where comfort lies

She is thirteen years old. She is in great emotional pain. Her small frame shakes under its weight. She walks up to each of the adults who are lined up waiting for her. She cannot contain her tears; her face is twisted with contortions of grief. As she moves from person to person, each of them kisses her cheek. Then the other cheek. Each of them holds her close. Each of them pats her back. Each of them gently pulls her back to look into the pain she cannot mask. They offer a brief smile of understanding, of encouragement, of strength really. Some of them pull her close again, their cheeks touching the wetness on hers, soaking up what she sheds. They comfort her.

And yet, they are the ones who carry the pain. They are all survivors of the Holocaust who have just shared their stories with a roomful of students who have been studying the tragedy. What I have just described is a scene from the moving documentary "Paper Clips" about a Tennessee middle school that tries to grapple with the magnitude of deaths in and the legacy of pain wrought by the Holocaust by collecting paper clips, each one representing a single life lost.

Sam, one of the survivors tells of his arrival at the concentration camp: "Future generations," he begins, "will have to learn about the Holocaust from textbooks. We are the eyewitnesses that can, to a certain degree, tell you what took place. I was with my brother. My brother was three years old at the time." Sam explains how they went to see the 'doctor' whose job it was to decide in which direction each person would be sent. His mother and brother were sent to the left, he to the right. After they went through the showers, he found a guard. "...and I asked him, 'please tell me...we arrived last night. I arrived with my mother and brother. Where are they? What happened to them?' and that man showed me smoke coming out of a chimney. I did not understand what that means. Until I found out that the chimney is from a crematorium." The still air begins to shake with the quiver in his voice. He speaks with an eerie certainly of the inexplicable. Everything in that room breaks...forever. Things break open and in and through. Things break inside the listeners. And what struck me is that it ends up being the survivors who do the comforting and the comfortable listeners who need and accept the comfort.

Comfort is a strange beast. Often when we need it -- and need it from others -- we find a space in which to be alone. Often those who give it are the ones in the most pain -- the ones who, we would think, would be in the most need.

I remember going to the wake for the mother of a close childhood friend of mine. Her mother had died unexpectedly and suddenly, far far too young, hit by a car while out for an afternoon walk on a beautiful spring day. As the sun descended slowly and held its light to lengthen the day, highlighting the world with slants of brilliance, it simultaneously blinded a driver who did not see the women walking on the side of the road. Her death was an event that you didn't know what to do with because it shouldn't have happened. And even though we know and understand that the world is not fair and does not proceed by 'shoulds' or logic, the sense of injustice was so strong that it was overwhelming.

As I waited in line at the wake, I shook with fear. I was terrified of seeing my friend. In my head, I went over and over various things I could potentially say to her. "I am so sorry." Too trite. "I was so shocked and saddened to hear of your mother's passing." Too focused on me. "Everything happens for a reason." No way! I didn't believe that at all. Why would I even think of saying such a thing to someone else. Finally I settled upon: "Your mom was a beautiful person and she will be deeply missed. I am here if you want to talk or just have company." At least, I think that is what I decided to say. I honestly do not remember - that is how scared I was and how much is blocked out in my memory because of the preeminence of my own emotional experience. What I do remember is my friend holding me close and saying "Thank you so much for coming. It means so much to me." I remember that she looked tired and shaken, but not weak. She looked strong. And her strength was a comfort.

My aunt died in her early thirties. Similar to my friend's mother, the event was a shock. She was in a mountain biking accident. During the mourning period, and long after, my grandmother kept an article posted on her fridge. It was a list of what not to say to those who are grieving. I looked at it and read it, but thereafter I tried to skirt by it without acknowledgement. It was uncomfortable for me to see it there. It felt as though I would never be able to comfort my grandmother, that I was completely incapable, that everyone was. And that was painful. When I think about it though, it was probably true. There was no comfort or reassurance to give to her. And it was not what she wanted anyway.

