by Richard Helling

Created on: August 03, 2008

Pain is an interesting friend. At least it's an honest friend that always tells the truth and never lies just to make you feel better. Pain doesn't sugar-coat the reality of the situation. Pain simply is. I call pain a friend because it has as much right to my acknowledgement as any other feeling I have and it deserves the same respect. Truly think about pain. Does it deserve any less respect than pleasure, love, hate, embarrassment, or amusement? Are you worse off because you feel pain? The obvious answer is YES! I'm in pain and I am most definitely worse off because I'm hurting, but that's not really the truth. You hurt. I understand. Maybe not the exact circumstances of your pain, but I get it. I really do.

I was hit by lightning and there are no words to explain the pain that coursed through my body as my muscles were tearing each other apart from the inside out as the electricity forced them to flex in every imaginable and unimaginable direction. I suffer from Migraines that have hospitalized me and reduced me to tears and yet the pain is still my grudging-ally. When I was in college I saw an accident on the interstate where I stopped my truck and held a man's hand and comforted him as he lay dying unceremoniously on an interstate median looking him directly in the eyes and lying to him that he would be fine even though he was torn in half and I knew he was already dead. I still carry that pain and no one has been able to explain that pain away. I still dream about him and how I lied to a dying man.

Pain is a part of this thing we have all agreed upon called life and there is no escaping it. And, quite honestly, why would you want to? It isn't pretty and it isn't part of the lifestyles of the rich and famous but does anyone think they can really escape it? For better or for worse, we're all destined to be worm food. In the long run it's probably better for the worms than for us but to be so arrogant that we think we can remain unscathed by pain while we're here?
I understand. I really do. Maybe not all the specifics of each particular tragedy, but I understand it for what it is. It doesn't make any sense and there is no logical explanation for it but pain is there to remind us of the good that there is in the world. It lets us know that we are alive and that we are human and that we can survive. And with this survival we carry on the memory of those we have lost and accept the pain that we deal with now. There is no glory in it and there is no explanation for the pain we feel, but there is something beyond all those considerations. There is, quite simply, life.

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