(And yes, I did choose that title based off the song.)
One of the things I’ve come across a lot in 40 years is the idea that if you are financially well-off/secure, that you don’t suffer. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I need to write about it here, to disabuse folks of this notion.
It’s usually not put that baldly, but that’s the gist of a lot of things I hear. Like, “Oh, a homily on suffering at a wealthy parish? They don’t need it!” Or “Well you’re financially secure, you don’t know what suffering is like!”
That’s…just not true.
Let’s start with the obvious and quote Scarlett O’Hara: “Money does help.” Yes, it does help. When my family was dealing with me being in the ICU, we weren’t worried about how we were going to put gas in our cars or keep the electricity on. True statement. Money helps.
However—my parents had a child in the ICU. A child they were being told was going to die. They had two other children to take care of at the same time, and potentially prepare them for the death of their sibling, while they were dealing with the possible death of their daughter, and maybe thinking they were going to have to plan a funeral. And at the same time, they were also dealing with my siblings’ schoolwork and teachers and all that jazz.
Yes, money was helpful—but they were suffering.
Life doesn’t look at your W2 or your 401(k) and go, “you know what, I think I’ll leave you alone because you have a good bank account.”
There are lots of different types of suffering, and financial poverty isn’t the only kind. There’s emotional suffering, physical suffering, combinations of all these things! Saying that being wealthy/well-off/ middle class negates any possibility of suffering “just ain’t so”.
This also goes with the whole, “Oh you’re thin I’m so jealous” thing.
Diane and me, May 2005
Folks. Look at that photograph. This was taken about a month and a half before transplant. I felt awful in this photograph. We’re at my grandfather’s surprise 80th birthday party, which I went to because it was his 80th birthday, even though my body was like PLEASE LAY ME DOWN AND LET ME SLEEP.
I weigh maybe 90 pounds here. The week after this party, I went into the hospital for almost a month. The sweater I’m wearing is an XS and it’s still hanging off me (look at the sleeves). Diane has a healthy paleness about her. I look sick. I was not healthy. In the hospital I was fed TPN (nutrition through an IV line) and lipids (fat!) to get me to gain any weight. This is NOT HEALTHY IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS. This is a person near death.
And yet I had people telling me that I looked so thin! And making comments about how they had hips, and I didn’t, in a way to make themselves feel better about their bodies! (Seriously, they did this.)
I WAS DYING.
And people were looking at me, being jealous of my thinness.
That’s a problem, folks.
So please don’t think that because someone is financial secure/thin/good looking/happy, her life is just all sunshine and roses and awesomeness.
Everybody hurts.