We speak of comfort like a drug. There is comfort food. Each of us has his own comfort zone. Sometimes we desire to be comfortably numb. Is comfort just the absence of anxiety and pain? Roger Waters, who wrote the lyrics for the Pink Floyd song, might say so. One interpretation of the song is that it depicts his experience of being sick with high fever as a child. In that state (one which he is able to revisit through memory or perhaps other means as an adult), he becomes 'comfortably numb.' Yet "I can't explain; you would not understand. This is not how I am." For him, a state of comfort is diametrically opposed to his experience of life and to who he is. It cannot be shared. Life is not comfortable, but delirium can bring us there -- to that place where you can't hear anyone, are not even sure if they are there, and where the pain is eased. I can't recall who said it now, but I recently read or heard someone say that happiness is not so much a state of being as it is one of absence. Happiness is the absence of pain. Similarly, Buddhist thought posits that life is pain and that the goal of life is the attainment of nirvana. (And yes, I realize that this is an utterly simplistic reading of Buddhism.) Thus, I finally realized, after many years of reading Buddhist texts and considering the philosophy, that nirvana is the absence of pain. That makes so much sense to me. Our moments of ease coincide with an ability to breathe deeply. Deep breath only comes to a body relaxed, unrestricted, and open. And to be open, to be able to receive, one must be free of pain. For pain locks us in our own physicality, in our own lives, in our own selves. Pain, though so very real, is -- in that way -- an illusion. An illusion of life wherein the self exists divorced from our connection to others.

Pain is likewise debilitating. I recently read a New Yorker article about the over-prescribing of opiods, especially at medical centers in rural, socio-economically struggling communities. The doctor, who was ultimately jailed for what was deemed to be reckless and irresponsible behavior and unlawful distribution of controlled substances, seems alternately lost and naive. It turns out that many of his patients were misusing and abusing the drugs he prescribed. However, he does not come across as inherently immoral or malicious. With the possibility of being released, Schneider (the doctor) and his wife decide to become missionaries. The desire echoes the mission he felt he had in his previous life. Indeed, the author writes that "Schneider missed his conviction that he was alleviating people's suffering." And, in his own words, he tells her: "It was gratifying to help those people who really needed me -- people who I thought needed my help," he said, correcting myself. "I probably needed them more than they needed me. What a humbling experience." His ability to comfort was an integral aspect of his own identity.

He found comfort in helping (comforting) others. Indeed, recent findings have suggested that volunteering may do more for the volunteer than the recipients (e.g. increased happiness, 20% lower risk of death). Yet, in the above case, the doctor's own sense of comfort was, as the article is titled, a "Prescription for Disaster." And his own demise. So where does comfort lie? Perhaps it lies in the hands of others. Though we may seek solace alone, true comfort may arise from another's heart. It may lie in the 'true love and brotherhood' announced in 'tidings of comfort and joy'. It is only with the guidance of others that we will no longer go astray. I am not religious and yet the sentiment rings true.

And so I return to Sam and the middle school girl who listened to his story, who -- perhaps for the first time -- bore witness to the reality of evil in the world. In this, her sense of safety was threatened. In this, her secure self was somehow violated. Just as when I was first broken by the world -- when the 1990 Gulf War was announced on television and I fell apart, wracked by the knowledge that brutality was to exist in my world and in my future, not just in the past or in a textbook.

A mother who attended the event with the Holocaust survivors in the documentary spoke of her reaction: "As a mother, I kept trying to imagine what that would be like to have my kids taken away from me like that. And just not to know where they were. I think that struck me about as hard as anything." The violence of the world does strike us. It hits us with unimaginable blows. Some of us remain more sheltered, just by chance. But in the presence of those who have suffered and also in the presence of those who have suffered and endured, the world can crack and open -- frighteningly so -- and yet, there is comfort to be found. Another survivor, Joe, spoke of the importance of personal connection in the face of darkness: "I will tell you one thing. Every survivor had a story. And there is not enough paper in the whole world, and not enough pens, to write down what each survivor went through." No, never. We can never understand. But we can find comfort in the strength that remains and perseveres.

The Holocaust survivors in the documentary came to visit the children's school to see their project. More of them spoke that day. One of them spoke of the day the Americans came to the camp and how he was a free person thereafter. "I'm still here," he emphasized persistence and survival. "That's the main thing. I want you to know. I came here to the United States in 1948 and I've been the happiest ever." At this moment in the documentary, he begins to break down. He can hardly finish speaking, but he manages to say, "I want you to know happiness makes me cry more than anything else."

Happiness is the absence of pain, though pain never quite leaves. The pain strikes a stark contrast, painting the rest of one's life in shades measured against the darkness. The pain never leaves, but it can be shared. And perhaps this is where comfort lies. Not in the absence of anything, but in the sharing of pain. To counteract despair, we remain in the light of hope. And the giving of comfort may simply lie in the presence of others. And in listening to their stories.