My mom called me at 10:30 PM last Thursday. This meant that it was after midnight for her.
This could only mean two things:
1.) She butt-dialed me OR
2.) Nothing good
It was the latter.
She was calling to tell me my Dad had been hospitalized because his heart rate had been above 200 for a few (as in, more than 1) hours. My mom had just gotten off the phone with his doctors before calling me. They told her they’d tried several medications, none of which worked, and that they’d have to shock my Dad.
My mom struggled to relate all of this to me. My parents had just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary on Monday of that week and now she wasn’t allowed in the hospital to see her husband.
As she was telling me this, time dilated. I saw myself gesture to my girlfriend to turn the TV down so I could hear more clearly. I stumbled into the office. I sat down and quickly began Googling. First, I looked up flights. Then, I looked up how long the drive was: 21 hours. It was almost 11 now. I hear myself thinking, “if I leave now, I can get there by…” Then I try and find reasons his heart rate might be elevated.
My mom interrupts. His doctors are calling.
David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist. He was driven by bringing order to the natural world. At one point, he was credited with discovering almost one-fifth of all known fish species. But the natural world seemed to rebel against his attempts to order it.
His work narrowly escaped destruction several times. It was almost destroyed by lightning and fire. And, in 1906, the San Francisco earthquake shook his neatly categorized shelves, lined with carefully stacked jars, sending thousands of meticulously labeled specimens to the ground.
In a moment, the life’s work of one of the most prolific taxonomists was [quite literally] shattered. The fragile glass jars had broken on impact, separating the fish from the jars and the labels from their fish.
The universe had rendered his attempts at ordering life futile.
I walk back into my bedroom where my girlfriend is now sitting upright, waiting quietly and attentively.
“What happened?” she asks.
I tell her the story. I shake. I cry. I hear myself say things like, “I can start driving now” and “I can fly there first thing in the morning.”
A few minutes go by and the phone rings again.
It’s my mom. She sounds calmer this time.
He’s stable. They’ll run tests in the morning.
David Starr Jordan looks around to see his life’s work sprawled out on the floor in his Stanford office. A historic earthquake has just sent his life’s work toppling from the shelves. Hours upon countless hours gone….just like that.
This isn’t the first time that his world has been shattered by destruction. His first attempt at labeling fish had been destroyed by lightning. Several of his family members had died tragically.
Now this.
So what does he do now that all of his progress has been destroyed by chaos?
He begins picking up the fish and labeling the ones he remembers, developing a better system of categorization in the process.
He begins again.
“How’s he doing?”
“Good, good,” my mom says, in a way that communicates much more than the content of the words. They’re tired. They’re exhausted. They’re relieved.
Minutes earlier my Dad text me to let me know he was home.
They explain that his heart rate was elevated because of an existing condition from prior heart attacks. They implanted a device that will prevent it from happening in the future. My Dad explains how this works; I attempt to understand.
“Does this mean you’ll have Wifi now?” I joke.
“Maybe,” he says.
For the days leading up this conversation, I communicate more frequently with my Mom and Dad. We talk several times a day, more then we have in years. We laugh. We cry. We tell stories. We share memories.
We have our first conference call. My mom loves it. She sends me selfies of the two of them on FaceTime. They still do not understand angles; I appreciate this about them. I cherish the photo. It makes me smile.
We plan a visit.
We begin again.
At the age of 7, Lulu Miller, author of Why Fish Don’t Exist (the part memoir, part biography, part existential meditation), a book that chronicles the life and work of David Starr Jordan, asked her Dad what the meaning of life was.
He exuberantly exclaimed, “Nothing.”
Years later I’m listening to her on a podcast explain how this seemingly bleak take on life is actually an optimistic and hopeful one.
She’s sharing how she stumbled upon the story of David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist with a particularly interesting story arc. After nearly having his life’s work completely erased, Jordan went on to become president of Stanford and in an odd (but perhaps predictable) twist, went on to become one of the most outspoken supporters of eugenics. The author argues that this follows naturally from his belief in an almost “divine hierarchy.”
Lulu Miller points out that the universe had the last laugh.
She argues that recent scientific discoveries negate the existence of biological hierarchies and because of that, fish do not, in fact, exist.
She concludes the story about her dad’s apparently-bleak-but-actually-optimistic outlook on life by saying:
“In a world ruled by chaos, it’s how we treat each other that matters.”
In a world ruled by chaos, it is our choices that matter. It is how we treat each other that matters.
Our life, the entirety of our existence, is the sum of our choices.
Choose accordingly.
Until next time,
KB