Way, way back in high school, we were made to read a collection of short stories by Earnest Hemingway about his semi-autobiographical adventures with his physician father in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the early 1900's. In one story, the boy goes with his father to an Indian village to help a woman through a difficult child birth. During the long night she screams and cries while her husband lies by stoically in a nearby bed. By dawn, she makes it through, but when the husband is sought to be notified, they find that he has slit his own throat. Tragedy. Hemingway's father would kill himself some years later, as would Hemingway, after suffering from severe depression and the primitive remedies of electric shock therapy.
In the book that I am currently reading, Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag, we find ourselves in a similar situation. A group of Norwegians have come to America in the 1870's to claim "quarters," or quarter square mile lots (160 acres) for homesteading in the Dakota Territory, lured by this incredible gift of land. Per Hansa, the central male in the story, loves its vast isolation because of its potential; his wife Beret immediately takes a different view - why, there are no trees to hide behind! There are no people! They will all revert to savagery! It is no joke - she keeps this to herself, and her mind wanders to distraction, to anxiety, and to deep depression. The reader is given to know that she is well along in her pregnancy, and we start to wonder - is this the reason for her dark moods?
Finally, on Christmas Eve, she goes into labor. It is a difficult one, and Beret is already sure she is going to die. Even the women attending her begin to believe it. Her shrieks and moaning go out through the night, where Per Hansa paces in the snow, unable to talk to anyone. Finally, it is quiet. In time, one of the women summons him in to the house. He is convinced that Beret is dead, and as he passes the barn, he notices the high, strong beam that lays on the walls. He thinks of the rope he has - good, strong rope. He does not think of his other children. We believe we know what he will do, if...
As it turns out, his wife survives, as does the infant, a boy born with "The Helmet" a birth crown that is very rare, on Christmas day. It is said that he will grow - if he lives - to be very special. We have the rest of the book to find out how.
In both cases, the death of the father is or would have been tragic. Neither considered the lives of others who would survive them - only that they could not stand the suffering of the women that they loved, or could not live without them. But in both cases, continued life would have or was better. Their's was a temporary problem, which would have been solved by time, one way or the other. In both cases, the results would have been or were so much better with life.
In my youth, besides being forced to read the classics, I also talked with quite a few young people who were considering suicide. I would tell them that their problems were temporary, and that life, after all,was short. Why not ride it out? And why not, if the situation seemed intolerable, just run away? What could hurt more than suicide? And one would still be alive, able to mend fences later if desired, or start another life that was more compatible.
This was true of the two men in the stories. It was the situation that made them suffer. But what of some others? I have read of people so consumed by schizophrenia that they make themselves freeze, as if statues, to avoid the life that their tortured minds gave to them. Then there are the others, those with intense depression, who seem absolutely normal and blessed with the common needs, but who none-the-less are absolutely miserable. Hemingway and his father were two of those. In such cases, is suicide such an irrational thing? It leaves behind the blackest of holes for friends and family, but how can we judge the degree of unrelieved suffering that they might be living? Theirs was not a misery of the moment, but perhaps of a lifetime. Just as I perfectly understand the suicide of the old with terminal diseases, so might I understand these others.
Whether one cares or not, the Catholic Church now allows 'suicides' to be buried in consecrated ground, recognizing the suffering of the person rather than the taking away of life that was given him by God. This surely seems the more merciful perspective. Still, we pray for resolutions to our problems, and often they come - more often than not - and in surprising ways. Someone who has failed at one thing may find his true passion in something else; someone who's child was killed by a drunk driver finds she can help other children with health problems or in need of financial assistance. And sometimes the very mental disease that tortures us allows for a genius to emerge that might make it worthwhile in the end. Hemingway wrote books, the mathematician in "A Beautiful Mind" made discoveries that are still being used. The resolutions may not end like novels, but they are resolutions of a sort.
