It's living that's hard.

Society sweeps too many deaths under the rug while proclaiming every life - except those lives - matter

This is part 3 of a three-part series of essays, with the first 2 pulled from the archives. These are not astronomy posts; they are reflections on being alive in a world that tells us anyone can be anything and then says, “but not you" to those who lack the right privileges.

Today is Trans Remembrance Day. I didn’t mean to write this essay today, it just sort of happened.

I lost a trans friend earlier this week. I know I’m not the only one. As our country makes it harder and harder for people to be their true selves, more of us will wake up to those last messages telling us that things have just reached a point where continuing is no longer an option. I was lucky enough to get to say “I love you” in one last phone call before she put the QED on her life, and heartbreakingly I know she was at peace with how the math came out that last day as she ran her equations.

As a society, we need to find a way to bias the math toward life.

It always surprises me just how few people reflect on the calculus of choosing to take another breath and fight another day. I have always been confused by that question on medical forms, “Do you have thoughts of suicide?” Yes. Don’t you? Don’t you too run those formulae and balance the weights of what we put into this world against all those those things tearing us down? Don’t you also ask, is it worth facing the daily messages from detractors; the words of harassers? Is it worth witnessing the crumpling of our society; the collapsing of our climate? Is it worth the endless tasks that must be done but to what purpose? Do I need to keep facing the bills, the pills, the emails, and all of the ‘I need you to…’ that fill our days? For what meaning do we keep going in this world that seeks only food and not nutrition?

As Banksy put it, keep your coins, I want change.

photo by Miguel Discart & Kiri Karma

And I will keep going as long as change is possible; I will keep saying yes to searching for meaning and reasons to fight.

But I still check the balance of my scales, weighing and reweighing the value of my life. It’s just who I am.

I learned to lie on that question because medical doctors will just put me on medications that numb all emotions and that isn’t life. The therapists they send me to will just tell me how high-functioning I am and proceed to ask me astronomy questions. I’m not going to pay a copay to explain black holes to a person who doesn’t care about the darkness on Earth. I don’t know what fraction of us live in this lie, but I believe that the number of us who reflect regularly on that darkness far exceeds the number who give into that darkness.

And the number who give in is too many.

We have all heard of the famous suicides. Robin Williams. Hunter S Thompson. Sylvia Plath. Alan Turing. I could keep going. What makes these deaths remarkable is that well-known and creative minds were lost while society felt they still had so much left to give. Usually, society doesn’t care.

Our culture sweeps under the rug so many deaths as “just another poor / trans / druggie / pregnant out of wedlock / worthless person” without asking if those people could have been Picasso, if only someone gave them paints. Or perhaps those people could have been Turing if only they could afford college and computers, or maybe they could have been Thompson or Plath if only someone had read their words and offered encouragement. Our society sweeps these deaths under the rug while proclaiming that every life - except their lives - matters.

What is it that makes some lives worth more than others?

We are going to see more people taking their lives in the coming days and years because our society has decided to choose hate, and the scales have tipped, making too many lives too hard to live. There are Nazi’s on the streets of Ohio, anti-Trans voices in Congress, and the refrain of “Your body, my choice” coming from men at every turn.

And I don’t know what to do. I will be fine. I have options and privilege. But I can’t rescue everyone and I can’t fix everything. I will be fine, but so many others will not be. Maybe, if I can help just one person it will be enough.

On Monday, I couldn’t help just one person.

On Monday, someone in my life committed suicide because as a disabled trans woman in a red state, they were about to become homeless. Anything I or anyone else might do with money or actions or words or prayers would just be a bandaid on escalating medical costs and a deterioration of personal protections. Faced with a wall of fiscal and physical deficits and mental and physical pain, her equations took the limit, and she died watching the full moon set. She wasn’t the first. She won’t be the last. But she was the one I knew and it hurts that I could do nothing; I could add no constant of integration that would give her a positive outcome.

But I can ask each of you reading this, even if you don’t reflect on your own ability to move forward through every day, would you please reflect on how the actions you take change how others move forward through their days? I still can’t reconcile the results of the last election. People voted for a president who ran on a platform of hating others, belittling others, and promising to hurt others. As his promises get put into action, as we see our government providing less for the people, and protecting fewer of the people, what will you do to counteract these changes, and rebalance the lives of those around you?

The only way I see forward is for all of us to lean in and say we will support one another. If we can just find our center, and all lean in we can balance one another and together support the weight that would crush us if we were alone.

I am not alone. And you, dear reader, are not alone. Together, maybe, we can find a proof where no one falls below zero.