Suffering, and Awe

Something quite profound happened to me today.

I was staring into one of the most beautiful sunsets I have seen in San Diego yet.

And as I stared, I began thinking about the start of the new year, and then on to the end of the old year. I thought of all the people suffering in the world, those taken by COVID, by other diseases, by hunger, by wars, by the unfair hand of fate in one of an innumerable other ways.

And in being for a moment with the broad suffering of the world, I came into remembrance of my mother and the pain she once suffered from. How she fought for months, steadily being pushed beyond the brink of what a human should be made to endure. When I was with her, I could gaze far into the pools of her eyes, down along the sinking, darkened trenches that plumbed deep down to reveal the pain that lived at the core of her being. Over time, her body betrayed her bravery. As I lay with her towards the end, I saw her strength slipping away day by day, until finally she came to embrace a moment of peace, and let go of this world.

But despite all the pain I could see so deep within her, she bore this suffering shut tight within her mind, never uttering a single syllable of the truth of her suffering. She passed on from our world mute of the truth, silent of what I knew was screaming inside her. She passed on valiantly battling her body with stoic mind, controlling what avenue she had left to protect her family from those chilling depths we could only imagine.

And as I thought about how dearly I wished, but how powerless in those final moments I was to take away her suffering, I wept.

I wept for my late mother. I wept for the people in this world suffering, especially for those suffering in silence. I wept for the pain they or their loved ones felt or would come to feel in crimson hues of intensity. I felt in this moment on the beach a heavy burden of sadness in realizing how I was still powerless to lift the pain of others, or even to fully understand the unique contours of their pain. I wept for these people I will never know, whose lives have also come to their final moments. I wept for their plans, their hopes, their dreams left to scatter with the winds and fade into the ether. I looked on at the radiance of the sun on the clouds, and I wept for them all.

And as I wept there crept into my heart a breathtaking sense of beauty for the glow of nature before me and all around me. I felt the vibrations of the ocean waves. I heard the wind urging the eternally rolling waves to reach up onto the shore. My skin alternated between the ripple of gooseflesh and the calm smoothness as the sea breeze wrapped around my limbs in quick gusts. Between tear-induced sniffles, I breathed in the salty, musky scent of the sea and the boundless life it harbors. I saw the splendor of the sky draped in hues of blue, yellow, orange, gray, and pink, emanating so vividly that it felt as though they were channeling past my eyes to speak directly to my heart.

As my tears eased in the presence of such beauty, I was overcome with the preternatural nature of the moment. To feel my heart enclose around the ache of such piercing sadness one moment, only to blossom anew with such reverence and joy for life the next. To bear the gift of such a moment which strummed each of my senses as it transformed my immense sadness into pure joy was so indelible a natural expression of being that I nearly fell to my knees.

Maybe it is that the suffering of the world is cleansed in the beauty that can be found in moments such as these. There is so much to be in awe of in this world, and so many experiences to take in. Truly, we are lucky to experience just a single moment of each day, let alone a lifetime. We must never lose our sense of awe, and our love of life. And when we find ourselves paying homage to the suffering of this world, then we must also find a way to appreciate the beauty in it, all the same.