Illness and loss are
difficult to ponder. BUT, is there any value in illness, although difficult, uncomfortable, is
there a value in this darkness?
Cancer survivor
and controversial author Susan
Sontag (1988) suggests that
illness is dislocating and confusing for the sick and the well. Sontag
implies that illness is similar to a feared foreign country that no one wishes
to visit.
Illness is the night side of life,
a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the
kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to
use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for
a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.
Things once taken for granted are questioned; one’s body,
once accepted, is doubted. Uncertainty abounds as one moves through this new
territory. The experience for the ill and those close to him or her evokes
feelings which are unfamiliar, unpleasant, and uncomfortable.
Sometimes, the ill person may evoke a
disharmony in others. Sometimes friends may wish to distance themselves as they are not quite sure how to handle this change. Not unlike the divorcing couple that married friends
avoid for fear they might “catch” the problem; It evokes the insecure feelings
and questions hiding inside, the thoughts that strike at one’s very core.
Kat Duff (1993) a woman
with chronic fatigue syndrome explains, “There is often a feeling of exile,
wandering, searching, facing dangers, finding treasures”. She
additionally shares that illness defies “the rules of ordinary reality, [And]
shares in the hidden logic of dreams, fairy tales, and the spirit realms
mystics and shamans describe” (p. 13). One can have vivid dreams, visitations
in fever-induced states, and experience isolation and reflection unlike any
well time in their life. The experience can be scary, but also expansive and
growth producing. When viewed from Duff’s perspective, illness sounds almost
mystical. This territory is wide open for exploration. Again, I ask, is there any value in illness at all?
Love and Light,
Regina