(Man’s Search for Meaning: Viktor Frankl 1959, 43)
I find Viktor Frankl’s insights really amazing—and he knew what he was talking about! He speaks of the joy he felt when he was transferred from Auschwitz. He was sent, not to Mauthausen—which “had a chimney” [i.e., it was a death camp], but to Dachau, which had “no crematorium, no gas”. The fact of his continued cold, undernourished, miserable existence in a concentration camp caused joy when compared with being executed.
As we walk the path of suffering or grief, we need to live our lives like this; taking pleasure in potentially pleasurable things—however small—even against the backdrop of a greater misery; that of living with a great loss, or the anticipation of a bereavement, or even the expectation of one’s own death. I don’t think this is easy. One must make a conscious decision, and work to make it happen.
In the aftermath of Linny’s death, I had to accept that, in the eyes of the world, grief has an expiry date. As I walked further down this road, fewer and fewer people would go out of their way to compensate for my grief, to try to cheer me up, or to help me in any way. Fewer and fewer people whom I encountered would even know that I was dealing with a problem, or that there are still some days when I can scarcely get out of bed because the pain is so great. Few people remember anniversaries. Ultimately, to live in this world, one has to fit in with the norm—spend most of the time hiding behind a socially-acceptable mask. If the mask falls off too often, one is marginalised by society.
I frequently pray this: Lord, help me to recover to a point of being able to function “properly”, to live life with a purpose, to honour Linny’s memory by being all the person that I can be. In the words of a good friend of mine: “Help me to be brave”. Lord, it is only through You that I can find meaning in my life. It is only in You that I can find the power to live out my life meaningfully. It is only in You that I can have a hope for the future, no matter how dismal it may look.
I’ll trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.
(O love that wilt not let me go: George Matheson)