Did It Just Begin

I wonder if It weighs like Mine--
Or has an easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long--
Or did it just begin--
I could not tell the Date of Mine--
It feels so old a pain--

- Emily Dickinson, "I Measure Every Grief I Meet," cited in The New Yorker 2/1/10

"Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
- Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face

When I was nine, my family met my fourth grade teacher and her husband at the grocery store. Her husband held out a hand to me, missing everything but a thumb.  I balked, afraid, but he insisted.  I remember the odd shape, the warm skin.

Making a connecting commuter flight in Charlotte in one of their sunny, glass terminals, I saw a face slick with burn, melted skin pulled red and mottled tight around his eyes, the hole of his mouth, bits of what had been his ears.  I felt shock, then such sorrow.  He sat alone, waiting for his flight, a young man by his energy and dress, not making eye contact, not speaking, not watching the children whose arms were jerked by their parents when they stopped to stare, not requiring that others shake hands with what had become of him.  To and from the restrooms and snack bar, I passed him several times.  On the last pass, I heard him sigh.

In business, scenarios are played out as worst case, best case, and realistic case. 

In therapy, it's The Worse Case Scenario and The Miracle Question.

In a version of The Worst Case Scenario, the client is asked of something he or she fears, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” To the client’s answer, the therapist asks, “What’s the worst thing that could happen because of that?” With support and only as the client is able, the therapist questions each answer, taking the client down, down to the deepest fear.  Often the answer involves death with a twist of powerlessness and a dash of presence - no one, too many, the wrong one.  In the unknown dark, the fear lurks.  Brought to the light, it threatens less.

A troubled client is asked a version of The Miracle Question:  “If you went to sleep tonight and woke up in the morning and all was well, what would have happened?”  In describing the details, awareness of possibility emerges.

As I contemplate surgery next Monday, out-patient, almost-routine except for that side bit about the facial paralysis, The Worst Case Scenario for me isn’t death.  I have plans for my life and would be sorry to lose those and I would be deeply sorry for the sadness of my friends and family, but I won’t feel that because I’ll be gone.

The worse case scenario for me would be answering the question, "How brave will I need to be?"

The worst case scenario for me would be the sigh. 

Were I to regain consciousness from the surgery and a miracle had occurred, it wouldn't be what’s resulted from the surgery.  I’ve learned that what comes from wishing for outcomes, or for wishing things were different, is irremediable suffering.  “All is well” for me would be that, whatever has happened, I am handling it.