Last week was a disaster for my coworker, “Maya” (30F). She came into work seeming confident and content, but hours later, her brother Evan (26M) fell off the roof of his house. He was conscious afterward and apparently felt fine, so he didn’t call emergency services. Tragically, he had serious internal injuries and died.
I was shocked and heartbroken for Maya. I can’t imagine losing a sibling. But after hearing what happened, I also found myself thinking Evan had been reckless. Why was he on the roof? And after falling, why didn’t he call for help just to be safe? If it were me, I would have, especially knowing how devastated my family would be if something happened.
His death was awful, but I’m struggling with the idea that a preventable death caused by someone’s own choices is the same kind of tragedy as other deaths. I would never say this to Maya, but I’ve thought about venting to friends or coworkers who knew them. I suspect they would disagree with me, and for some reason that makes me feel even more strongly about it.
I also recognize that Evan worked for minimum wage and may have avoided the hospital because he was afraid of medical debt. I didn’t know him well enough to know whether that played any role in his decision.
Would I be out of line for sharing these thoughts with someone who knew Maya or Evan, or is it okay to vent privately?
Yes. You would be wildly out of line.
You are taking the worst moment of another family’s life and turning it into a debate you feel compelled to win.
Evan fell off a roof. He was conscious. He apparently thought he was okay. He was wrong, and he died. That is the tragedy.
You keep calling his death preventable because you have information he did not have. You know he had serious internal injuries because you know how the story ended. He did not.
Maybe he made a bad decision. Maybe he underestimated the fall. Maybe money influenced him. Maybe he had no idea how badly he was hurt. You do not know. And that is exactly why you need to stop building a moral case around it.
The part that should concern you most is this: you say you suspect other people would disagree with you, and that makes you want to argue your position even harder.
Why?
What exactly are you trying to accomplish?
A woman’s brother is dead. Her friends and coworkers are not an appropriate audience for your argument about whether he bears enough responsibility for his death to make it less tragic. There is no useful destination for that conversation.
And yes, it is still a tragedy. Tragedy does not require perfect decision making. Human beings make bad calls every day. Sometimes the consequences are tiny. Sometimes they are irreversible.
You are allowed to have an uncomfortable thought. Having a thought does not make you cruel. But you are responsible for what you do with it.
If you absolutely need to talk this through, choose someone completely removed from Maya, Evan, their family, their friends, and your workplace. Better yet, spend some time asking yourself why assigning blame to a dead stranger feels so important to you.
Maya does not need your analysis of her brother’s final decision.
She needs kindness.
Give her that, and keep the rest away from her grief.