally to tell a friend about what occurred. I knew I wanted to write about it all, but I felt like it would just be 1,000 words that could be boiled down to “White lady feels bad about other people’s problems” and should never see the light of the day. If you met my friend, you might think he’s a jovial Deadhead with a wicked sense of humor, and you would be correct. But he also has a way of turning a phrase (I highly recommend everyone have at least one writer friend) and sent me down a path on which I discovered a way to put this all into sensible words. 

It boils down to this: sometimes we do all we can as charitable humans and extend ourselves to help those who are trapped in a cycle of pain because it breaks our hearts not to do so. Unfortunately, no matter how much we do to help ease someone’s suffering, sometimes the best we can do is just give them a soft place to rest before the inevitable shitty ending where they die anyway. Sometimes you have to let them go because it’s the best thing for them or because you have no other choice. 

I did this with Sawyer when it was time to let my sweet cat move to his next life, even though it left an enormous and gruesome void in mine. Angelica agreed with the E.R. veterinarian that the found cat needed permanent relief from her suffering. Even when it hurts like hell, sometimes we have to say goodbye because it’s the kind thing to do. Even saying goodbye to Neil because his mental illness surfaced and compromised Angelica’s safety hurts. And although the decision for the man to lose custody of his dogs was made by someone else, I believe it is the humane thing to do. 

I give because I want to ease suffering, but ironically, sometimes it causes pain for me. It came in spades the past month and forced me to make sense of it. I dug deep and uncovered how the fate of Neil, his dogs, my friend, and the cat I don’t know all tie into my losing Sawyer. And when I dug even deeper, that shares a tie with losing my mom, for whom I was the caretaker during the years she developed and succumbed to dementia. I did my best to give her a safe space and comfortable place to wind down before the inevitable shitty ending where she died. 

Where do I go from here? It would be easy to just back off, keep my extra money to myself, and pull tight my emotional shutters to protect myself. After all, how many people with jobs and homes and no worries about where to find their next meal ignore the suffering they see in the world? Sadly, plenty do. Yet, I refuse to become someone so blind to it that I fool myself into believing everyone gets what’s coming to them and should pull up those proverbial bootstraps or STFU. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that when I put myself out there to offer help to someone whose suffering I want to alleviate, I risk the potential to get hurt. I may cry over the cruelty animals suffer, I may wring my hands with uncertainty about what exactly my role should be, and I may get ripped off by someone. Reward rarely comes without risk. I will give in the capacity that feels right and I can afford, and I will trust that it all balances out somehow.

The good deeds we do are all somehow interconnected, and while a few bucks for a bag of dog food here, or a night at a motel there don’t amount to corporate levels of donations, they all mean something. The key is to learn to balance the pain that can come with trying to put a roadblock in front of the suffering of others with the joy it gives me. And to know that if I sit down to write it all out, to trust that I can make sense of it with my words, learn from it, and move on a little wiser.