My husband and I recently saw a play about an elderly couple spending their forty-fourth season at their summer home in Maine. The underlying theme was the couple’s sense of time running out ? of their own mortality. We were deeply moved by the terror as well as the courage of the old people. We laughed at their charming eccentricities and wept at their anguish. As the play ended, a woman in front of us beat a hasty retreat saying loudly to her companion, “I can’t stand plays that try to make me cry!”
I felt very sorry for that woman. If she could not bear to look at the dying, she must not have noticed the loving and the living, which wee present in equal part.
It is very hard to be fully human. To know the fullest dimensions of ourselves and others, we have to enlarge our capacity to feel deeply ? and there is no way to do that without opening up a great deal of pain. A very wise aunt of mine put it very well shortly before she died. During one of our frequent giggle sessions she suddenly looked at me and said, “I’ve loved the sound of your laughter since you were a baby, but even while it gave me pleasure it hurt me. I knew that if you could laugh with such joy, you’d also feel your sorrows very deeply.”
It is possible to skim the surface of life without being profoundly touched by anything, but it’s not very rewarding. Although my aunt was certainly right ? when I suffer it is no laughing matter! ? I pity those who close themselves off from pain, for in so doing they sacrifice their opportunities for a piercing sense of joy.
I know a woman whose only daughter died at age thirty-five, leaving two young children. The grandmother lives in New York, the two granddaughters in Alaska. Friends urged Grandma to visit her grandchildren after their mother’s death. “No, I can’t,” she said. “Jenny looks just the way Helen did as a child; it would kill me to see her.”
That was ten years ago. Jenny is now eighteen. Last summer she came to New York with money she’d saved from part-time jobs. When she wrote that she was coming, her grandmother wrote back that she was sorry, but it was an inconvenient time ? her apartment was about to be painted.
Helen had been a friend of mine, and I knew from Jenny’s letters to me that she was still mourning her mother and had some unfinished business to attend to. She wanted to see the place where her mother was born and had lived for many years. She also needed a sense of connection with her grandmother.
When Jenny’s grandmother told her not to come, I invited Jenny to visit me. When she walked through the door, I began to cry. It was shocking to see an almost perfect replica of Helen. I could understand how painful such a sight would be for Helen’s mother. But in avoiding that pain, she also cheated herself of the pleasure I had ? the pleasure of reliving some of the happy times I’d had with Helen, of taking her daughter to some of our favorite places. Jenny’s visit reminded me of my loss and of the tragedy that this lovely young woman could not know her mother. But I felt a sense of thanksgiving ? even triumph ? that so much of Helen lived on in Jenny. I carried and won; Grandma ran away and lost everything she might have had.
Looking back over my life, it seems to me that I have learned the most when I felt the greatest pain. My mother’s death, for example, made me more profoundly aware of the beauty in nature. My capacity for finding joy in the most ordinary events (watching a flower open, leaves turning red, a bird taking a bath) seems to deepen each time I live through great sorrow. Death makes life more precious; frustration makes success more fulfilling, failure makes the next accomplishment more meaningful.
In order to feel deeply it is necessary to feel everything. It is impossible to choose. You can’t really know how great is your sense of joy at a baby’s birth or your satisfaction at succeeding at a hard job unless you are also deeply aware of the anguish of separation and the pain of failure. It’s through the capacity to feel that we discover ourselves and others and explore the potential for a full, significant life.
This is an especially crucial issue for parents. Our natural inclination is to try to protect children from pain. We have the mistaken notion that if a child is happy we are doing a good job; if a child is sad we are failing as parents. But giving children the message that happy is good and sad is terrible decreases their capacity to explore the full range of human experiences.
Children need to understand that suffering, frustration and failure are not only inevitable but helpful. The parent who took a simple puzzle away from a four-year-old because, “He gets too upset and frustrated when he can’t get it right immediately,” did the child a great disservice. Children need to experience such feelings as they grow up; it helps them to develop the patience, persistence and ability to cope that they’ll need when a scientific experiment fails, a low grade is received after diligent study, or a belly flop occurs after a summer of diving lessons. There is nothing so terrible about failing and feeling pain; what hurts in the long run is not trying because of the fear of pain.
