This piece ran in my Mind, Body, Spirit column in the Lake Country Sun on 11/09/07.  I call it “Indifference” but it ran as “Drug Abuse Destroys, Distorts All Who Are Around It”:

 

Drug abuse brings with it a special kind of hell—one that distorts and destroys not only the passionate users, but also anyone surrounding them.  Drugs suck the life out of everyone in their vicinity.  They also expose one of humanity’s worst characteristics—indifference. 

 

I’ve lost my child’s mind, body, and spirit to drugs, namely methamphetamine.  My memories are saturated with unfathomable experiences, to be sure, but humanity’s indifference has hit me like a spiked ball and chain to an already shredded, bleeding heart. 

 

A feeling of being disconnected from society is always with me.  No matter where I go, my reality goes there with me.  People everywhere, and yet loneliness in my own muck follows me like a cement block chained to my soul.  At times I want to shake people—complete strangers—and shout at them, “Don’t you see what’s happening?  I’ve lost my son!  Don’t you care!”  But life goes on, time waits for no one, and others have their own problems.  

 

What has really hurt and infuriated me through the years are those—whether friends, law officers, doctors, clergy, or strangers—who’ve been well aware of our family crisis and yet carried on with mechanical indifference.  I often try to view my situation objectively, wondering how people can be capable of such apathy toward the distress of others.  Surely it is a learned behavior, I tell myself.  Surely it’s not a normal response. 

 

I have a friend with a 25-year-old mentally and physically disabled son who once expressed to me that she, too, has this same internal dialogue with the world.  She, too, experiences grief that doesn’t have to be—grief brought on by the careless reactions of others.  My son chooses the pathetic life of drug use, and a nurse’s negligence caused permanent brain damage to her perfectly healthy baby boy. 

 

Internal screaming at the world’s indifference never ceases for some of us.

 

Bitterness at others’ indifference benefits no one, though—least of all the one feeling bitter.  Negativity, like drugs, erodes the mind, body, and spirit.  While others’ indifference is a choice, so are the decisions one makes in response to it.  

 

So what is the best counter response to indifference?  May we all offset it with major doses of compassion to those in need and forgive those whose actions hurt us. 

 

After all, what did Jesus do?