First Person: October 11, 1995
BEING THERE
A friend's tragedy teaches some lessons you can't learn in school
BY JAMES M. KENNEDY '81
Not long ago, I was speaking on a panel of attorneys, and during the question-and-answer period someone asked, "What's the most important thing you've done in your life? What's the thing you're most proud of?"
Although it's not something I had thought of before, my answer came to me in an instant. It's not the answer I gave, because the setting wasn't right. As a lawyer who's spent his career in the entertainment industry, I knew the audience wanted to hear some amusing anecdote about my involvement with the Live Aid Concert or working at Lucasfilm. But here is the true answer, the one that leaped from the recesses of memory.
The most important thing I have ever done occurred on October 8, 1990. I remember the date because it was my mom's 65th birthday, and for that reason I was back home, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, for a celebration my family had planned. I began the day playing tennis with one of my high-school buddies, a good friend whom I had not seen for a while. Between points in the usual thrashing I was taking, we caught up on what had been happening in each other's lives. He and his wife had just had a baby boy, who was keeping them up late at night. My friend's lack of sleep, however, wasn't showing in his serve or cross-court backhand.
While we were playing, a car came screaming up the road toward the courts, its horn blaring. It was my friend's father. As the car screeched to a halt, he shouted to my buddy that his baby had stopped breathing and was being rushed to the hospital. In a flash my friend was in the car and gone, disappearing in a cloud of dust and gravel.
For a moment I just stood there paralyzed, trying to comprehend what had happened. Then I tried to figure out what I should do next. Follow my friend to the hospital? There was nothing I could accomplish there, I convinced myself. My friend's son was in the care of doctors and nurses, and nothing I could do or say would affect the outcome. Be there for moral support? Well, maybe. But my friend and his wife both had large families, and I knew they would be surrounded by parents, siblings, and relatives who would provide more than enough comfort and support, whatever happened. All I could do at the hospital, I decided, was get in the way. Plus, I had a full day planned with members of my family, who were waiting for me to get home. So I decided to head back to my folk's house and check in with my friend later.
As I started my rental car, I realized that my friend had left his truck and his keys behind at the courts. I now faced another dilemma. I couldn't leave the keys in the truck. But, if I locked up the truck and took the keys, what would I do with them? I could leave them at his house, but with no paper on me to leave a note, how would he know I had done that? Reluctantly, I decided that the best course of action was for me to swing by the hospital and give him the keys.
When I got to the hospital, I was directed to a small room where my friend and his wife were waiting for word from the doctors. As I had thought, the room was filled with family members silently watching my friend console his wife at the far end of the room. I slipped in quietly and stood by the door, trying to decide what to do next.
I had been in the room for less than a minute when a doctor appeared. He approached my friend and his wife, and in a quiet voice told them that their son had died, the victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
For what seemed an eternity, my friend and his wife held each other and cried, oblivious to the rest of us standing around in pained, stunned silence. Then, after they composed themselves, the doctor suggested that they might want to spend a few moments with their son. My friend and his wife stood up and walked stoically past their family as they headed out of the room. When they reached the door, my friend's wife saw me standing in the corner. She came over and hugged me and started to cry. And then my friend hugged me, too. And said, "Thanks for being here."
For the rest of that morning I sat in the emergency room of that hospital and watched my friend and his wife hold the body of their infant son, and say goodbye.
It's the most important thing I have ever done.
I teach a course in entertainment law at hastings college of the Law, in San Francisco. Last year, at my final lecture, I told my students this story and left them with the following observations. Although I was talking about lawyers, I believe my remarks apply to any ambitious professional, a type that Princeton produces in spades.
This experience taught me at least three lessons.
First: the most important thing I've ever done happened when I was completely helpless. None of the things I had learned at Princeton, in three years of law school, or in six years of legal practice were of any use in that situation. Something terrible was happening to people I cared about, and I was powerless to change the outcome. All I could do was stand by and watch it happen. And yet it was critical that I do just that. The most important thing I have ever done in my life is just be there when someone needed me. And the thing that I am the most proud of in my life is the time when I was just somebody's friend.
Second: the most important thing I have ever done almost didn't happen because of things I had learned in classrooms and professional life. I was faced with a situation, and I analyzed it like-well, a lawyer. And I came to a conclusion that was eminently reasonable, totally logical, and completely wrong. Today, I have no doubt that I should have leapt into my car without hesitation and followed my friend to the hospital.
Law school taught me how to take a set of facts, break them down, and organize them, then to evaluate that information dispassionately. These skills are valuable, even critical, for a lawyer. When people come to lawyers for help, they are often stressed out and distracted and depend on the lawyer to think in a coolly logical way. But while learning to think, I almost forgot how to feel.
Third: I was reminded that life can change on you in an instant. Intellectually, we all know this. But we think the bad things, at least, will happen to someone else. So we make our plans, and see the future stretching out in front of us as real as if it has already happened. But while looking to tomorrow, we may forget to notice all of the todays slipping by as we strive for the few more billable hours or killer deals. And we may forget that a job layoff, a debilitating illness, a chance encounter with a drunk driver, or a myriad other events can alter that future in the blink of an eye.
Sometimes it takes a tragedy to regain some perspective on your own life. From that one experience I learned to seek balance between work and living, to understand that the most satisfying career isn't worth one missed vacation, one broken relationship, or one holiday not spent with the family. And I learned that the most important thing in life isn't the money you make, the status you attain, or the honors you achieve along the way. The most important thing in life is the Little League team you coach, or the poem you write, or the time when you're just somebody's friend.
James M. Kennedy '81 is vice-president and general counsel of Mindscape, Inc., a consumer-software publisher and distributor in Novato, California.