Unexpected phone call can turn world from happy to miserable

By David McElroy · July 2, 2020

Lori was laughing as she told me something her puppy had done. We were both on our way home after work Thursday afternoon. When I first called her, she was grumpy about the lousy week she’s had, but that changed after a few minutes. She was laughing and happy.

She suddenly sounded mildly annoyed and said she needed to take a phone call from her mother. Her mom had called five times since we had started talking, and that wasn’t like her.

About 20 minutes later, she texted me. She was in a daze. Her mother had been calling to say that her father has brain tumors.

When I called her back, she wasn’t the same happy young woman she had been. Her entire life had just been turned upside down. She still doesn’t know the details, but she’s leaving town first thing Friday morning to drive home — to deal with an uncertain future for the father she loves dearly.

And I’m sitting here thinking — again — just how uncertain our short lives really are.

I have no idea what it would feel like to get such a call. When I did get a phone call — a few years ago — that my father was in a hospital and probably dying, I felt almost nothing. But that’s because I had given him up years before when I had cut off contact with him.

As I thought of Lori’s situation, I had trouble putting myself into her shoes. I couldn’t think of any call I could get that would make me feel the same way. There are people in my life whose deaths would shock me and which would leave holes, but when I think about the category of people whose death would devastate me, well, I realize that I wouldn’t even get a call about the illness or death of such a person.

The only people whose death or illness would destroy me are people who nobody would call me about. Nobody would know or care that I would want or need to know. And as I thought about that, I suddenly realized that I did know what it might feel like to be in Lori’s position.

Nearly three years ago, something terrible was happening in the life of someone I had loved. Someone I’ll always love, it seems. Although we didn’t talk anymore, she let me know that she was on her way to an emergency room with symptoms that scared me. It sounded like something that could kill her.

I was terrified.

I also knew that she was in a position in which she wasn’t going to have anyone to take care of her the way she needed and deserved. She would have medical care, but no emotional support. I felt a combination of rage and fear and confusion.

Over the next couple of hours, all I wanted to do was drive to where she was and take care of her. She wouldn’t have wanted that or accepted that, but I was so upset about her need that I wanted to disregard everything — to just show up and say, “I’m here to take care of you, whether you like it or not.”

I have too much respect for other people’s right to make their own decisions to do that, but it’s the only thing that stopped me. I didn’t want to lose her. I didn’t even want to live in a world where I didn’t know she was there, somewhere. I was terrified of losing her. But if she was going to die, I wanted to be taking care of her until the end.

Yes, it was a ridiculous fantasy. I guess I wanted to be the one to come to the heroic rescue. Because facing her possible death made me willing to act in an absurdly crazy way.

I’m surprised that Lori’s situation has triggered this vivid and emotional memory for me. I guess, though, that it’s really just another way to look at the same issue. We’re all scared to lose the people we love.

And here’s what makes the least sense to me. Even though we are terrified of losing certain people, we often feel as though we will have forever to spend the time with them that we want and need. We’ll have forever to fix whatever needs to be fixed.

We can do it later. Always later. Put the decision off.

If this were a movie, Lori would move back home to take care of her father, whether he has months left or years or whatever. It would be the sort of scene that makes her realize how much she loves him and how much she needs him for the time he has left, so she would pack up her house next week and move hundreds of miles back home.

And if my life were a movie, I would find some way — through some absurd opportunity that only a screenwriter could make up — to go to a woman and say, “This is ridiculous. I have no idea why we’re not together. I’m here to figure that out and make that happen — no matter what it costs.”

Lori’s movie would end sweetly. She would be with her dad until the end, whether that end is next week or 10 years from now.

My fantasy movie would end sweetly, too. Problems would be solved. Communication would be cleared. Fears would be set aside. Truths would be told. Mountains would be moved. And love would triumph. Cue the credits as the happy family lives happily ever after.

But we’re not in movies. We’re flawed and ridiculous human beings who waste our time. Waste our lives. We love people and don’t do anything about it. We get confused about what’s important. And we lose the love we need more than anything else in this world.

If we really understood what matters in life, we would live our lives differently. We would make decisions that give priority to love — long before we’re worried that life might be slipping away from the one we love and need most.

We might be smart people, but we’re rarely very wise.

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Have you ever wondered how the social media world works for so-called “influencers”? I find it comical, so I thought I’d share with you. I frequently get offers such as what I’m about to describe. And if I’m getting such offers — as a relative nobody in the online world — you can only imagine what people with huge audiences are offered. It starts with an email appealing to my ego: “We came across your online presence and we LOVE your style. We’d love to have you as one of our Brand Ambassadors. To celebrate our new [Brand Name] collection, we want to give you a FREE Watch so you can post a picture of you wearing it and drive more exposure to our brand.” Did you hear that? They love me. They want me to be seen wearing their cheap $59 watch so other people will think, “If this amazing influencer wears that, surely I should buy one.” They even offer me commissions on the watches sold from people clicking from my site. So the next time you see some alleged “influencer” touting something online or on social media, remember that this is what it’s probably all about. It’s laughable.

Modern culture is going insane. The latest evidence comes from the effort to redefine children’s author Dr. Seuss as a racist whose books should be banned. Why? Because a few images in those books don’t meet modern political standards. The drawing you see here is one of those “dangerously racist images,” and it comes from the Dr. Seuss classic, “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” The book catalogs all the wild diversity seen by a child on one street, including the offending drawing of a Chinese boy. What’s racist about it? Apparently, it was racist to show the boy eating rice, wearing a funny hat, using chopsticks and (worst of all) having eyes represented by a slit. (The bearded man near him has dots for eyes, but that’s apparently OK.) In other words, the stereotypes are considered racist today. (Oddly, the culture warriors who fret over such things are never concerned if a white southerner is depicted as ignorant trash living in a trailer. Some stereotypes are great, especially if the left hates those people anyway.) Theodore Geisel — the name of the real-life Dr. Seuss — was a product of his time and nobody at that time would have seen any of this as racist. Using stereotypes and exaggerations is how artists depict differences in simple ways. You can argue that it’s better to achieve the end result in a different way, but it’s insane to pretend that everybody from the past should have his work erased because it doesn’t match the preferences of modern leftists. Unfortunately, the company that publishes Dr. Seuss books has caved to the insane people — and six of his popular works will no longer be published. The world has simply gone insane.

Tyler Barnes will never be a basketball star. He probably peaked as a star high school player in Louisville, Ky. But for the last four years, he’s been a walk-on player for the University of Alabama. He’s a chemical engineering major with lots of academic honors who rides the bench because he loves being part of a team. He sometimes gets into games with a minute or two to go, but only if Alabama has a big lead. This Saturday, it was senior day for Alabama basketball, so it was his last chance to play in Coleman Coliseum. Alabama Coach Nate Oats says that one of the team starter’s came to him an hour before the game started — and fellow senior Alex Reese asked Oats if Barnes could start in his place for this one game. Even though the game was huge for Alabama, which is ranked No. 6 in the country and trying to wrap up an SEC title, Oats agreed. Barnes started and played the first three minutes, grabbing what was only the fourth rebound of his career and missing his only shot. Barnes has a great future as an engineer, but you’ll never again hear from him as a basketball player. For three shining minutes Saturday, though, he was a starter for a top-10 college basketball team — and his parents were in the stands from Kentucky to see it. There’s a lot of ugliness in college basketball right now, but this story makes me happy.

It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

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