Should those who suffer hope? For those miserable in a life situation, sure - that situation will change or can be changed. But for those others, it remains a question. It seems to me that anything can be altered, at least enough, with a strong faith. But how does an average person have faith when it seems the whole world has abandoned him? I cannot judge - but only hope that my own faith would carry me through with what might be. It reminds me of how serious one's faith can be, and how little the jokers and mockers (myself included, at times) really understand or serve anyone. FK
In the book that I am currently reading, Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag, we find ourselves in a similar situation. A group of Norwegians have come to America in the 1870's to claim "quarters," or quarter square mile lots (160 acres) for homesteading in the Dakota Territory, lured by this incredible gift of land. Per Hansa, the central male in the story, loves its vast isolation because of its potential; his wife Beret immediately takes a different view - why, there are no trees to hide behind! There are no people! They will all revert to savagery! It is no joke - she keeps this to herself, and her mind wanders to distraction, to anxiety, and to deep depression. The reader is given to know that she is well along in her pregnancy, and we start to wonder - is this the reason for her dark moods?
Finally, on Christmas Eve, she goes into labor. It is a difficult one, and Beret is already sure she is going to die. Even the women attending her begin to believe it. Her shrieks and moaning go out through the night, where Per Hansa paces in the snow, unable to talk to anyone. Finally, it is quiet. In time, one of the women summons him in to the house. He is convinced that Beret is dead, and as he passes the barn, he notices the high, strong beam that lays on the walls. He thinks of the rope he has - good, strong rope. He does not think of his other children. We believe we know what he will do, if...
As it turns out, his wife survives, as does the infant, a boy born with "The Helmet" a birth crown that is very rare, on Christmas day. It is said that he will grow - if he lives - to be very special. We have the rest of the book to find out how.
In both cases, the death of the father is or would have been tragic. Neither considered the lives of others who would survive them - only that they could not stand the suffering of the women that they loved, or could not live without them. But in both cases, continued life would have or was better. Their's was a temporary problem, which would have been solved by time, one way or the other. In both cases, the results would have been or were so much better with life.
In my youth, besides being forced to read the classics, I also talked with quite a few young people who were considering suicide. I would tell them that their problems were temporary, and that life, after all,was short. Why not ride it out? And why not, if the situation seemed intolerable, just run away? What could hurt more than suicide? And one would still be alive, able to mend fences later if desired, or start another life that was more compatible.
This was true of the two men in the stories. It was the situation that made them suffer. But what of some others? I have read of people so consumed by schizophrenia that they make themselves freeze, as if statues, to avoid the life that their tortured minds gave to them. Then there are the others, those with intense depression, who seem absolutely normal and blessed with the common needs, but who none-the-less are absolutely miserable. Hemingway and his father were two of those. In such cases, is suicide such an irrational thing? It leaves behind the blackest of holes for friends and family, but how can we judge the degree of unrelieved suffering that they might be living? Theirs was not a misery of the moment, but perhaps of a lifetime. Just as I perfectly understand the suicide of the old with terminal diseases, so might I understand these others.
Whether one cares or not, the Catholic Church now allows 'suicides' to be buried in consecrated ground, recognizing the suffering of the person rather than the taking away of life that was given him by God. This surely seems the more merciful perspective. Still, we pray for resolutions to our problems, and often they come - more often than not - and in surprising ways. Someone who has failed at one thing may find his true passion in something else; someone who's child was killed by a drunk driver finds she can help other children with health problems or in need of financial assistance. And sometimes the very mental disease that tortures us allows for a genius to emerge that might make it worthwhile in the end. Hemingway wrote books, the mathematician in "A Beautiful Mind" made discoveries that are still being used. The resolutions may not end like novels, but they are resolutions of a sort.
Should those who suffer hope? For those miserable in a life situation, sure - that situation will change or can be changed. But for those others, it remains a question. It seems to me that anything can be altered, at least enough, with a strong faith. But how does an average person have faith when it seems the whole world has abandoned him? I cannot judge - but only hope that my own faith would carry me through with what might be. It reminds me of how serious one's faith can be, and how little the jokers and mockers (myself included, at times) really understand or serve anyone. FK
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