Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
One of the most humbling things about medicine is being forced to confront the painful and difficult matters that make up this life. I have one more week in the acute assessment unit on an aged psychiatry ward. There are sob stories here aplenty, enough tears and hurt to drown the nation, no doubt. Last week I admitted a Polish lady who spent the cream of her teenage years, aged 15 to 18, as a forced labourer in World War II Germany. She was forcibly taken by the Wermacht and never again saw her parents. In one of those cruel twists of history, the end of the war saw Soviet occupation of her homeland and she and all those in her refugee camp fled to Australia rather than face communist rule. She now lives in a paranoid world, haunted by memories of the things she saw in Germany, which she now confuses with modern life in Melbourne.
That’s tragic, a true tale of woe caused by the cruelty of man, and the horrors of war and slavery. Life however, has other tragedies -- things the U.N. cannot solve. There are some deeply distressing experiences that have nothing to do with dictators and greed, and everything to do with the frailty of the human condition.
“Arthur” is 80 and a giant of a man. He came to us two nights ago simply because his wife, the love of his life, his companion of 60 years, can no longer cope with the confused, incontinent wreck that Alzheimer’s dementia has made of her man. Arthur migrated to Australia in the 1950s from Greece. He worked as common laborer, and saved enough to marry his teenage sweetheart and raise three loving children. Arthur then went to school and studied enough to qualify to join the police force, where he had a dignified career, without formal distinction, but with more than a small amount of respect from his peers.
His family adore him and are beside themselves with grief at what he has become. Throughout his life, he was dedicated to his wife. The two had been inseparable until, on the verge of breakdown from lack of sleep, she brought him to our unit. In his moments of lucidity, all Arthur asks for is his wife. He complains he cannot sleep without the comfort of her presence in the same room. For her part, she is racked with guilt that he is away from home and that, after three years, she has had to ask someone else to care for him for a while.
There is no secular meaning to this suffering. There is nothing one can blame apart from the deadly combination of genes and environment that caused a protein called amyloid to deposit itself in Arthur’s brain and eat away his personality and memories. For his wife, the love of her life exists in fragments, within the shell of a frequently incoherent, irritable, wandering insomniac. It is a true tragedy -- and it is part of a normal and “good” life.
It is in circumstances such as these that I have found that religious faith has enormous power, to both comfort and to lend meaning to the pain. There is hope. Hope that Arthur has a life after this to come, and that his family may one day meet him again. Hope that there was some enduring purpose to the sacrifices and life of an 80-year old husband and father called Arthur.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
I agree, Antipodius. Among the "evidences" for religious belief is the experience that it makes sense out of what is otherwise meaningless. It lends dignity and hope, beauty and nobility even, to the entire range of human experience.
This week I go the funeral of the father of a dear friend. A man who raised 10 children. I will witness all their grief and all their love and all their deep, deep faith.
I also volunteer at the bedside of a woman with dementia, dying of cancer. She cared for tenderly every day by her husband of 58 years.
He worked counter intelligence in Europe in the early days of the Cold War.
Sic transit gloriam mundi.
Feb '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Thank you for this. My husband and I are waiting now for a telephone call from our son in law, hoping to hear that our daughter is ok and not having an emergency Caesarian tonight. She is only 6 months along. We are hundreds of miles away, helping to care for my mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's , and miraculously, mom seems to know that something terrible is going on. Our only hope tonight is in God.
Nov '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Antipodus: I'm so glad that you are there to bear witness by your presence to the "hope that does not disappoint", as St. Paul writes. Thank you for your compassion and your ability to perceive - and express - the "evidence of things not seen" of the writer of Hebrews. Peace be with you and God bless...
Dec '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
I pray that all turns out well, and that you are comforted. I pray that the medical teams looking after your daughter and her child are in the best form of their lives tonight.
Jul '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Antipodious: stories such as these are the reason why I believe in end of life treatments (assisted suicide). We will "put down" an animal when it's health is gone and call it humane but will not do the same for another human being. The world is a strange place.
May '10
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
AQ - Be of stout heart. I hope your grandchild will be like my own miracle. My wife suffered an aprupture 11.5 weeks early and our second son was only 3lbs 6oz at birth. Today, he has a touch of asthma but is in great health. He sings, dances, plays violin and piano and is about an inch and half taller than his old man.
Dec '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
The reason that I don't agree with assisted suicide (or euthanasia in this case- as the patient cannot understand enough to call it a suicide)... is the same reason that I can find meaning in this tragedy.
Hope. I hope too much to end life. There is no hope of an afterlife for an animal, no dream of anything beyond here and now- thus euthanasia is palatable.
having said that- I understand how the nature of the pain, can make the continuation of life seem cruelty to some.
