The Value of Suffering

Tonight, I watched an episode of Law and Order that I have seen before. A mother kills her one month old daughter. The reason for the killing? Her daughter had an incurable disease, Tay-Sachs, which would cause the child to slowly and painfully die over the course of five years. In the episode, the mother stated that she believes in a loving God and she couldn't imagine that God would want an innocent child to suffer.

God's ways are not our ways. We see, especially in America, suffering as something to be avoided at all cost. We see all suffering as bad, and suffering as some kind of judgement being passed upon the sufferer. Truthfully, I have never met a true atheist. Every atheist I have ever met is someone who suffered and, not understanding how the suffering could be a gift, decided that God had rejected them in some way and so they would reject Him. Yet suffering brings some of the greatest rewards humanity has to offer: patience, compassion, mercy, hope, and even peace. If you've suffered enough, you appreciate life all the more and you have no desire to wage war on your neighbor.

I think what this nation needs is not less suffering, but more of it. We have grown complacent, and we want quick remedies to our every ailment. Yes, the suffering is difficult to bear. Yes, watching your child die before your eyes and being unable to do something to help them is a hard cross to bear. Losing any loved one at all in such a long, drawn-out manner is difficult. But there is always good that comes of it. My father-in-law's long, drawn-out battle with cancer gave his son time enough to mature so that the two of them could finally come to terms with one another and his father could die in peace. My grandfather's long battle with alzheimers stripped away the pride and arrogance that had been stopping him from being able to tell those he cared about most how much he loved them, and he was finally able to say what was really in his heart and on his mind. What a precious gift we would have lost if we had done what many would say was "best" and euthanized him. That little child had so much to teach her mother about love and about life, and instead her mother rejected the gift and rejected the child because it wasn't "perfect". Yes, she would only have had five years to spend with that child. There would have been a lot of pain, for both of them. But she would have known that in the end she had loved that child right up until the very end. She had given her child every chance, every hope there was to offer. She would have been able to savor every smile, and every tear, and every breath in her heart knowing that she had done everything she could to give her child life and to defend that child's right to live right up until the end. What greater gift can a mother give her child than life? A life, even a life of suffering, is still better than no life at all.

On a personal level, I have suffered. I was abused as a child. I grew up in poverty. I have spent many of my adult years poor. I have been homeless. I have heard many people argue that it is better to kill the children than that even one should suffer. I would argue it is better to let them suffer a little and have at least a chance of happiness than to kill them and to take away all of their chances for happiness. The solution to poverty cannot be to kill the poor. The solution to child abuse cannot be to kill the children. If we are so very concerned about the poor and the children, then let's look for real solutions. Let's give them life and then work together to find a way to help them live well.