Letter's from my desk: Opening Windows

 

This morning began with the usual start of the day negotiations. Coffee convinced the kettle to do its job. Outlook remained unconvinced I was, in fact, myself. Again. I remain convinced Outlook and I are in a long-term relationship built entirely on mutual distrust. Allegedly.... 😂

I settled into work, opened the programs I'd need for the day, and, as usually happens, my mind wandered off before the rest of me had quite logged in.

I genuinely enjoy my job. After some of the twists life has thrown at me, that's something I don't take for granted. Still, every now and then I'll stop halfway through an email and wonder what the kids are doing.

Who's making everyone laugh? Who's discovered the greatest idea in recorded history? Who's quietly helping themselves to the snack cupboard while hoping nobody notices? (Bet it's Cade for the last one)

Children have an infuriating habit of making complicated things wonderfully simple.

I've never heard one introduce themselves by saying, "Hi, I'm a conservative." Or, "Hello, I'm a progressive." Usually it's something more like, "I found a cool stick." Honestly... The stick tells me more about them than the label ever could.

While I was organizing my desktop, the news quietly carried on in the background.

Senator Lindsey Graham had died.

Within minutes, social media had done exactly what I'd expected.

Some people grieved. Some celebrated. Some seemed almost relieved that there was one less person left to disagree with. I just sat there.

Not because Lindsey Graham wasn't controversial. He absolutely was. We disagreed on plenty of things. We had met and have had a few spirited conversations in which I admit I lost my temper and my manners did relax a lot.

But tea first. Always tea first. It's remarkably difficult to hate someone while making sure they've got enough tea and a biscuit.

Now I'm curious. When did we start confusing winning an argument with outliving the other person?

A mourning dove landed on the fence outside my window just then. It carried on being a dove. Completely unimpressed by our politics. Mostly interested in whether the bird feeder had been refilled.

Nature has an irritating habit of reminding us that we're not nearly as important as we think we are.

Politics fascinates me because I don't think it's really about politics. I think it's about belonging. We all want somewhere to stand. Somewhere to say, "These are my people."

There's nothing wrong with that. Until belonging requires someone else to become less human.

That's where the walls begin. Not with bricks. With labels. Republican. Democrat. Left. Right. Us. Them. Brick by brick. Window by window. Until eventually we forget there was ever a view.

I've watched this happen after the deaths of public figures from every corner of the political spectrum.

Every time, the same question quietly returns.

Death has already won.

Why are we celebrating?

It's an odd strategy, really. Death has maintained a perfect record for all of recorded history. Zero losses. Not exactly the underdog. Hypothetically. Allegedly. In Minecraft.

That question isn't entirely philosophical for me. Years ago, my first husband celebrated the death of someone he'd hated since childhood. I remember the room becoming strangely quiet. Not in sound. In feeling. Everyone else carried on talking. I just remember thinking, "This doesn't feel right."

Twelve days later, he died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm. I've carried that lesson with me ever since. Not because I believe the universe was balancing accounts. I don't. Reality is far too untidy for that. But one day he was celebrating someone else's death. Less than two weeks later, people were grieving his.

Mortality has a remarkable way of ignoring every label we spend our lives collecting. Republican. Democrat. Conservative. Liberal. Successful. Forgotten. Eventually, every one of us becomes the person in someone else's photograph.

That changed something in me.

It made me less interested in deciding who deserves compassion and much more interested in deciding what kind of person I wanted to become. History isn't a scoreboard. It's a workshop. We don't study it to discover who won. We study it to understand what worked, what failed, and how wonderfully imperfect human beings shaped the world for better and for worse.

Celebrate what deserves celebrating. Learn from what deserves remembering. Do both honestly. While all this was rattling around in my head, another phrase wandered in.

One of my favorite Scottish Gaelic phrases is:

Tha sinn uile daonna. (ha shin OO-luh DOW-nuh)

It simply means, "We are all human." Four wonderfully ordinary words. No hidden mystery. No grand philosophy. Just a quiet reminder of something that's remarkably easy to forget.

Tomorrow morning I'll make another cup of tea. Outlook will once again question my identity. The kids will almost certainly be doing something wonderfully ridiculous. The mourning dove will probably be back, hoping I've remembered the bird seed this time.

Life will continue doing what life has always done. I just hope that somewhere between the headlines and the comment sections, we remember there's another human being sitting on the other side of the screen.

Someone's child. Someone's parent. Someone's favorite person. Someone who laughs. Someone who grieves. Someone wonderfully, inconveniently, beautifully human.

Tha sinn uile daonna.

Keep asking good questions. Now... If you'll excuse me, I have to go convince Outlook that we've met before. Hypothetically. Allegedly. In Minecraft.

Your pal, Bunny. 🐰😘