This is particularly true of human relationships. I once heard a father tell his nine-year-old son, “It doesn’t matter if David won’t play with you anymore; he wasn’t a nice person anyway. Maybe if you invite Kenneth to go to the ballgame with us on Saturday, he will be your friend.” But the break-up of an important relationship always hurts; it is appropriate to feel sad. If we push it aside we diminish the meaning ? and much of the joy ? of such relationships. It would be more helpful to say, “I know how you feel. It hurts when a good friend deserts you. It happens to all children ? and to grownups too ? and it takes awhile to start feeling better. But soon you’ll have a new friend and you’ll feel good again.”
This is not to say that we should ignore or make light of a child’s pain. The stiff-upper-lip approach can cripple a child’s capacity to feel as much as overprotection. If we say, for example, “Well, you’ll just have to sit there until you get the puzzle right,” or “stop whining about David; act like a man and take your lumps, the child may withdraw from the feelings because he is too lonely with them. Suffering needs compassion. Pain needs to be alleviated through sharing and sympathy.
By Eda LeShan
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前幾天我和丈夫一起看了一齣戲，戲劇表現一對老年夫妻在緬因州避暑別墅慶賀自己共度四十四週年的故事，其潛在主題在於揭示老人切膚的感受：時光飛逝，人生盡頭隱隱在即矣。我們爲兩位老人的深切恐懼及他們因此而表現出的非凡勇氣伸深打動，爲他們可愛的偏執而笑，爲他們極度的痛苦而泣。演出結束時，我們前排一位婦女匆匆退場，邊走邊對她的同伴大聲說：“我最受不了這叫人哭的戲了！”
我很爲那女人惋惜，假如她不能承受直面死亡之痛，她一定就沒有留意與死同在的生的可愛。
人生難以終生樂善不疲，要想全面瞭解自己和別人，就必須充分經歷人生的各種感受——不經痛苦的磨礪哪來豐富的感受？我的一位極有見識的姨母臨死前深刻地闡述過這個問題。在一次歡樂聚會上，姨母突然看着我說：“我特別喜歡你幼時的笑聲，那笑聲既令我愉快，有讓我心痛。因爲，你能那麼歡快地笑，就一定會深切地痛。
趟過生命的河而不被任何東西碰觸是可能的，但那就一無收益了。雖然姨母說得對——痛苦絕不是一件好玩的事！——可我還是憐憫那些把痛苦拒之門外的人，因爲他們在這樣做的同時，也失去了刻骨銘心感受愉快的機會。
我認識一個女人，她的女兒三十五歲時離開人世，留下兩個年幼的孩子。這位外祖母住在紐約，兩個外孫女住在阿拉斯加，朋友們都勸外祖母去看看兩個失去母親的孩子。“我不能去，”她說，“詹妮和她媽媽海倫小時候長得太像，見到她會勾起我無限痛苦。”
