The Trigger

The text came across my phone late one night:

"@ good sam ER. jen intubated and on vent.'

She was a beautiful, vibrant 27 year old aspiring actress who was, quite simply, one of those shining lights that you instantly adore the moment you meet her. She was renting a room in the home of a good friend of mine- perfectly fine and healthy one day--gone the next due to a cerebral aneurysm.

Her death shocked all of us. As a firefighter/EMT, I'm familiar with seeing death and coping with the aftermath. But this just rattled our worlds to the core. My friend Bonnie was just distraught over the phone--the helplessness was indescribable. I asked the question that we all asked, knowing the answer would probably be "no."

"Bon...is there anything I can do?"

There was. And fortunately, it was something I knew how to do well: clean. To someone unaccustomed to medical carnage, it must have resembled something of a crime scene. Body fluids, blood, medical waste--nothing that I wasn't used to cleaning up. I came over with my scrub brushes, pail and gloves and began working away in the room. It was important that when Jen's parents came to pick up her personal effects, that while the room should not be sterile, it needed to appear clean and fresh.

As I straightened up her room, I became aware of several emotions that were rising up within myself. For a young woman that was constantly on the go with a very full life, Jen owned very little. Some clothing and shoes--jewelry and a few trinkets, makeup and hair accessories. Two or three purses. A backpack. Laptop and iPod, a few school books and some photographs. She was working at a local Trader Joe's grocer while she went to auditions, and she was perfectly happy.

My first thought was a bit macabre and sobering: if I died tomorrow, how on earth would my family ever clear out all of my stuff? it would take weeks...months even! All these things I cling to--they wouldn't matter then. The things in my life just aren't that important--the people--and the connections I make with people--that's what truly matters.

It made me think back to my early days in San Francisco where everything I owned fit in a backpack, a duffel bag and two suitcases. Life was so much simpler then. I had some of the happiest moments of my life that summer, and I didn't need tons of material possessions to create those memories. My memories aren't about what I bought or owned--that summer was all about the incredible people I met, the food I enjoyed, the places I went. The experience of life...not the souvenirs I picked up along the way.

So I made a decision, the very next day, that I would consider a new path. A path to less.