I have been thinking about pain. Suffering. Grief. And my heart has not known pain more severe than being torn from the love of my life, my husband, as a newlywed, when he deployed to a war zone.
We all experience pain throughout our lives, and there is a wide range of pain that we feel. We can feel pain in the form of disappointment when we go to eat that last piece of cheesecake at 3:00 a.m. only to find that someone else has already done the job (yeah, you know what I'm talking about). Then there's the pain of failing a test or totally dropping the ball on that big presentation at work (bottle of wine, please?). Almost everyone can relate to the pain of being betrayed, lied to, or broken up with (a very big bottle of wine, please?). And then, way on the far end of the spectrum, there's the pain of heart-wrenching grief: A miscarriage. The death of a loved one. Being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Life suddenly seems to be in slow-motion and the colors and smells and tastes that used to be so vibrant now turn into a murky conglomeration of lifeless clutter. You catch your breath, and learn that you never knew you could cry so much. You're confused, bewildered, angry. You're trying to figure this out but you feel like you're stumbling in the dark, a sobbing mess. No one can comprehend your suffering. No heart can feel your grief.
And then you open your tired eyes to smiling faces telling you that "it could be worse!" and to "not wallow in self-pity." They do this because they love you and don't want to see you hurting .... or is it because they don't want to take your burden on themselves? It is much easier to pat someone on the back than it is to walk in their shoes, plain and simple. But nothing nourishes a grieving heart more than someone willing to sacrifice their own comfort to feel another's pain and to cry some of their tears. Grieving hearts are connected to ears that need to hear, "It's okay to grieve."
So here I am, to tell those of you who are suffering and are in pain so unbearable you literally feel your heart aching that it's okay to feel that pain. It's okay to let yourself grieve. What you're going through sucks. But you will come out of it, and someday you'll be able to smile at the little things again. Until then, it's okay to take it slow -- or fast, it's different for each person. You have a wound, and healing time varies. A doctor would not tell you to treat a broken leg as if it weren't broken, and you should not treat your broken heart as if it weren't broken. You will come out of this, just give yourself some time, and when someone tells you that you should really be finding the joy in life because it's bad (and not to mention selfish) to focus on your suffering, you can politely tell them to go screw themselves . . . or you can at least think it.