By Karla Mundo
I woke up thinking of pain, feeling it. The pain that most of us cover with an everything is fine. The pain that women cover with make-up. The pain that in many cultures is drowned in alcohol. The pain that we save in the most profound of ourselves for fear that It might be something of concern. The pain that many suffocate with a variety of activities, occupations, as a way of distracting from it.
The thing about pain is that when you have it… is so strong so unwilling to let you sleep, rest, smile, pretend not to feel it. Pain like love, can be intense and a long-lasting relationship. Pain unlike love is not something we wake-up hoping for. We do not look forward to pain every day. Regardless, pain finds its way physically or emotionally when you are dealing with health issues.
In the daily life, there are body aches, headaches, minor pains but I am referring here to the kind of pain that makes you weak, concern for your life, vulnerable, and makes you cry. I am talking of the unbearable pain that almost makes us loose hope. The kind of pain that is not relieved by the infinite joy of the life we love. It is a pain that has overstayed its time.
Pain teaches us that clenching teeth, crunching on fetus position, breathing, holding tight, praying cannot make pain go away. It is here to remind us that something is wrong with our body. What can it be, you question? After all, you have not missed a doctor’s appointment, you have been doing testing all year long, study over study and on the surface all seems right. You have been exercising, eating wholesome food. How could this pain be so strong, so diminishing?
Pain accompanied with grief has always found a way in when we have lost someone we love, when our kids get sick, when there is another war oversees, when we have seen the face of a child living in extreme poverty, when a friend or relative told me their story about their fight with Cancer.
Pain travels, it is well-known internationally and it has visited the wealthy and the meager equally. For a year now, all over the world pain accompanied by fear has entered our households with the name of COVID19.
Pain does not notice that your strength is gone, your level of activity is not the same, that you wish to not tell others how much you are feeling it. All that you want is your energy and health back. All that you want is to be with your husband, son, family. In pain you wish friends and love ones were here to hug you, help you go through it. You also want to be there for everyone as you have done all of your life; but pain is holding you in bed.
Pain did not care about how much you appreciate and see all of the world beauty as the most wondrous thing. How can pain not see that you value all living things? How can pain not see that it scares you, that you feel as if dead approaches unannounced. How can pain not give up, go away? Doctors say “take this pill, do this test, come back if you start losing weight, if you feel worst”. WORST, what do they mean?
Pain has been intense for weeks, and I cannot stop it from coming, no matter what I do.
You see, the thing about pain is that does not discriminate. It does not care if I am younger or older, athletic or passive, a working woman or a mother. No one is immune to pain, there is no vaccine for it but certainly for some humans, pain ceases and when it leaves you; there is light, hope, laughter, strength, joy.
The thing about pain is that as much suffering it causes at the end of the tunnel there is tranquility, a sense of serenity. Strangely as it seems there is rest after an episode of pain. Yes, it is exhausting, leaves you shaking and almost ends with all hope but hope still not giving up and is as resilient as ever.
The thing about pain is that perhaps now you do not have it, have not yet experienced it with an illness so you refuse to feel the pain of others. It is too heavy the burden of your relative or friend to carry, to be empathetic, you just do not want to feel it.
Maybe you do have a very painless life, but it is not the case of many beings who deal with it at all levels physical, mentally and emotionally. Empathetic people cannot help it to absorb the pain of those suffering near or far from them. We always want to do something to reduce it, eliminate it but is so huge in so many countries, how can you ever get rid of it?
My grandmother died at the beginning of Covid. It was very painful helping my 70-year-old aunt to put grandma’s stuff away, to empty the apartment where she used to receive us with joy weeks ago. How could it be possible? I knew she lived a long life, still I felt her loss. It is not that I did not know how it feels. I loss my grandfather at 12, friends and many other relatives through the years, way too many.
Then I heard from a wave of people being sick at home or at hospitals, 120 million cases of COVID19. It felt as if an immense Tsunami had hit so many we love. Some lost their father, grandfather, mother’s, cousins, aunts, friends. Then I started to hear and read stories of strangers and their battle and how many were in their families with pain, ill. Some recovered, millions of others stop existing. 65 million world-wide and over 500,000 in the USA died.
I have been told many times not to feel the pain, to avoid it, be though, not my business. I have been told that, “it is what it is”, endure it, ignore it, be happy, live your life.
The thing about pain is that it comes to you even if you are gratefully happy. Even if you did not invite it, even if you rejected it, even if you practice meditation, Yoga and Buddhism. It is true that eventually goes away if your body heals or if dies; but always stays by the heart of those who care for the suffering of the world.
Pain is as real as your willingness to get rid of it. You do not choose pain over happiness, pain as happiness is felt deeply in this life. If I asked everybody around obviously nobody will pick pain as a companion but exist and it has hurt so many people.
The thing about pain is that after weeks, months, a year, you start getting used to it. Not by choice. It just becomes part of your daily routine. Not because you have made it feel so comfortably that does not go, but because fighting it does not make it go away. You embrace it.
So here you are, not knowing if it will go or not, exhausted of all that you have tried to get rid of it and nothing working. You embrace it, you feel it, you accept it, you cry and cry, and cry. You cry for the world and for yourself. You wish with all you might not to be in pain, you wish to continue with your life which has been a healthy-unhealthy fast paced life. Driving from place to place, seating hours on freeways, not sleeping more than 4 hours a night for over 10 years, being responsible for so much, your cup is full of stress. Still, you are trying to balance your marriage, your mother life, staying in touch with your friends and relatives. You try to hide it, to suffer it alone, you try to make sure your beloved son does not notice. Your living space is too small for pain to be hidden, contained. He knows.
Pain knows you cannot take it anymore. Pain knows you have fought it for a long time. Pain knows you both cannot exist in the same space.
Pain has been reminding me of the story of Buddha when he discovered outside its palace that not everybody lived as secured and pampered as he did. Buddha encountered pain in the form of illness, aging and death. He was shocked beyond believe. Not everybody outside his world had all their needs covered, the wealth he enjoyed, not everybody was happy like he was in his palace. He got so impacted by it that worked for years to understand the suffering of the world. Buddha left to us lessons to learn about the impermanence of life. If we are able to accept this truth, we will cease suffering.
The Four Noble truths in Buddhism taught me that change is inevitable and suffering can be avoid by finding the root cause of suffering. We all have the opportunity of living a very simple and enlightened life.
