How to Keep the Benefits of Pain Alive

Don’t Let Your Pain Go to Waste in Normalcy

Two nurses whoop as a third extracts the 12 in. 1 mm tube from my arm to the heart, the vexing PICC-line that tapped my raw, post-surgical nerves for over two months. PICC-lines are usually easy and benign, not in this case. It took five tries over two days on both arms to insert it—my right superior vena cava was gone with tiny bypass veins forging new paths, like drivers using Waze for the quickest route through traffic. In less than a minute it’s out. The removal marks a turn from immobility to movement, control, normalcy. I am soaring with gratitude.

Pain leads to gratitude; gratitude to a posture of appreciation. Last year’s milestone between chemo and radiation is a signpost of the benefits of pain. Pain wakes up appreciation, not a feigned “thank you” but a heart-heave, fresh, tasty and poignant. It slows me down to notice and receive the gifts of the moment: the support from my husband and kids, the sweet-smelling head of my grandbaby, the welcoming hugs of my preschool granddaughter, even the fact that my family invites me into their challenges and struggles. It’s vital to contribute to someone’s life when you have cancer because your agency and purpose are stripped down. Being shielded from problems only increases the isolation and ennui. These are just a few of the countless daily-bread gifts. I experience life as received, not produced.

In my rush to normalcy, I fear losing these gifts of pain. It’s entirely possible to pack them away in the closet. I did that in the seventeen years between my first cancer and the recent recurrence. Life without treatments, regular appointments, and worry pulled me back into the daily grind of plans, control, and petty concerns. I used to run through my days task-oriented, emotions pushed to the periphery, tending to responsibilities. Sure, there were chances to slow down and lots of people and ministry, but my life wasn’t disrupted. Cancer stopped me completely in my tracks, but it left something valuable, a place of tears, a deeper dimension of connection to God, people, even myself. I worry that I won’t hold onto these benefits.

Sensory pleasures are the roads to these gifts. I need to keep my senses alive, to savor this embodied life. A smell, sight, sound, touch, or taste conducts a memory; the memory stirs a feeling and a thought. A soft spring rain in Southern California is my conduit. It’s between a pour and a drizzle, just enough for the arid soil to say “Ah!” A moist waft of cut grass and sage enters the room, an olfactory delight that awakens the senses. I breathe it in and notice fog ringing the hill above my house. The smell and sight carry a memory of Swiss alpine landscapes, summer heat cooled by afternoon thunderstorms, steep hillsides decorated with random chalets and weathered structures for cows with ringing bells, an earthy steam of the sun on rain-splattered paths deluged with amber slugs as big as cigars. The delight stirs the thought of grace and receiving.

Appreciation is a product of the sensory connecting with the transcendent. When I was a young child living in Germany, we vacationed in the chalet of a generous friend in Grindelwald, Switzerland with plunging green valleys below the granite monuments of the Eiger, Moench, and Jungfrau mountains. We stood under the waterfalls of the Lauterbrunnen valley, enfolded by the whoosh of mist and stream. There I wore my Lederhosen with suspenders over a bare chest. There I fell in love with St. Bernard dogs and Alpine flora, the redolent meadows bursting into vivid color, the incomparable deep periwinkle of Enzian (gentians) and Forget-me-nots. Before Enzian were put under protection, my mom offered a prize to the first one to spot one of these delicate funnel-shaped beauties that lived at the higher elevations. Wildflower bouquets graced the dinner table. Nature’s beauty linked me with an openhanded God. 

This Swiss gift multiplied as I introduced my family to Grindelwald on several occasions. The cows, lizards, and amber cigar slugs fascinated the boys. On a trip with my mom and youngest son, Nate, he chose a special travel companion from his vast collection of beanie babies. It was a green snake called Hissy. As we stood under the Lauterbrunnen fall next to the wild stream it created, the snake suddenly slipped out of his hands and into the rushing water. “That’s lost!” I hopelessly concluded. Quiet tears of disappointment became a wail from deep in his heart when he realized his Hissy was gone. How could I deprive him of his beloved companion? I had to do something.

I clambered down the slippery rocks of the stream just steps away from the glacial turbulence of the nearby Weisse Luetschine river tumbling wildly toward twin lakes in the valley below. An hour later, there was still no sign of Hissy. How could I return empty-handed to my hoping son? I was on the verge of calling off the expedition, when I spotted a green mass like moss hidden in the cleft of a stone. I picked my way through tangled bushes over wet rocks and there was Hissy, wrapped around a rock near the precipice of the river, like a capsized kayaker holding on for dear life. I rushed back to where Nate was waiting with grandma. His jubilant face and cry of delight as I held up the soggy snake was worth it all! Hope was restored.

Being human is a rich experience of sensory memory—both good and bad—that links us to grounding thoughts. Do we only remember the good, not the bad? Stuffed in a closet, the bad becomes dusty, crusty, and unredeemed, but when remembered, it breathes and benefits. Kate Bowler’s experience after a stage four cancer diagnosis at age 34 was as if “floating on the love and prayers of all those who hummed around me like worker bees. . .” She concludes that “[t]he horror of cancer has made everything seem like it is painted in bright colors” (Bowler, 123).

Is it too bold to claim that pain reveals the bright colors of this life?

Source Cited:

Bowler, Kate. Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I Loved. Random House, 2018. 

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