Dear Nadia, Why ME?
(click above to hear me read this to you!)
Dear Nadia,
I’m 76 and have been hospitalized for 4 weeks with meningitis. It has been a humbling experience. I’m finding myself wondering why me and if God is with me.
-M.S.
Dear M.S.,
My sister Barbara is visiting me right now, and today at breakfast, as sisters do, we spoke of suffering.
She’s uniquely qualified to speak on this as a dues-paying member of two clubs nobody wants to join: the mothers of killed sons one, and the diagnosed with breast cancer one. The fuckery of the fact that her membership to the second club started two months after the first cannot be overstated.
This morning, my wise, loving, big sister reminded me of the most helpful thing anyone said to her about suffering. At the time, she was unknowingly in the final days of the “before” of her life’s bright and terrible “after” when a friend, who herself was living with cancer, said to my sister that she (like you) struggled with the question, “why me?”.
Friend, it is normal to scan our lives for causal factors when life turns to shit. Christians do it. Buddhists do it. New Age folks do it.
We ask our own version of the same thing: Did I maybe do something to deserve this?
A hidden sin, or an unknown karmic debt.
What in all the power of negative thinking brought this upon me?
“Why me?” is as human a question as any I have heard, but that doesn’t mean it’s helpful.
We tend to quietly ask something similar when bad things happen to other people, (not out loud, of course for that would be horrible of us), like, how much processed foods did the recently diagnosed indulge in? Were they careful, were they prepared, were they being good when the bad thing happened? We MUST know because we must, above all things, assure ourselves that we are safe.
Our sweet little broken-ass human brains look for evidence of blame and deserving like they are our salvation itself.
It’s understandable. We must keep the chaos monster at a safe distance through any incantation or elimination diet or piety available. Because it’s terrifying to allow for the possibility that if it happened to them it could happen to us - and equally terrifying to admit that we do not, in fact, have the power to control the universe. Which brings me back to my sister’s friend, who said the most helpful thing.
“I stopped asking why me,” she told my sister, “and started asking why NOT me?”
M. S., I know you already know this, but I’m going to say it for my own sake. These are not words that ever belong in the mouth of anyone but ourselves.
But for my sister, there was no “fuck cancer” coffee mug, or vapid little “everything happens for a reason” comment, or any other Purpose Driven drivel that did for her what the question, “but why NOT me” did.
Because realizing there was no satisfying answer to why NOT me helped her realize there was also no satisfying answer to why me. And this led her to radical acceptance of what is (not endorsement, mind you, but acceptance).
Life is capricious, M.S. - in a moment everything can change. I wish I could tell you here’s what to do to avoid that. Or here’s why bad things happen to good people, or here’s why good things happen to absolute bastards, but there are no honest formulas to be had. Not really.
All I know is that your ill health in this moment is no more a punishment than my for-the-time-being good health is a reward.
So, I wish you joy and good healing, M.S. I wish you freedom from the tyranny of “why?” questions. I wish you long lists of things you love about yourself. I wish you pleasing memories. I wish you belly laughs and pain-free napping and every good thing life has.
p.s. I’ll (to the best of my ability) get to the 2nd part of your question - the theological one, is God with me in my suffering in the next couple days.
Until then…
In it with you,
Nadia
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In 12 step rooms I am reminded that “figuring it out is not a step”. I try to apply this when the Why Me? gets too loud regarding my daughter’s genetic disorder, my metastatic breast cancer, or other painful challenges in this life. I take comfort in the worldview that things are as they are because the causes and conditions are present for them to arise. It’s not personal. It’s simply the way life is unfolding right now. I can argue with it if I want, but taking it personally just adds suffering.
As the parent of an adult child with multiple disabilities since birth, I put aside that question years ago and applied all my professional training and experience to creating a better life for her and her peers. So much so, like many hubbies in my world, I’m now doing it as a single mom - relying upon Social Service programs to survive. I know God is with me every day, but sadly, not in the pews - where we have struggled the most.
I always find him here, among all of you. And, I’m glad!