Edited on October 11, 2012 at 7:17amMay '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Agreed. My Dad is a hospital chaplain. There is a pretty high burn out rate, even among the religious... it takes an amazing amount of perspective, but it also gives an amazing amount of perspective.
Mar '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Tales like that put one's own petty concerns back where they belong.
Apr '12
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
My father went through three years of brain damage at the end of his life and my mother would play the Scottish songs they enjoyed when courting.
To think that life just ends, gone, is bleak. My father's last day with me was very sad but beautiful. He was there when I was born and I was there as he left, and the room filled with sunshine. He had given me everything and more. The Chaplain was there to comfort and then the church gave life and death purpose.
Aug '10
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Thank you for this post.
May '12
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Your stories hit too close to home for comfort. I'll only say that the promise of passage to an eternal and peaceful life softens, but still doesn't remove the intense pain of seeing a loved one's mind, will and emotions annihilated at the threshold of that passage.
Jul '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Very moving stories. I have a few tipping over the edge right now and it's so darn sad. Folks I've known for 15 years and I couldn't stop the deluge. Aricept, Namenda, Exelon, and every supplement known to help after genetic testing and UCSF/Cleveland Clinic specialists have only delayed the inevitable dissolution of once amazing personalities and intellects.
Dec '10
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Beautifully written. Thank you.
It makes me wonder if the body is merely the intersection of the immaterial with the material. Faith tells me that the whole of a person is still fully extant even when those of us who maintain a complete connection to the material world are cut off from parts of a person whose bonds to this world are loosening and slipping away.
Oct '10
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
God is our Author and our completion. We become and then we are not. @TKP notes that the body is the intersection of the immaterial with the material. We live in a spiritual universe which has a physical manifestation.
This short experience of the physical, as Antipodius notes, requires meaning. Tragedy is a disruption of the physical part of our life, and sadly, for some it is also the tearing of the fabric of their spiritual existence. But God knows that too. His Grace is His evidence that we are weak and cannot endure on our own.
May '10
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
A lady I know is so afflicted with dementia that none of her sentences make sense. They are mostly random words strung together with here and there a recognizable phrase. And yet, here's what radiates from her still, in her dying days: A sense of humor, kindness, friendliness, grace, gratitude. To see her and interact with her is to know she is a good woman, who led an admirable life. It's a gift to be with her.
End-of-life "treatments" horrify me. They are a radical denial of the mystery of life, the meaningfulness of human suffering, and the authority of the Author of Life.
Our moral task is to serve and cherish life, not to master it, not to snuff it out when we judge it worthless.
But, like antipodius, I understand how the awfulness of pain and suffering can make that seem like mercy.
Apr '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
Powerful post. Pope Benedict has written on this in one of his encyclicals (which one escapes me at the moment). In any case, he essentially poses this challenge to the unbeliever who bases his lack of faith on the problem of evil: take a situation such as the one in this post, or the extreme suffering of a child, or whatever horrible circumstance one may experience. Once faith in God is cast aside because of the cruel reality of suffering, what is one left with? Despair. The existence of God, of a transcendent being, allows for the possibility (indeed promises it in Christian understanding) of hope fulfilled. As an earlier poster pointed out, this may do absolutely nothing to ease the pain that is experienced within the span of suffering, but I it is a powerful consideration for those whose faith is strained due to pain, suffering, and loss.
Nov '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
In his book Man's Search for Meaning, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl tells the story of an elderly man whose wife had died. He had been inconsolable for some time and came to Frankl for help. Frankl asked him to imagine what his wife would be going through had he died first. The old man said that it would have been devastating for her. Not only were they both very much in love, but she depended on him for care and support. Frankl replied that the pain he was feeling now was the price he had to pay so that his wife did not have to face that devastation. From then on, the elderly man was able to cope with his loss. Sometimes there is meaning even in terrible loss.
Edited on October 11, 2012 at 5:02pmMar '11
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
With few exceptions, men are not animals.
Re: Tragedy Is Part of Life; What We Often Lack Is Meaning
My dad is a Lutheran pastor. When I was in Kindergarten, my mother went back to work. I went to a sitter in the afternoons before my siblings got home. But some days my dad would take me on his "calls" -- visits to hospitals, hospice centers and homes where shut-ins lived. He would bring the sacrament to them and they'd go through the liturgy together. Many of them enjoyed having a little 5-year-old around, too.
I learned so much from that year, young as I was. It's always stayed with me the love that family members and friends showed to people as they prepared for death or dealt with long-term disability. Given that death happens to each of us and is all around us, it's kind of surprising how well we hide it from popular culture -- at least in any meaningful way.