Playing the Hand You Are Dealt

"I just want to let you know, that even though he isn't responsive, he can more than likely hear every word you are saying."  The nurse said this to my friend as she visited her step-brother in hospice.  In a coma-like state for the past few days, he had obviously begun his journey towards death and she had come to make her goodbyes to someone with whom she'd shared part of her life, but with whom she had no real relationship.

I watched silently, as different emotions surfaced on her face and in her eyes, only to be pushed down again by some steely desire within her to remain in control.  I could see her struggle for the right words, and I empathized with her difficulty in saying and doing the right thing. I could tell she felt infinite compassion for this shell of a man who lay on the bed in front of her, mixed with ample amounts of pity, regret, and even anger.  What does one say to someone else who has shared some of the same trauma as you, but also created chaos and trauma for you as well?  Merely being victims of the same perpetrator doesn't necessarily make two people friends or allies.  Sometimes it just makes you enemies that share a common hatred for someone else.

The entire scene depressed me.  So much so, that the next day I felt drained, overly-emotional and full of existential angst regarding the meaning of life.  The episode affected me rather deeply for several reasons.  I felt pity for the man dying of a slow cancer who had obviously led a life made complicated and difficult by circumstances in his childhood that left painful scars never completely healed.  He constituted one of those people that seemed destined to be born only to suffer through life and to die suffering as well.  I felt sad regarding my friend who has worked diligently on recovering and enriching her life for having to deal his death and the resurfacing of dormant memories and accompanying emotions caused by this event.  I confronted my own feelings concerning death and loss from which I had been hiding.  Emotions regarding my father's sudden passing this spring and my recent estrangement from my sister surfaced and made me thoroughly sorrowful.

Yesterday, I spent a great deal of time going over questions in my mind for which I have yet to find reasonable answers. Why must people suffer as they do?  What causes an innocent child to be born into a family that neither deserves them or treats them humanely? Why do people consistently make stupid decisions which allows evil to flourish? Why do good people die early and heinous people continue breathing other people's air? Why are some people consistent survivors and some chronic victims?  Why does humanity exist and what's our purpose?  What's the point of being born, living and dying?  Is there something we are meant to accomplish during this all-too-brief period?  What lessons are we meant to learn? Suffice to say, I had too many thoughts and not enough room to think yesterday and fell into a fairly melancholy and morbid state.

I have ideas that partially answer these questions, but I have yet to find anything that answers them completely.  All I know to be true is that life can be totally random, tediously scheduled, cruel, generous, ugly, beautiful, short, divine, mundane, happy and sad.  In a nutshell, uncontrolled. We have to figure out how to handle the mercurial nature of life to minimize the negative aspects and maximize the positive elements. But, damn! Staying focused on living in the present and living positively can be exhausting, even for the lucky ones like me. I cannot begin to imagine how incredibly difficult it can be when hardship and chaos dominate a person's life for no apparent reason.

I am proud of my friend.  She's a survivor and maintains a perspective regarding life that is both pragmatic and hopeful.  She has made the best of the hand life has dealt her and in spite of all the hardships, she still maintains the capacity for generosity, compassion, and love. Her indomitable spirit allowed her to gather the emotional reserves to put aside her bad memories, the effects of childhood trauma, and painful feelings regarding family to gracefully and graciously say goodbye to her step-brother.  Her acknowledgment of him and the past that they had shared did not go unrecognized by the dying man.  He knew she was there and I think he appreciated her presence.  And maybe that's all we can do.... maybe it's all we are meant to do...Maybe the ANSWER I've been looking for is as simple as that--being present, acknowledging our fellow man and woman and their journeys, and playing the hand we are dealt in the best possible way.