The Rivers of Life…pulling people out

Read Brene’ Brown again this morning.  She was talking about trying to pull people out of the rivers of tragedy or difficulty. Considering what we’ve all been through the last year (or four) and that the book was copyright 2017, she was ahead of the game. (Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for Sure Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone). The read brought back a memory of Jeannie and I at a John Denver concert on the Boston Commons many years ago.  Denver quoted a poem, The Ambulance Down in the Valley.  It struck me so profoundly that I wrote him for a copy.  He sent it, or ‘his people’ did. 

I was already into my career as a social worker at the time having begun at a small non-profit as the director of social services (tossing titles around always fascinates me).  It was a position of doing whatever needed to be done.  Only two years later I became the executive director at twenty-eight, a position I thought I’d retire from in my 50s or 60s.

A lot of what social work entails is pulling people from all kinds of rivers.  When I was in grad school my first field placement was at the Edna Gladney Maternity Home in Fort Worth.  It was ill fitted for a green, male social worker.  That was still the day when should a woman get pregnant, she was often shuttled off to ‘aunt Edna’s’ or if there was no actual aunt Edna in the family, she went to a maternity home.  On a scale of one to ten, the placement was a two.  There was one other guy placed there. We stuck close.  My second placement was at John Petersmith Hospital also in Fort Worth.  On the scale, it was a ten.  Over the year I rotated from one department to another. I quickly learned I did not want to do ER or trauma.  It was the social worker who had to inform families of a DOA.  But I ‘enjoyed’ the other areas…med/surg, even oncology for a while and psychiatry.  Saying I ‘enjoy’ those rotations is rather like hitting the ‘like’ emoji on Facebook when someone tells you something horrible just happened.  That I could revel in the misfortune of another…but then social work and counseling is all about being immersed in the misfortune of others for a time.  Most if not all the services professions are the same. We are in a sense employed by the misfortunes of life.

Back at the University of Texas (Arlington) I had a professor Michael Daley who’d trained at Tulane.  I had him for more than one semester…three if I correctly recall.  By the end of our first year we had to declare either direct practice or community organization/administration for out last year.  I declared direct practice…although back then, those in direct practice were often looked upon as sellouts to the REAL social workers who did public welfare.  Daley was a rather pompous fellow and told me more than once, “Malloy, mark my words.  You will be in administration in two years from graduation.”  And if he wasn’t right!  I never contacted him to tell him he was correct.  He didn’t need anything else to puff up that ego.  

So to begin with, I started even in grad-school pulling pregnant girls and people in hospital beds out of the rivers.  The beginnings of the non-profit I went to work for was driven by the issue of pro-life in 1973—so I continued pulling pregnant girls to shore.  We were an adoption agency also should she make the choice to give up her baby. To this day, one of the most difficult things I have even done is go into a hospital room to take a baby from its’ mother’s arms for the last time.  Those who think those mothers are heartless and cold in making such a choice are blazingly ignorant.  It is gut-wrenching. 

Later on, I found myself helping those coming to terms with being gay while having grown up in extremely conservative families and churches.  Wading the depth of that river took years.  Helping them find islands to retreat onto until they could believe God still loved them was fighting the tidal waves of shame and guilt they’d been swimming in.  Then another turn, some of those guys turned up HIV+.  That was a deep, deep river.  

Adding to these ‘soaked’ people there were the hundreds of others in counseling for individual and marital issues—affairs, depression and anxiety or just managing how hard life can be.   

So Denver’s poem brought back Michael Daley’s prophecy.  Maybe you need to consider going upstream and find out why people are falling into the river…or being pushed in.  To focus on pulling folks from the river or finding out why they’re in it can appear to be a dilemma. But it’s not either/or, it’s both/and.  That was part of what Daley was talking about.  Community organization is about attempting to prevent rather than always just rescuing.  Over the years I learned to dog-paddle and swim pretty well keeping my own head above water while helping others from the rivers but the older I’ve gotten, the more activist minded I’ve become.  While your helping folks dry off, keep an eye upriver.  

Another aspect of this, as the river gets more crowded, it’s not about casting blame.  Yes, some will say that some are just jumping into the river…via addictions or other poor life choices.  Some feel that’s a reason to let them drown. Others from their morally self-righteous positions feel things like, “you made your bed, lie in it!”  This damning of others is not ours to do…although in hast, anger and pain we all do at times. Life has taught me it pays to keep wadders or a wet-suit handy.  There is going to be a fair amount of the time even you, for one reason or another, will spend time in the river.

The Ambulance Down In The Valley

A Fence or an Ambulance

by Joseph Malins (1895)
-a poem about prevention -

'Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
though to walk near its crest was so pleasant;
but over its terrible edge there had slipped
a duke and full many a peasant.

So the people said something would have to be done,
but their projects did not at all tally;
some said, 'Put a fence 'round the edge of the cliff, '
some, 'An ambulance down in the valley.'

But the cry for the ambulance carried the day,
for it spread through the neighboring city;
a fence may be useful or not, it is true,
but each heart became full of pity
for those who slipped over the dangerous cliff;

And the dwellers in highway and alley
gave pounds and gave pence, not to put up a fence,
but an ambulance down in the valley.

'For the cliff is all right, if your careful, ' they said,
'and if folks even slip and are dropping,
it isn't the slipping that hurts them so much
as the shock down below when they're stopping.'

So day after day, as these mishaps occurred,
quick forth would those rescuers sally
to pick up the victims who fell off the cliff,
with their ambulance down in the valley.

Then an old sage remarked: 'It's a marvel to me
that people give far more attention
to repairing results than to stopping the cause,
when they'd much better aim at prevention.

Let us stop at its source all this mischief, ' cried he,
'come, neighbors and friends, let us rally;
if the cliff we will fence, we might almost dispense
with the ambulance down in the valley.'

So the townspeople met at the top of the cliff
where the workmen put up a strong fence,
woven wire and posts that were hardy and stiff
and they lauded each other's good sense.

For a week the fence stood and no ambulance came
then one morning they woke up to see
that the fence had been cut from the cliff to the tree
in the valley they stood with their shame.

Said a voice from the sky, and they knew it was God
'if you keep people healthy at all
there are forces objecting as they find it quite odd
when no earls and no peasants do fall.'

And instead of a fence on the edge of the cliff
they had placed at the bottom a pool,
where they'd land in the water, not ending up stiff
but each victim was seen as a fool.

And to face their disease that had caused the neglect
they would get a big bucket of pills,
though the cost of it all would not nearly reflect
that they'd taken the fence from the hills.

But the pharmacist said 'it's the minds of all men
they are missing the atoms of dope',
and that medicine taken again and again
was the modern way's spirit of hope.

The old sage who had said that the fence should be built
then spoke up, from the cliff near the edge
but the white coated doc said it must be the guilt
and he gave to the people this pledge.

'You will no longer be in the danger to fall
from the cliff, neither earl nor a peasant,
as the ordinance says that the citizens, all
won't be wandering near any crescent.'

And the sage on the edge while addressing the town
said they're neither your neighbor nor friend.
Both the doc and his buddy then pushed the man down,
off the cliff. Thus the story does end. 

Herbert Nehrlich 

March2021