That Ugly Gratitude

The day before Christmas, as I was driving to work (I'm in retail - we work Christmas eve), I saw something that was extremely disturbing.

When I drove over the ramp that leads from I-25 north to Co. 36 west, brake lights on the cars in front of me suddenly lit up like a nuclear power plant going full melt down. As I braked to avoid mating with the truck directly in front of me I caught sight of the flashing emergency lights of several police cars to the right, near the on-ramp for traffic coming from southbound I-25.

My first thought was, "Are you kidding me? The cops in this town have nothing better to do on Christmas eve but set up a speed trap to catch hurrying last-minute shoppers and poor saps that have to work today?"

Then, as traffic crawled closer to the police cars I saw the reason the police cruisers were parked at the median with their flashers on.

Surrounded by a small group of police officers was a young woman, probably late twenties, maybe early thirties. She was sitting in a powered wheelchair, facing the direction of on-coming traffic.

It was surreal to say the least. Traffic was going slow enough that I could take my eyes momentarily off the road and look around at my fellow drivers in the lanes on either side of me. I caught the eye of one older man whose expression reflected mine. 

It wasn't a what the fcuk expression, it was an oh-my-god expression, as if the full weight of what this woman in the powered wheelchair must have been intending to do on that busy freeway hit us simultaneously, like an anvil to the head.

Traffic resumed speed as I drove past the strange tableau, but for the rest of the drive to work all I could think was that the woman on the motorized wheelchair had chosen the morning of Christmas eve to make her way to a busy freeway for the purpose of being met head-on by a couple tons of steel and glass in order to put herself out of whatever misery she was in.

And that made me angry. 

Not because she wanted to end her life - I sincerely believe people have the right to the death of their own choosing - no, I was angry that she was apparently choosing to involve innocent people in her plans of self-destruction.

Try to imagine driving along a road minding your own business and having a person suddenly throw themselves directly in front of you.

That happens everyday, or nearly everyday. We have all  read about the person who has jumped in front of a bus, stepped onto the subway tracks, challenged a cop to draw his weapon, etc.

All of the people who drive those buses, the subway car operators, the patrolman answering a call...those people are innocent, and yet suddenly they find themselves complicit in the death of a fellow human.

I realize I should of been thinking of the poor woman in the wheelchair, thinking of the emotional and possibly physical pain she must have been suffering from, a pain that I most likely could not begin to appreciate, something that must be so incredibly painful that the only conceivable release is death...

...but I couldn't feel compassion for her. I could only think of the people who would have been affected by her actions, perhaps emotionally scarred for life, and I was suddenly grateful to the police for interceding in her actions, and grateful it wasn't me in either position.

Reasons to be grateful can be ugly.