"You and I alone ... could fight this royal battle."

 

Human brains stored at the Anatomical Gift Association of Illinois, 2013

     So I spoke to a neurosurgeon last week — in my professional capacity, I rush to add. Not for personal reasons. His hospital had pitched some achievement or another, and I, in that they-offer-you-a-hand-and-you-grab-their-elbow manner of mine, replied, "You know, I've never even spoken to a brain surgeon." 

    It worked. We talked, got on well. So now photographer Ashlee Rezin and I will, at some point in the near future, scrub up and watch this man operate on somebody's brain.
     Which is cool. Though not my job, per se, as a daily newspaper columnist. Except that I've made it my job, my portfolio being the realm of the interesting, and operations are interesting. I've watched a heart transplant and a lung transplant, a kidney transplant and Chicago surgeons in Vilnius putting a stainless steel rod in a girl's leg. A hip replacement — that was me, a video of the operation I underwent. Because surgeries are not something the average Sun-Times reader gets a chance to peer at, and I don't pass up an opportunity to share one. When a doctor at Northwestern rebuilt my spine, I spun it into a three part series. 
     I wouldn't mention this — no point in ballyhooing a story that could be months away from print — except that, jarred by the cleaver taken to the staff this week, I was tempted to begin this by cataloguing all the positions that the Sun-Times once had that are now gone. A jazz critic and a classical music critic, a book editor and an assistant book editor. A TV critic. A food editor. A travel editor. A medical writer. Five full-time librarians. 
     All lost. Along with 35 colleagues this week. The temptation is to focus on the past, on the loss, to sit in the ashes and cry. "We used to have a corporate jet and now look at us!" And maybe I should do that. But honestly, I don't have the heart for it. Nor the time. There was a moment Wednesday when I just felt so tired, and wished I'd left with them, and wondered what the future will be like, where the will to go on will come from.

     Then I shook it off, like a dog after a bath, and thought about watching brain surgery. The future for me will include looking at a living human brain. And talking to a man skilled enough to fix one. If he can do his job, I sure as hell can do mine. Writing a column, three times a week, trying to comfort Chicagoans living in a country driving to the brink of ruin — that's almost like a type of collective public brain surgery. Reaching into the mind of the body politic and rearranging. 

      That's worth doing, still. I get to focus on what is important or, when need be, completely ignore what is important and take a bubble bath in the trivial. 

     Make no mistake. It is daunting. And difficult. A colleague called Wednesday morning, someone I interact with a lot, and I let that colleague grieve and weep and vent about the various individuals who will no longer be at our side, working with us. No question. It'll be a loss keenly felt. But not insurmountable. I thought of — but wisely did not mention — Shakespeare's "Henry V," after the king fires up his troops to face fearsome odds against an overwhelming French force. 

     "God's will, my liege!" Westmoreland enthuses. "Would you and I alone, without more help, could fight this royal battle!"

    That is bluster. I did not say, "We'll put out the paper ourselves." We could not do that. But I thought it. And at times it might feel that way, to those of us left behind, shouldering an increased burden. We need to always remember that it is an honor to remain in the struggle.  This is a battle worth winning, whatever our reduced numbers, however stacked the odds are against us. Losing is simply not an option. Or if it is our fate, then we will go down fighting.