On Pain & Suffering

I don't like the words pain & suffering.

They sound too harsh, too deep and too dramatic. I hate feeling pain and I hate the suffering that comes with pain. These feelings are usually felt with a deep sense of loss, and I hate losing things that mean something to me.

I lost a few friends & family members to death. At age 11, I lost a close friend who 'accidentally' killed himself while playing with his younger brother. It involved a scarf and a door knob. Everyone tried to keep it a secret from me as I was only a few weeks away from moving far, far away. My mom suddenly told me I didn't have to go to school anymore. I told her I didn't get to say good-bye to my friends yet.

I knew immediately something was wrong because my mom never let me skip school unless I had a fever but I played along as if I didn't know or hear anything.

Until this day, I never got to say good-bye to my friends.

Pain & suffering continued throughout teenage years into adulthood. The worst kind of pain I would soon realize, comes not from losing people to death but from losing things & people to currents of life---like my childhood innocence, an old lover--or loss of a friend & trust built upon years of memories now turned to broken promises.

It was such loss of connections that seemed most painful & tragic. I later discovered in adulthood that such losses were considered to be normal, a natural course of life.

Indeed, pain & suffering are inevitable for a deep understanding and deeper heart. Depth of pain teaches us the depth of our soul and depth of suffering teaches us the depth of life.

I guess pain & suffering taught me something; I'm now 'intelligent' enough to know this. Yet one fact remains.

I don't like pain & suffering. I especially hate watching a loved one endure such a loss. I hate this. I wish I can curse it in the face and make it go away.

Go away.