Tell Me About Your Suffering

I participated in a Buddhist exercise at the end of last year. In the exercise I sat across from a woman I didn't know, both of us wearing name tags. I said to her, Tell me about your suffering. And I listened without saying a single thing until she stopped speaking. And then I repeated the statement. Tell me about your suffering. More speaking, trailing off, eventually, into quiet. Repeat. It was a long time until she was done. We reversed roles, and it was a long time until I was done, even though if you'd asked me if I had much suffering to discuss, I would have said, and in many ways still think, Hell no.

Today I was with a patient who is 94 and declining and very depressed and who has been waiting to die since her husband died 28 years ago. She sat there in front of her lunch tray, untouched, head down, eyes down, hands in her lap, abandoned by her adult children, who said their goodbyes a year ago and will come no more. I call them after I visit her and they speak to me; they do not mind hearing about her, or how she is. But she is gone to them. They cannot wait anymore for her to die, so she is somehow dead to them already. She has a colostomy, she is in pain, she refuses pain medication, she wants to be dead, and cannot get it accomplished.

I am here to be present with her suffering. To see it fully. To somehow hear all of it, until there is no more to say, even if she does not speak. I sit next to her and talk to her a little bit. She likes strawberry ice cream. Does she want some now? I can get some for you. No response. She used to love the beach: I tell her about the record-breaking heat yesterday, and everyone so unseasoned and pale in their bathing suits trying to swim in the 45 degree Atlantic yesterday. Summer and not summer. No response. How can I get there? How can I get to where she is, to be present with her, to be witness and in that way share her experience? How can I know her suffering? That is the only real comfort I can offer.

I stop talking and sit and its a very long time. I stop trying to think of things which is not easy for me: I'm always thinking of a lot of things, and hatching plans. For whatever reason, I am compelled to lean towards her. I do. Then I feel like leaning a little further, and I do. Eventually, in this manner, my forehead is touching her forehead, and we both have our eyes closed. Very light. I say her name out loud, just once. We keep touching foreheads. We sit like that for a long time. I have moments where I feel weird about it. Mostly it feels right. I am not totally sure what I'm doing.

She breaks contact and I look up and she is looking at me. I look back and I feel like I can see an enormous amount in her eyes, and expression. I think I can see some of what her suffering is. Her own suffering. She says, thank you. I smile, I put my hand on her hand, I don't say anything. She closes her eyes and says, I want to go to bed. I get the aide, and he puts her to bed.

I get up and go to write my note. I have a moment on my way to the nurses' station where I cannot fathom how I got to this moment. Its just me. Internally I think I'm more or less the same person I've been since I was 16. Its just me in here. I'm not walking around thinking I'm a healer or having a calling or earning a halo or being better than you and you and you or doing God's work or being of service or anything. I'm just trying to essentially to be honest and keep it a little real, and somehow adapting that to whatever the situation presents. I'm just trying to be myself. My best self. This was the situation: is this how you be honest, is this how you keep it real, keep it straight and true?

I do not know.