To Linger

I can hear a dog howling its small head off as we are invited into the house. Hesitantly, I enter the house, which reeks of weed. Two small children are racing around and around the house, also screaming their small heads off. A woman sits in the corner of the house in a wheelchair. She smiles faintly at us. Her name is Dolores. She was diagnosed with multiple-sclerosis more than five years ago and has been wheelchair-bound for two years. Her children are screaming around her and she’s telling them to be quiet, but they don’t listen. She reaches out to try to grab the shoulder of her son, who can’t be more than 8, but he easily escapes her grasp. Juah is screening her and asking her questions while the din in the small house reaches a crescendo. It was so deafening that the other team called us to make sure we were alright. I’m looking at this poor woman, wondering how she can live like this, unable to move properly while being surrounded by the chaos of unbridled child wildness. Surrounded by life and movement while she remains confined to her wheelchair.

She keeps asking, “Why me?” throughout our encounter. It’s clear that her condition feels extremely unjust, that there is no reason for her suffering and pain. She describes as much to us. She then describes how she normally does her eyebrows, how she normally brushes her own hair, but now that her MS causes her to be unable to lift her hands above her head…

“I want to feel beautiful, but I can’t. You see my hair like this. I can’t brush it no more.”

Heartbreaking.

I share with her the nearness of Jesus, who provides us not necessarily with answers to our sufferings, but rather the company of his enduring and healing presence that is able to transcend the intense agony we endure from the force of life. I read Revelation 21:1-5 to her after seeing her hold up a commentary on Revelation, after which I read her Psalm 73. I also pray for her, first in English, then in Spanish. I hope God uses it well. 

Ernest Hemingway shares that in our darkest moments, “what we truly need is presence, someone to sit with us in the shadows…It’s not solutions we seek, but connection.” Dolores thanks us several times for our prayers, and I can’t help but think that sometimes, this is the most we can give. But does presence only matter when I have nothing to offer? Of course not. This encounter taught me to value the power of presence and remember that the way I conduct myself, from my question-framing to my body language, can all serve to communicate love, care, and support to the patient. 

What does it look like for me to enter into the sufferings of those around me? I think of Ernest Hemingway’s words, which illustrate the importance of presence over solution. Sometimes, we give presence, not because we realize the inadequacy of our solutions, but because we no longer possess them at all. Human nature strains to prescribe solutions, even when we know none exist. We offer platitudes and weak admonitions to the suffering, hoping to satisfy our own conscience and relieve ourselves of the burden of pain we vicariously feel. Suffering affronts our comfort. It disturbs us and we try to avert our gaze from it. But what if we aren’t meant to ease ourselves of the pain that we encounter? I am learning to linger in the pain, not to savor it in a masochistic way or to wallow in pity to gratify myself, but to seek to understand. Suffering is often chronic and enduring, resistant to quick fixes. Bandaids will cover bullet wounds from our sight, but do little else. The blood still seeps out.

Linger. Remain. Quédate.

Suffering is no spectacle to be ogled at. Certainly, suffering is no shameful thing we should shun. It presents itself in a myriad of ways. Tears. A mother’s deep sigh. Lifeless and hollow eyes. A brave smile. 

In all this, I am learning to draw near, to listen, and to be. Jesus stood in the stench of Lazarus’ tomb and breathed in the reality of our human suffering. And He wept.