Orethapedia

Lamar Odom lies in twilight. He is in a medical nightmare that only his family and friends know the deepest, darkest truth of.  I couldn’t help but ponder on my way in to work today, how one ends up in a life like that.The dictionary defines death as the termination of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Yet, there are deaths that we each face every day.

He has had  an enormous amount of physical deaths.

• His mother died of cancer when he was 12; his youngest of three children died at 6 months; and two close friends succumbed to drug-related incidents this summer. 
• His marriage had deteriorated to the point of life support, yet he still called his wife Khloe.
• His career had become a shambles of trades.

It made me think about what death really is. As you get older you begin to realize that every day you live is one day closer to the end of your life.  The end of your physical earthly life. As I am a Roman Catholic, I believe that the soul is eternal.It is the one part of you that continues. It is the very breath that was breathed into you at the moment of conception. ( I am not inviting any debate on this subject, so please don’t query).  I say all that to say,  poor Lamar’s soul is on life support and has been there for a while.

Mother Theresa said:

“You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have eyes to see. Material poverty you can always satisfy with material. The unwanted, the unloved, the uncared, the forgotten, the lonely: this is much greater poverty” .

Pope Francis alluded to it when he visited. There is another group of people at risk for loneliness and constitute the fastest growing household type in the United States: single people under 65 years of age. Internet use is replacing face-to-face interactions without replacing the benefits. Having a heart-to-heart conversation with another is not the same as an online conversation, and neither is dating, but both are becoming more commonplace in society, especially among teenagers.  The mere affection and touch of another human being can go almost missing.

Think about it… have you ever gone a month without a hug?  Literally… 30 days of no physical contact at all. Why would I ask that? We have all become so entrenched in our daily lives we no longer see other people and fly through life. We are constantly flying, scheduling, worrying, plotting, complaining, destroying, building, and kvetching about life.

Lamar Odom ending up in a brothel is sad. He ended up in a loveless place looking for companionship. People who seek the recesses of brothels are generally people who are looking to make a physical connection of companionship. His relationships were so broken that he sort to lay his head in a den of iniquity.  Pause there for a moment.  Think about that.  Is he at the heart of the matter any different than most f the people living there lives out loud on social media? Selfies, Instagram, Periscope are all tools used to bring people closer.They create a welcome mat to the world, or so we think. I think it helps build tougher walls to penetrate if you ask me.  We pick and choose what the world sees. The wonderful lunches,pretty clothes great parties are all shown, but do we show the stress from the jobs, or the hateful glares or the real struggles of life? No. Life is messy.

Looking at Lamar’s situation you have to wonder just how far are the rest of of us from all encompassing sadness and grief. Not far, in the world we live in considering that anyone of us is just one pay check away from redefinition and being marked redundant. Think about that people are being marked redundant. I was once marked that. It left me quite puzzled to be honest.

His  life  has been filled with an abundance of  strife and struggle.  I do wonder if his struggle with sobriety was because he lacked the confidence to think and re-invent himself? Hank Baskett suffered through an encompassing guilt because he lost his identity as a football player. That led him to a tragic set up with which. When we lose what we think is our dream we go into isolation  mode. Some people deal with the shift better than others. Some live in constant denial that there ever was a shift. They keep trying to get back to where they think the perfect high is. They keep longing for the days before the shift, the glory days.

That’s where the drugs come in. Many people do not understand why or how other people become addicted to drugs. It is often mistakenly assumed that drug abusers lack moral principles or willpower and that they could stop using drugs simply by choosing to change their behavior. In reality, drug addiction is a complex disease, and quitting takes more than good intentions or a strong will. In fact, because drugs change the brain in ways that foster compulsive drug abuse, quitting is difficult, even for those who are ready to do so.

I hope Lamar makes. Really I do…