那是十年前的事，現在詹妮已經十八歲了。去年夏天她帶着打零工攢的錢來到紐約，寫信告訴外祖母她來了，可外祖母回信說她來的不是時候——因爲他們的居室正要粉刷。
海倫曾是我的朋友，我從詹妮的來信看出，孩子依然深深懷念自己的母親，試圖完成某些未盡的事情：她想看看出生並生活過多年的地方，她需要與外祖母建立一種聯繫。
詹妮受外祖母拒絕後，我邀請她來我這兒。她進門的一剎那，我情不自禁地驚叫起來，太像了，簡直就是海倫的翻版。我理解這情景會給海倫母親帶來什麼樣的痛苦，可她在拒絕痛苦的同時，也失去了我現在正享受的快樂——回憶當初海倫帶着女兒和我一起遊玩我們喜歡的地方的美好時光。詹妮的來訪引起我對過逝的摯友的回憶，體味到眼前這位年輕姑娘甚至連母親的印象都隱約模糊的悲哀，但我亦存一絲感激，甚至是喜悅；海倫在詹妮身上活脫脫再現了。我悲痛可我也因此而有所收穫；外祖母躲避痛苦，可她卻也因此失去了她本該獲得的快樂。
回首往事，最痛苦的經歷似乎給人最深切的啓迪，比如，母親的去世讓我格外體會到大自然的美好。每經受一次痛苦，在平凡之中發現愉悅的能力（比如觀賞花兒吐豔，葉兒變紅，鳥兒淋浴）就增加一分。死亡令生命格外珍貴，挫折使成功更加完滿，失敗使來日的成就更有意蘊。
要想深切感受，就須感受所有，選擇感受是不可能的。沒有分娩的陣痛，哪會體味創造生命的喜悅？沒有艱苦的努力，何來成功之後的滿足？我們在感受中發現自己和他人，發掘完滿而有意義的生命潛能。
這尤其是父母面臨的一個嚴峻問題。家長總是情不自禁地在竭力避免孩子受苦，錯誤地以爲，孩子幸福家長就盡職，孩子不幸家長就失職。這種孩子感覺幸福就好、感覺不幸就糟的觀念，削弱了我們全面發掘人性經驗的能力。
孩子需要理解痛苦、曲折和失敗不但不可避免，而且對他們成長有益。家長拿走四歲孩子手裏的玩具，惟恐“他一時弄不出來會灰心喪氣，”無異貽誤孩子。孩子成長中需要有這種挫折感，挫折感幫助他們發展耐心、恆心，幫助他們在科學實驗失敗時、在努力學習未果時、或者夏季學跳水肚皮重重地打在水面上時，都能處之泰然、應付自如。失敗和痛苦不十分可怕，可怕的是因畏懼痛苦而拒絕嘗試。
人與人相處時的關係尤爲如此。一次我聽到一位父親對九歲的兒子說：“大衛不跟你玩沒關係，他不是個好孩子。星期六你找肯尼斯和我們一起玩球吧，他會成爲你的好朋友的。”和好朋友斷交總是一件痛苦悲哀的事，如果我們就此把朋友拋置一邊，肯定削弱交友的意義和愉悅。那位父親如果這樣說也許更有裨益：“我理解你的心情，被朋友拋棄是件很痛苦的事，這樣的事所有孩子甚至大人都會遇到。你現在需要時間慢慢適應，很快就會有新朋友，心情重新好起來。”
我並不是說我們該忽視或輕視孩子的痛苦。漫步經心和過分溺愛都會削弱孩子的感覺能力。比如，假如我們說“自己坐在這兒玩這個智力玩具，好好玩出名堂來”，或者“別老抱怨大衛了，你自個活該”，孩子會因此而退出感覺，而痛苦是需要憐憫，需要同情和分擔才能減輕的。
在生活中品嚐痛苦並不表明我們是刻意爲苦的苦行僧，以至最終被痛苦壓垮。我有位朋友丈夫突然離世，她的醫生給她開了一些鎮靜劑和安眠藥。“謝謝”，她拒絕開藥，“我需要感受痛苦，傻瓜似地東遊西蕩會讓我覺得自己和斯蒂文的一段生活無關緊要。”這位朋友的感受是對的，但她有些過激了。有時候打擊和痛苦太大，我們需要逃避一些時日，直到能從容待之。這種情況下，我覺得暫時適當求助一些支持，以緩解最初的打擊是必要的。我對朋友說，“假如不強迫自己去竭力忍受這突如其來的痛苦，你會更深切地體味悲傷與痛苦的。”我們需要在嚴格的“面隊現實”和膽怯逃避之間架起一座折中的橋樑。
沉醉酒精或毒品以求暫時逃避現實，這是極度危險的。依賴毒品所造成的身心痛苦遠遠超出我們日常生活中的挫折和痛苦，那些因此暫時解脫的人最終犧牲更大。
一位父親曾經告訴我，當他不得不告訴自己六歲的兒子倫尼，他的狗被壓死了時，真是痛苦萬分，他擔心兒子哀傷，對兒子說，“我知道這打擊很大，如果你願意，我們馬上再買一隻狗。”兒子哭着看着父親，說，“不，現在不買，我現在需要想念本尼。”六個月以後，倫尼告訴父親可以着手再覓新狗了。“我後來發現，”父親對我說，“倫尼對第二條狗比對本尼更是愛護有加。這次經歷不是讓他失去了什麼，而是給他增加了什麼，我們爲痛苦付出了代價，但我們以奇特的方式獲得了回報。”
多年以前，丈夫送我一句引自陀思妥耶夫斯基的話，我把它帖在我的辦公桌的上方：我唯一恐懼的，是我已不配自己承受的痛苦。每當我感到特別悲傷、無望和焦慮時，就一遍遍地誦讀這一名言，它讓我時時記起，只要我還配得上自己承受痛苦——只要我能從痛苦中更加理解自己，同情他人——我將享受痛苦之後的無盡快樂。