How People Are Like Avocados

Interesting, but still trash.

One of the positive aspects of a heart attack, and I've noticed a few, is that it's a mind-altering, life-changing, eye-opening event. Afterward you see things so much more clearly, things you skated right over before. In the Live for Today Department, a heart attack cuts through the fog of complacency that most of us inhabit until something wakes us up and shakes us free.

Take, for example, the common avocado. Usually I'll just grab one, slice through the hard shell of skin and toss it in the trash along with the pit, then eat the delicious and nutritious flesh, never appreciating the amazingly well-constructed package that might have been designed by an MIT grad student. But last night, fixing some guacamole, I actually looked at the whole thing and deemed it worthy of the photo shown above. It reminded me of how often I skim along the surface of things, including people, rarely plumbing the depths to understand their inner workings.

The night of my heart attack, my husband and I were at the rented vacation home of out-of-town friends who were visiting Maine. We had spent the preceding day together and had planned a fun weekend. After a genial dinner the four of us talked around a cozy fire, then retired for the night. Only I didn't retire, I stayed up -- busy having a heart attack. By dawn it was clear that if I wasn't dead yet, I certainly wished I were. We departed hurriedly, our hosts helping me into the car while my husband scrambled to gather up our belongings. Things, for me, went from bad to worse in short order.

Those people (formerly known as "my friends") never called (or emailed or texted) to see how I was doing, despite learning that I had suffered a heart attack, undergone surgery, and spent four days in the hospital. Still haven't, by the way. That puzzled me for a long while: How can people be so mean, especially on the heels of being so nice? It also pissed me off to high Heaven since these two are church-going, God-loving Christians who frequently do foreign missionary work for the disadvantaged.

Since anger is the last thing you want coursing through your body following a heart attack, I put a lid on it. I began to understand that many people are just like avocados: They have that hard outer shell, a pit in the middle containing all the mechanics, and some nourishing good stuff in between. Sometimes, even though they look great on the outside, you come to find out that even their good stuff is rotten and you have to trash the whole thing.