There are too many tragedies

Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live. – Robert F. Kennedy

Since murders, and particularly murder-suicides, are such a rarity in Geneva, Illinois, despite my reticence regarding amu involvement in family law cases, I reluctantly decided to get to the bottom of the recent tragedy in the Eaglebrook subdivision.

For brevity purposes and because I have no interest in reiterating it, I’ll assume you’re already familiar with the story. If not, every local newspaper and Chicago news station has covered it at length.

I did managed to ferret out the full story, and there are some strange twists, cut since none of our less-than-perfect lives could withstand that kind of scrutiny, I’ll spare you the details. The truth is they don’t matter anyway because they don’t begin to add up to this kind of violent ending.

Let’s not forget about two teenage children who suddenly have to make sense of the senseless and somehow put their lives back together in the shadow of their parents’ deaths. If the pall hangs this heavily over me, I can only imagine what they must be going through. The last thing any of us should want to do is add to their already heavy burden.

But there is an aspect of this sad situation we will discuss. There was absolutely no indication this divorce would rise to this terrible level.

For reasons we’ve previously covered ad nauseum, I’ve had the dubious distinction of observing more family law court proceedings than most attorneys. And with rare exception, the common thread between those cases is an obsession with destroying the other party to the point it would make Captain Ahab jealous. It’s difficult to explain just how brutal it can be.

But there was none of that here, or at least it was minimal. No divorce is perfect, but this one was about as straightforward as it gets. How do I know? Because those battles bent on mutual self-destruction are inevitably accompanied by pages and pages of pointless motions issued with the sole intent of making it as difficult as possible for the other side. And it’s all available on the circuit clerk’s website.

Until the recent filing regarding late support payments, this former couple hadn’t engaged in any of that deleterious tit-for-tat for three years. I also understand the ex-husband admitted he owed that money in open court, which is rarer than a Kardashian with an IQ over 40. Both the Kane County judiciary and some of the attorneys involved also noted that there were none of the typical red flags that would’ve led them to believe violence was a possibility.

So, the question I’ve been pondering since that horrific day is, since nothing happens in a vacuum, what could possibly drive an ex-husband to kill his wife and turn the gun on himself? It’s an anomaly even in the most acrimonious divorces. Here’s what I came up with.

For the past year, I’ve sat at my home office desk a half-mile from Delnor Hospital with open east windows only to be bombarded by the persistent wail of sirens, particularly in the evening. This clearly isn’t any form of a scientific study, but I’d estimate ambulance activity is up at least 300 percent over pre-pandemic levels. A nearby neighbor thinks it’s even more.

I’ve also spoken with a number of clergymen, one of whom told me, “The post-COVID landscape is ominous,” and his compatriots “have their hands full.” It’s the same thing with therapists to the point where it’s almost impossible to get an appointment.

Divorce rates are up, teenage self-harm is on the rise, suicide rates have increased, and mental health crises centers are overwhelmed. Even cases of heart disease have spiked in the plague’s aftermath.

Prior to the pandemic, U.S. mass shooting incidents, defined as gun violence where four or more people are wounded or killed, averaged an abhorrent 293 incidents per year. We’ve already had 272 mass shootings through May of 2023.

My point is, you cannot isolate human beings while you destroy their livelihoods and strip them of any economic security without reaping the kind of repercussions that make the pandemic’s trajectory pale in comparison. Put more simply, those COVID chickens are coming home to roost in ways the “experts” never considered.

But while I believe there’s a special place in hell for every last one of the nanny staters who wreaked havoc on society’s most vulnerable members just to make pandering political points, we’ll save that column for another day.

Since we can’t go back and change the past, we have no choice but to look ahead. That means, if we really want to contend with the increasingly evident COVID fallout and forestall these ongoing tragedies, we have to start putting some serious money into our mental health safety net, and we have to start doing it. NOW. The failure to do so means it’s going to get a lot worse before it starts to get better.

That effort must include opening up some real mental health care options for those of our brothers and sisters who can least afford it.

In the last hour alone, I’ve heard four separate ambulances head into the Delnor emergency room. The morning before this column was published, I heard four more.

I’ve lived through some strange times, too. The counterculture wars of the ‘60s, the Chicago race riots, a previous pandemic that killed nearly as many people, presidential assassinations and assassination attempts, and natural disasters that would curl your toenails, but I have never experienced anything like the post-COVID era.

If we truly are the compassionate Christian nation we claim to be, we have to start dealing with this mental health reality NOW!