There are two holiday seasons. There is the one of joy, the one I’m lucky to celebrate. And there is the one those who suffer all year endure. It is also the one their caregivers struggle through.
At the end of the year, no matter their religion, the lonely find themselves lonelier, the confined more boxed in, and the broken more irreparable. The holidays can shine with love and they also can hurt.
Those of us who don’t have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, also called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, can only lend our hearts to those who do. We can seek to comfort and tell them that we know what they’re going through, but we don’t know. We can look, but we can’t know the terrible incarceration mandated by the disease: the life sentence.
A word about caregivers: The families, lovers and friends who know that these dear people, so loved, exist in a cruelly unequal world, isolated by pain and immobility. They are the people who must draw from the well of compassion over and over: today, tomorrow, next week, next month and next year, on and on. We can all be compassionate for a while, but to care for another permanently is noble, saintly and hard, hard work.
There is a glimmer (Is that too strong a word?) on the horizon as the pace of research into ME has picked up in the last several years and as has funding, much of it raised privately, has increased, though the effort is still a bit incoherent.
While there is research, there is hope. Maybe a new discovery will transmute endless misery into glowing joy. Maybe it’ll be in the biology of the disease, maybe in a compound that will hold it at bay, and maybe in a cocktail of compounds.
One of the priceless bounties of this time of year is hope. It is almost the only salve for the pain.
When I was 19 years old in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, I was working on a weekly newspaper. One night, just before Christmas, one of the African pressmen caught his hand in the press and it was crushed, mangled, three fingers gone. I had to drive him to the hospital and I grabbed the linotype operator’s Morris Minor. After having persuaded the other African workers that they couldn’t all get into a small car, five of them and the victim squeezed in and I began driving through deserted streets the few miles to the hospital.
For the life of me, I didn’t know why the four workers were insistent on weighting down the car. Then they began to sing, and I knew. The whole way they sang pain songs in Shona (they were of the Shona tribe). The songs – dirges, if you will – were an ancient analgesic to help the injured man endure the pain as he headed toward the Western world of morphine and surgery.
I hope that all who suffer this season will find the equivalent of their song to help with the pain, physical and emotional.
Yours warmly,
Llewellyn
Follow
This Christmas I am thankful for the good and tireless work of Llewellyn King. You are such a bright spot to many of us. How do we thank someone who is so dedicated to get our health back?
I can only hope that others have been as kind to you in your life, as you have been to us.
Gob Bless You
A properly prepared cement floor will permit the coating to adhere properly with
out. The glass is very toughened to stand up to heat from the hobs.
Really are a few low voltage lighting and solar powered lights. http://Www.Diverselist.com/Business-Economy/Construction-0017.htm
Thank you so much for always remembering and caring for us. Your message helps so much, especially at this time of year!
Thanks you, thank you for your words of understanding. You have done so much to help others understand the true pain of life with ME. Your words mean a lot to many !
The ME/CFS community is so fortunate to have such a compassionate journalist advocating for us and supporting us. Thanks to Llewellyn King for all of your time and efforts.
Thank you so much, that was a beautiful piece, with a beautiful story in it., and as you said, a shimmer of hope. I felt comforted by it. Thank you! Best wishes for you in the New Year.
Pain is lessened through the love, bearing witness, and caring of others as Llewelyn ‘s story illustrates. The ME community sheds light on all who are a part of it. I savor the light shared here.
Thank-you for driving the car that continues to bring solace to the souls within.