When I asked him how he had come to terms with his situation, Alf told me a harrowing story. When he was first sent to a nursing home, it was on an emergency basis, and it was awful, like something out of a horror movie. The care was terrible; the staff was overworked and underpaid.
“The worst thing was they didn’t have room for me. They squeezed me into a two-bed room with two other guys who didn’t want me there. I had no control, no comfort, and was unwelcome besides. I went five days hardly speaking. When friends asked what they could do, I told them “Get me out of here or kill me.”
Somehow family and professionals got him into LHH. There he experienced a profound healing (my term – he probably wouldn’t call it that.) “I had already given up being able to do anything the world saw as important,” he says. “I call that my ‘blessing from MS,’ because it took all the pressure off me to ‘succeed’ on society’s terms. But what I hadn’t known was that people could accept me and care for me, even though I couldn’t do anything for them… When I got here, the nurses and everybody were like, “Mr. Adams, what can we do for you? They welcomed me; they were OK with me, just because of who I am, or really just because I am. They take care of everything for me; how can I not be happy with that?”
So if disability was a blessing from MS, this second blessing was even greater. This one is from the world, the nurses, and the people who pay the nurses, the city of San Francisco and, through Medicaid, the whole country. Being made to feel totally accepted, to feel that we live in a world that wants us. What an amazing gift!
Many of us struggle because we believe we are only as good as our accomplishments. We are only worth loving or worth taking space on the planet because of what we do for others, or what we have in the bank. Because of that belief, we’re constantly stressed about not being good enough. Alf now understands in his heart, because it’s reinforced every day, that the world will accept him as he is, without his doing anything.
Without a nightmare like Alf’s, it might take years or decades to embrace the understanding that life is good and that we are OK, too. Or we might never get there. I think that’s the kind of journey people take in 12-step programs; from a nightmare of being addicted, completely out of control, to accepting yourself and life as it is and taking the control you have. It’s not easy.
On one level, Alf is a lucky man. (He knows it. His most widely read essay is called “I Was Born Lucky.”) Many people live in far worse institutions, whether nursing homes or prisons. Wherever they live, few people get as much care or support as he does. But it’s not all luck. Good care or not, Alf’s still paralyzed, so his seeing the blessing in it is largely a matter of choice. And most people in considerably better situations don’t feel the way he does.
Do you? Chuang-Tzu said we should accept as a gift everything that comes, even death. What seems bad can turn out to be good. Scholars say his parable of Lady Li is actually about death. We fear it so much, but perhaps it’s not bad at all. When we die, we might wonder why we spent so much effort fighting it.
In Taoism, life and death, good and bad, beginning and ending follow each other endlessly. That’s what is meant by yin yang, the endless flow of opposites. We are all part of it; we can’t stop being part of it; so we might as well accept it. Hard as it is, there is blessing in it.
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Please let me know what you think about this one. I’m having trouble understanding it myself.
One of the aspects of your articles that I value so much is the authenticity that comes through in them. When the now is filled with challenges, your stories knit together the harsh bones of today and help me look beyond to something more transcendent. Thank you so much.
Thanks again for writing, David.
I’ve been treating a guy who was diagnosed with Liver cancer 8 months ago for a few weeks, and he can only afford to pay me about 1/4 of my ordinary fee, and I feel great about the time we spend together. Today he arrived with a big grin on his face- I taught him some qi gong exercises last week and he loves practicing them at home, and he feels good, better than he’s felt in awhile, and he’s enjoying his time with his wife, on the 2 days he’s still able to work, and while he’d love to beat the cancer (he’s taking some Chinese herbs that have been successful for some people), he did say that he’s been appreciating his life more since his diagnosis. He’s certainly been good for my attitude toward the frustrations and annoyances in my days…
Hi David,
Thanks so much for these great reminders.
I had a personal experience along these lines when I decided to take care of my mother who had alzheimers. Whereas I’ve heard many people say it was giving up their life, an extreme sacrifice, for me there were so many gifts in it. My mother and I, in her early stages, discussed parts of our lives that we never would have shared if it weren’t for the alzheimers. Our relationship developed a closeness and intimacy that hadn’t been there before. Strange, but true. I watched a woman who was very depressed in her life become happy and grateful as her thoughts and mannerisms formed in a more childlike manner. Of course this was just one phase of the devastating disease and eventually she moved into blank stares and her connection to life seemed to be a thin thread. All of it, including her death, was an important part of my spiritual journey. I am so very grateful to her.
Hi David, Perception is everything. It is good when we can be flexible, like your friend, and accept what fate has dealt us. Life is always worth living…you just have to find the right level of consciousness.
“Chuang-Tzu said we should accept as a gift everything that comes, even death. ”
How profound to read these words the day after my father gave me and my whole family this precious gift. He did not want to “prolong the inevitable” though he could have fought and lived another month or two. He spared us and himself that suffering by letting go, surrounded by his family, just two days after he said he was ready for the exit. It was a beautiful death for which I will always be thankful.
Thank you. How easy it is to forget how to be grateful for all that we are given.
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