Bernie LambekRecently, I represented a secured creditor in a court case. The debtor, a farmer, needed to sell the cattle and farm equipment, my client’s loan collateral. The bankruptcy judge must give prior approval for such a sale. But this time, the sale happened without her approval. I goofed, and so did other lawyers in the case. We just acted, thinking the sale needed to happen, and we didn’t think, at least not in time, that we needed court approval.
As a result, the judge imposed sanctions on us. “Sanction” is one of those weird words in English that has two opposite meanings. To sanction someone’s conduct can mean to approve it, or it can mean to disapprove it. In this case it was very much the latter. The word “oversight” is another word like that. For our part, we failed to provide appropriate oversight; precisely to the contrary, we engaged in one.
I don’t easily bear these disappointments. I carry a cabinet of shames on my back.
Why the confession? Because these things are part of life. We tend to brag about our professional lives. Think of all those curricula vitae, those blurbs on the book cover. I’ve had a long career in the law, mostly successful and interesting. True, I never realized the dream that inspired me during that heady period between taking the LSAT and starting class as a first-year law student in 1985, a little bit of William Kunstler, a little bit of Louis Brandeis. But for decades I have done good legal work in this state and earned a solid reputation.
Well, I can also acknowledge my weaknesses, my failures. The holes in my brain.
My wife, the sweetest human on planet Earth, has holes in her brain, where her memories used to reside. Someone named Alzheimer moved in. For a decade, she has gradually been losing her memory function. Everyday planning and implementing pose a difficult challenge. Making a commitment is a hollow exercise.
Alzheimer works his way slowly in her brain. Maybe the disease has been hindered by one or another of the medicines she takes. There’s no way to know. For now, she bravely carries on, living a good life, conversing and laughing with old and new friends, marveling at the miracles of nature, singing with a hospice choir, playing with our five grandchildren and one granddog, taking care of herself.
She relishes what she can do well. We often take walks about town. I chuckle when she says how grateful she is to have two good legs. Yes indeed, glass half full. But we also know what the neurologists tell us: Alzheimer doesn’t retreat; what they call amyloid plaques keep growing and, in the end, the disease prevails.
I surprised myself and my 42-year-old son a couple of years ago when I told him, as we stopped to catch our breath on the climb up Mt. Kearsarge near Conway, New Hampshire, that what I dreaded was dying before mom. He understood me, thank god.
I remember the comforting feeling I once had, around the time our three boys became three men, independent and solid in their lives. Whatever came next in my life was gravy, I felt. It didn’t matter what happened to me anymore. I’d achieved what I needed.
That comfort has crumbled. Then I was dispensable; now I’m indispensable. I am careful not to injure myself. I stopped downhill skiing. I don’t much like being indispensable.
On the other hand, I am thinking about my brother-in-law, Dave, who took his life three years ago. We don’t understand it well. We knew Dave had become somewhat paranoid in the months preceding his death, though we didn’t know how deep it was, nor did we have any idea what he intended to do about it. In the aftermath, we realized he must have felt profound despair, as he planned his life’s ending, as he thoughtfully erected a gallows in the hallway of his Texas home.
He must have felt he was dispensable, that the world, and his family and friends, didn’t need him. He was wrong about that. Maybe being indispensable isn’t so bad.
Bernie Lambek is a lawyer and novelist. He says his wife sanctions the publication of this essay.
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