EMPATHY

My son is very sick with some disease which is rare and there is no cure.  The disease involves his muscles so that he tires easily and suffers from severe muscle pain that can only be controlled with serious pain killers such as oxycotin and morphine.  I feel very sorry for him as I know I should but somehow I believe my feelings are not as deep as they probably should be – and that worries me. 

Like they say about the definition of empathy ‘is to feel someone’s pain’.  I can not do that but I try besides at my age I have enough pain without feeling more from somebody else.  The week of the commemoration of President Kennedy’s death showed some old film clips many women and some men are showing intense grief by intense crying with tears running down their cheeks.  I suppose this is a sign of empathy toward the recent widow.

I remember hearing over the radio of Kennedy’s death when I was working in a laboratory at the University of California at Davis.  I was of course shocked as was everyone but I did not cry so I guess I showed no signs of empathy.

The next day I went pheasant hunting with good friends who came down from Northern California to join me.  I was able to get some good hunting land from a friend I knew.  Good pheasant hunting grounds are a valuable commodity and especially in California when fewer owners will allow hunting on their property.  I suppose now 50 years later it is even more difficult. 

I would not know because some forty some years ago I moved to Texas as I found much better employment here.  Now finding better employment in Texas as opposed to California is indeed a rarity for many reasons.  But, my new job was with the Federal Government and had nothing directly to do with the State of Texas.  In addition, my friends who I hunted with have died. 

I remember discussing the President’s death with them.  The father of my best friend certainly did not show any empathy when he noted that the President had been killed with a ‘lead vote’.  Now, that was a callous remark and somewhat surprising to me because he was a kind and generous man.  In many ways I learned more from him than I did my father and during college and after he was more involved with my life than was my father.