I was visiting my friend Cheryl at the hospital this morning. Physically she is having fewer symptoms than she was even a few days although she is far from well and far from the level of physical wellness she was prior to the cancer attempting to take over parts of her body. She and I again agree that, in some very important ways she is healthier than she was prior to cancer or the latest complications of cancer treatment or the onset of other medical conditions such as an L1 compression fracture and “blowing out” the hiatal hernia repair. From an emotional and spiritual standpoint she is healthier. Being able to say that does not negate the fact that she still has cancer and some other major physical health issue. It also does not negative the fact that she is aging and will sooner or later be ready to let go of this life journey.
Often this week she has gone from laughter to extreme pain to sorrow to grief to fear to laughter to. If others had listened (and they probably could not help but hear) to either my loud laughter or her chuckles emanating from her room they might have thought she was much too well to be in the hospital. Unlike many of we humans, both Cheryl and I know that being able to cherish life and to enjoy a good belly laugh does not entail avoiding the sorrow. They are not mutually exclusive experiences. In fact I have long maintained that when we run from or try to hide from the sorrow we also hide from the joy, which is always present. I do not think we humans can experience the full impact of the beauty of life without also experiencing the excruciating sadness of life. Pema Chrodon in her CD entitled “Getting Unstuck” quotes Trungpa Rinpoche: “Being able to “hold the sorrow of the world in your heart, while never forgetting the Great Eastern Sun” which is the big vision, bigger perspective. The Global perspective. The sense of unlimited time and space.”
Sharing this time in the hospital both in the critical care unit during which there was a question of whether she would continue or end this life journey and then later in a regular hospital room it has been as Charles Dickens says in The Tale of Two Cities, “…the best of times and the worst of times.” She has experienced the most lovely, loving sense of community with the many of the staff of the hospital. Wonderful, healing souls have made this a joyful time. At the very same time she has experienced great physical pain as well as the emotional pain of accepting limits and not being able to delude herself into thinking she has tomorrow with her children and grandchild.
My good friend Vilja as well as her now deceased father has had the ability to be totally present to the beauty, which is always available without denying the reality of extreme pain, or the sorrow of not being able to protect one’s loved ones. Her father Rudy could be on a train to a camp during world war II and decide to focus on the beauty of the mountains. Many in war situations learn how to do this. Without using drugs or other dangerously impairing methods they are able to cherish a letter from home, a meal, a moment with a friend, a bit of music, or something else which is truly positive
The body of music knows, as “Voices of the Holocaust-Sheridan Seyfriend” which was composed in the concentration camp in the midst of the reality of the gas chambers is another powerful example of the ability of we humans to simultaneously experience unimaginable sorrow and an amazing depth of joy and beauty.
Whether the sorrow is our own past hurtful behavior, the death of a loved one, the experience of war, being raped or otherwise assaulted, it is real and has to be fully experienced if we are to ever again experience real joy – the Eastern Sun.
It is not surprising that we humans want to avoid the sorrow and the pain. It feels as if it is too much to bear; as if we will break from the weight of the grief. Yet, as anyone who has worked with war veterans, survivors of sexual or other assault one must scream, cry out with rage and pain, which threatens to rip out ones insides before one can live with it and find the joy and beauty which also continues to exist.
Those who work in hospice or in other setting in which people are living the last days or hours know how healing it can be to fully experience pain and joy.
In some parts of our culture, wakes are very common. If any reader has experienced what I would call a real wake, they have experienced the comfort of being in a place where the grief is like an open wound – raw and bloody and loud – and the laughter is side splitting which rises from ones bones.
It is time we quit telling people it will be okay or pretending as if the pain is not as bad as it is and honor the duality of pain and joy– of being able to “hold the sorrow of the world in our hearts while never forgetting the great Eastern Sun.
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