The place to which vulnerability leads

Last week, I found out that a good friend of mine was viciously attacked last month as he was leaving one of his regular hangouts on what should have been an ordinary weeknight. When I say “good” friend, I mean “good” in every sense of the word. He is good at his work and he is a good athlete. He has a good attitude and personality. He leads every aspect of his life with genuine kindness. It seems that he was a victim of being vulnerable at the wrong place at the right time.

To imagine these people he’d never seen before physically attacking him makes my blood run cold. The fact that the cowardly bastards callously played with the life of MY FRIEND probably because of the color of his skin and his “pretty blond hair” (as catwoman so aptly described) makes me angry - the kind of angry that stays in the pit of your stomach for days.

But I was heartened to hear his usual upbeat voice on the phone, his sense of humor deliciously the same as ever. He still insisted on hearing the details of my life and my thoughts. All of this amidst still being at the mercy of the realities of his injuries. I’m sure that he’s angry too, but he’s not letting it destroy his goodness.

In the hours following, as I contemplated the cruel consequences of vulnerability, I considered something else he and I had discussed - not taking things in life for granted. Things like health. Like being blessed with opportunities and a future. Like being able to remember past experiences, even the painful ones. Like the people - those women and men who have positively affected our health, our pasts and our futures. Like my friend who could have been taken from my life in the blink of an eye. Any one of these people in my life could be taken away tomorrow. We are all vulnerable in this way. So I stopped thinking and started doing – started reaching out more to some of these people. And it made me feel good. Good and a little less angry.