By: Susana S. Polanco

There is a question that shakes my soul: Why do we need so great amounts of pain in order to learn? This question can apply to people who suddenly find themselves before an imminent death process and all the pain it involves.

In a never-ending process to find the answer to the original question, I thought carefully about the true meaning of life, death and human suffering. I jumped to the conclusion that it lies in the fact that we have to learn lessons in life that help us to improve and be better people. At the end of the day, life is a number of constant losses that go from those almost imperceptible to the very painful ones, it seems as if life tried to tell us that we have to learn something and insists that we have to understand that we have a dynamic existence subject to multiple changes that represent cycles that start and come to an end constantly, since we are born until the moment we die, and that they involve losses which turn out to be tests, some of them pretty difficult but that we have to overcome, for this reason the process of being between life and death must be seen as a lesson that has to be learned.

But, why to wait until the end of our existence to learn the lessons we can assimilate now? [1] It is true that there are many people who wait until the end of their lives to become aware of things they never could, along their existences. To tell the truth, life, in its enormous wisdom, puts us in situations of great pain so that we learn important things that enriches us and the people around us. We might think this is cruel and merciless from life or destiny, but being sincere, in the end, we obtain a mayor good. Finally everybody comes to life to learn something, if not, what would be the real meaning of life, and the purpose of being in this world?

Death involves such a pain that touches the most sensitive fibers of our soul and body. Body pain is inevitable, but we can not allow that the inner pain, the pain of our soul becomes useless or that it leads us to our own destruction, on the contrary we must aim and orient our pain towards maturity in all those aspects of our life that can be perfected and that need to be improved, we have to grow in the middle of obstacles, it is painful to grow, it hurts, but we have to fulfill our mission in life which is: to learn from good and bad in life.

There is something each one of us must learn before going back to where we came from, and it is the unconditional love, when it is learned and put into practice, we will have approved our most important exam [2], because when we live a life where Love is the center of our existence and we learn to love ourselves as we love the others, we will understand that it was worth while living, and then we may go in peace. Living good means learn how to love [3]. When we live a death process, that most of the times is weakening and wearing-out in every sense, then we are before an opportunity to love life, to thank what we have received from it, and in this way accepting with more happiness death itself, and learn that we should live death in the same way we live life, since both are the same thing [4].

Death process must be fructiferous, taking advantage of it as a means to find ourselves, discovering who we really are, because denial before death makes us to perceive it as a distant thing and keep ourselves at a distance, wasting time in unimportant things that make us put relevant things aside such as self-consciousness. It is also true that this experience makes us more frustration tolerant, that means, makes us see life from a more realistic point of view with the good and bad, without considering a perfect life or an earthly paradise. Getting sick means to learn a patience lesson, understanding that we do not always get what we want and sometimes this does not coincides with what we had imagined [5].

It also helps us to see our interpersonal relationships more clearly, makes us think about the fact that we must settle up our accounts with others, learning to forgive and be forgiven, it also makes us to appreciate others generosity, the love and attention we receive from people who are close to us who are showing that we are important for them, in a word, we learn to appreciate people next to us, feeling fortunate to have met them, making that this little moments that, as a matter, of fact are great moments, make the sick person existence much easier and more bearable.

Definitely the process towards death makes us grow and ennobles us because we become more human when we learn to let go, not only to give away ourselves but also the anger we feel about our imminent death. This is a learning process that makes it possible for us to accept with conviction and maturity that our cycle is over, assuming with strength its painful consequences. We must be aware that we are here to admit our goodness, our courage, the miracle of our existence, from beginning to end we must understand that life is a school, with individual tests to get through and challenges to overcome [6].

The lesson of learning how to be happy in the middle of tragedy and misfortune is maybe the must difficult lesson to learn because, how is it possible to be happy in the middle of physical an spiritual pain? Maybe the difficulty lies in the fact that most of us believe that happiness equals life, and this is not necessary truth, because happiness does not depend on what happens to us but in the way we live it and how we interpret our outside [7], we must recover the positive part of every situation we live and try not to compare our less fortunate circumstances in relation with others; but it is also truth that we have to be realistic, and be aware that in order to achieve this, we need a lot of spiritual strength and inner personal resources and even if we never get to achieve this purpose because theory is always easier than practice, in the end, it is what we must aspire to. Finally the human and weak part of our nature weighs more than the spiritual one, because we do not feed it as we should. What is true is that not all of us have this tools and it is perfectly valid not to be so demanding, but it would be good to keep it as a model we should aspire to.

To conclude I could say that there are many lessons we must learn during the death process and it would depend on each and particular case and on our free will, because, in the end, learning turns out to be subjective and there are people who decide to grow amidst the inevitable while others decide their own destruction, but it is interesting to see the other side of the coin and not only emphasizing the negative aspects of pain that a human being undergoes when going through his own physical, social and spiritual deterioration. I am not trying to minimize it, but I would sincerely recommend, if possible, to find the meaning of the losses that an organic sick person faces, and appreciate life from another point of view that enables us to see death in a different way, with a more encouraging view that helps us to get closer to our own human greatness without fear or anguish.

Unfortunately, the human being does not grow surrounded by comfortableness and the fantasy that everything is beautiful, he/she grows with bitter experiences, this is hard to accept, but nothing closer to reality. Through this long and painful process for the patient and for the family, I think it is important to remark that all of us, in one way or the other, learn to live the individual pain, but learning does not stop there, we contribute so that it transcends in others, which makes this process very painful but very enriching, and that is what I keep for myself…


Bibliography

Kübler – Ross, Elisabeth, “La muerte: un amanecer”, Barcelona: “Ediciones Luciérnaga”, 1987, p.p. 119.

Kübler – Ross Elisabeth, Kessler David, “Lecciones de vida”, Barcelona: “Vergara Grupo Zeta”, 2004, p.p. 245.

Buckman, Robert, “¿Qué decir?, ¿cómo decirlo?, dialogando con el paciente terminal”, Bogotá: “Ed. Colección SELARE”, 1995, p.p. 252.

[1] Kübler – Ross, Elisabeth, “Lecciones de vida”, pag. 21

[2] Cf. Kübler – Ross, Elisabeth, “La muerte: un amanecer”, pag. 38

[3] Cf. Kübler – Ross, Elisabeth, Op.cit., pag 46

[4] Cf. idem.

[5] Cf. Kübler – Ross, Elisabeth, “Lecciones de vida”, pag 190

[6] Cf. Kübler – Ross, Elisabeth, Op.cit., pag 241

[7] Cf. Kübler – Ross, Elisabeth, Op.cit., pag 228

Printer friendly page