La Joie de Vivre

            I couldn’t shake the joy of wildflowers that spring. Bluebonnets, buttercups, Indian paintbrushes bloomed abundantly roadside, painting the world blue, pinkish white, and red-orange.  Texas dogwoods added their soft hues while honeysuckle vines slowly unfolded along fence and abandoned gate.

            Too many years away had dimmed childhood memories of once-daily sights, but that spring, I felt heart and memory refreshed. Simple moments, to be sure, drinking in the beauty on the everyday drive to and from work, but powerful.

            Every person who chose my field needed their own well of peace.  Whether a spouse’s comforting hand, nature’s glory, or some other source, he or she needed to find—and keep—that grounding. We heard too many horrors otherwise, day to day.

            Abuse cases of child or partner or elder gave way to endless drug possession cases. DWIs, thefts, and simple assaults filled entire shelves while the worst of the worst took up dozens of boxes individually.  I watched officers come and go, faces stoic, as they described scenes that would break most, and I wondered at their spirit, to keep returning, day after day, to such soul-rending work. Discussion of mental health in criminal justice fields had increased in recent years, but for many, it remained just that: talk.

            We extend resources to survivors that we decline to take ourselves.

            Victims of secondhand trauma, I watched the personal relationships and physical health of colleagues pay the toll.  Divorce rates, doomscrolling, and other mind-numbing habits proved the symptoms of a still unnamed harm; gentle suggestions of therapy, long hikes, and journaling went sometimes accepted but more often ignored. “I’ll handle it,” said some. “It’s just a bad week,” said others. 

            “You are not alone,” I told all.

            One man proved particularly stubborn, sitting across the desk from me.

            “I’m fine,” he said for the umpteenth time, about as convincing as I’d been as a teen, talking to my mom, after a bad break-up. “I’m fine. Really.”

            A fifteen-year veteran of the force, he’d been handed a series of heartbreaking cases of late. The latest involved a ten-year-old’s death, and I happened to know that he had nine-year-old at home.

            “Okay,” I answered with similar sincerity. If you say so. “I’m just saying: I hear the bass are really biting this time of year.”

            He stared at me like I’d truly lost my mind. “It’s August. In Texas.”

            I shrugged. “Maybe they were talking about Wyoming. Or Montana. I don’t know. I don’t fish. But I know this, Jackson: you need a break.”

            His hand scrubbed his forehead as though to rid it of all the recent stress. This time, he didn’t disagree.

            “October,” he sighed. “October, the missus and I have a trip booked for Appalachia.”

            “Excellent!” I grinned. “That’s just—seven weeks away.”  I moved a file to a nearby bookshelf. “But you need to do something before then.”

            He looked at me and I stared right back at one of the best investigators that we had, one that we could ill-afford to lose to burn out, compassion fatigue, or any other reason.

            “Jackson,” I tried again. “If you went to your doctor and told him, ‘Don’t worry, Doc—I ate healthy one week this year—and you’d had TV dinners, pizza, and all sorts of fried food the other 51 weeks—would he declare you healthy or insane?”

            “Stupid,” he declared, half-smiling, rising, pre-trial long since over. “He’d call me stupid and deserving of yesterday’s heart attack. Point taken, counselor.”

            I waved him out of my office, sinking back into a chair that creaked increasingly with each passing day.

            I myself had a date with the wildflowers and a sunset walk that evening.