As a striving towards transcendence, creative suffering – as we've seen expressed in Germain Greer's anguished words – opens us to others who are also suffering, thus creating a solidarity among those who suffer. To suffer together means to walk together towards transcendence. This solidarity is the proper human response to suffering... What we share is the questioning – and thus we suffer with the one who suffers. We co-suffer with that person.
Since suffering reflects the transcendence of the human person, since it points to a Mystery that is the author of the drama of human life, then we cannot really use suffering to deny the existence of God. Instead, it is because there is a God that suffering exists as human being experience it. The suffering of human beings is a sign of God. (Page 4 - top of page 5)
I have noticed, since I've gotten sick again, that certain friends have faded away. I simply haven't heard from them since I communicated the recurrence of my cancer. I think I understand them – they're deeply disturbed and terrified of losing me. Their love for me makes them feel that my loss would be an awful thing, something they can't bear. To be near me, to see me suffer, would only intensify this sense of horror and loss, and it's something they instinctively recoil from. I think this is the human condition without redemption. Extreme suffering is simply impossible to witness, especially in one we love. So I can't blame those who don't have the stamina or stomach to stay in touch with me. They have no intention of making me feel lonely or abandoned. In fact, I think it breaks their hearts and makes them feel horrible that they keep "forgetting" to reach out.
To hang in there with the suffering person – especially, to hang in there without offering "answers" or solutions – is impossible without a special, divine gift (a grace). Those who can do it should take no credit for their capacity because the strength doesn't come from them. Only God can make this co-suffering possible.
This solidarity that Albacete speaks of is a real thing. Going to the hospital, I would feel the weight of it. Sitting in the little waiting area (it held 10 chairs in a U shape) right outside the radiation rooms, we patients would always strike up conversations. Cancer is so democratic – it strikes all types, from every walk of life – but there we'd be, brought together by this one enemy, and there would be an immediate intimacy. These people would share their hopes and fears, their pain and their relief – all sometimes within a five minute conversation. These conversations, no matter how short or long, would always end, as one person would be led back to the radiation machines, with "I'll pray for you," or "God bless you." Always. I don't know what religion the others were, and I was not always the one to invoke the Almighty. Their are no atheists when it comes to cancer. At least, I never met one.
So walking in the big hospital (visitors always remark that it's the size of a city), one feels the weight of all the suffering people, especially the children. This is a weight that is impossible for the strong and healthy to discern. It's there, like a cloud, hanging over the shoulders and head of every person who enters and leaves, but only one in real pain, or suffering a big loss, can feel it bearing down on her. And it's a welcome weight, like a weighted blanket. We are part of something greater than we are. We are not alone. And this is, indeed, a sign of God.
