CHAPTER 1

QUESTION ONE:CAN I SAY, "LIFE SUCKS"?

"THAT SUCKS." CAN YOU EVEN GET THOSE WORDSout of your mouth? A lot of us can't. There was a time when Icouldn't.

The language isn't the issue, of course. It's the struggle tobe honest about just how hard and ugly life can be.

When Dave was diagnosed with brain cancer, he was operatingon 120 patients a month. One of Nashville's go-to guysfor hand surgery, he had just finished a long day of work in theoperating room, and, as he was washing his hands, he experiencedwhat his physicians later described as a "visual seizure."

Suddenly, all he could see were images from earlier in theday and the surgeries he had just completed. He couldn't seehis hands, the washbasin, the water, or the soap dispenser.

The experience didn't last long that first time, so he didn'tthink much of it. It had been a long day. He was operating on alot of people. The surgeries were visually demanding, requiringthe use of lasers and microscopes. There was every reasonto chalk the experience up to eyestrain, and he was going onvacation the next day anyway.

But he was less sure that was the case when, in the middleof the following week, the same thing happened again. Hewas halfway through a run down the beach one morning ofhis vacation, and all he could see were images from earlier inthe day. He couldn't see his feet, his hands, or the sand beneathhim. Worse yet, this time the episode lasted longer.

So, on his return home he contacted a friend of his who is aneurosurgeon. "Bob, I think I need an MRI." Bob obliged, andshortly after the test was completed he had the results in hand.

"Dave, I think that I've discovered the problem. There isa mass pressing against the occipital lobe of your brain, andbecause it's the sight center, the mass is frustrating your brain'sefforts to process images from the optic nerve. So you are gettingthe neural equivalent of delayed feedback."

In that moment Dave's medical career came to end. Heknew that he could no longer safely operate or practice medicine.He informed the chief of surgery, and he hasn't been ableto work a day since. Then he made plans to have his head cutopen.

Call it what you will, that sucks. It sucks for Dave. It sucksfor his family. It sucks for the people he might have helpedwith his knowledge and skills.

But there were a limited number of people in Dave's circleof friends who were willing to acknowledge that things werethat bad. Most of his friends and particularly his friends atchurch said things like, "It's a blessing in disguise, Dave," or,"God's got something bigger for you out there."

Not surprising, Dave doesn't find that kind of languagehelpful at all. In fact, it drove him away from church and pareddown his friendships to a handful of intimate relationships.

The impulse to say comforting things when someone weknow gets a terrible diagnosis is understandable. We want tofind some way of supporting people and making them feel betterwhen they receive gut-wrenching and life-changing news.But there are better ways of doing that than uttering banal,even false, platitudes.

What did Dave need that he wasn't getting from his church?Or, put more positively, what can we do for one another undersuch circumstances?

We can demonstrate our love for others in the painfulplace that life has put them. When we can't bring ourselvesto say, "That sucks," when life really does suck, we fail to loveothers where they are and as they are. Instead we force thosewho are suffering to amend their understanding of what hashappened to them as a precondition of being loved.

"Cheer up."

"Look on the bright side."

"It could have been worse."

"Don't be so negative."

When we say those false, cheery things to suffering people,they run. They tell us as little as possible about their struggles,or they tell us what they think we want to hear. How manytimes have you heard this exchange when it can't possibly betrue?

Question directed to someone who is plainly suffering:"How are you?"

Response from the person who is suffering (and whoknows the person asking the question is not going to be able tosay, "That sucks"): "Oh, I'm fine." (Unspoken thought: "FINE,which is an acronym for Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, andEmotional, but I don't trust you enough to tell you.")

I've been there. I've used that response. Anyone whobelongs to the fellowship of the suffering has used it.

"Oh, I'm fine."

I reserve the word fine for people who don't really care,for people who don't really want to know how things are, forpeople who are clueless, for people who are going to dispenseHallmark wisdom, and especially for people who want me tochange as a precondition of love.

To be sure, there are times when we need to change theway that we think about a tragedy or loss. Even irreparablelosses require more reflection than is possible at first—if lifegives us enough time to reflect, that is.

When we first receive tragic news, we often panic. Weallow fear to overwhelm us, and we lose perspective. We canbe obsessed with choices that might have yielded a differentresult. We can be strangled by what lies ahead. Or we can beparalyzed by a combination of both fear of the past and dreadof the future. Rightly, I had a spiritual director years ago whopointed out, "If you have one foot in the past and another inthe future, you shit on the present."

But in a lot of cases—and certainly in Dave's case—there isno "other way" to think about loss, not in any way that changesthe fact that he is dying. And even if there were changes hecould make, he can't start there, and neither could we.

You were a surgeon. Now you are not.
You were a contributor. Now you are not.
You were on a journey. Now you are at a dead...