I hadn’t noticed the man on the sidewalk until he spoke. His thin coat and ripped sneakers offered little protection against the chill November wind. He carried a dirty duffle bag on his shoulders, and untamed gray hair escaped from the frayed wool hat he wore pulled over his forehead.
I had just stepped from the car to the sidewalk on the arm of my teenage son. Wincing in pain when my body’s weight put stress on my swollen knee, I focused on balancing on the pavement and walking into the hotel where the local symphony would entertain with selections from Broadway musicals. It was the first time in weeks I had had the energy to attend a social function.
A month earlier, after a year and a half of unrelenting pain, I had tested positive for rheumatoid arthritis. Nights were a cycle of sleep and pain. When morning finally came, I struggled out of bed and into the shower, where the hot water offered some relief to my inflamed joints.
My husband and son were my caregivers, picking up the burden of household chores, preparing meals, bringing me ice packs and heating pads. But no one knew the depths of my pain. Even my family, who cared for me so lovingly, had no idea how much the constant pain had invaded my soul. Friends tried to help, but often I had no energy to answer their phone calls. One friend seemed sympathetic when told of my ordeal, but the next week she blithely invited me to go on a ski trip. Leaning on my husband for support as I negotiated the steps leading from our church, I had no words to reply to a fellow member who cheerily asked if I would help clean house for the ailing minister. The sense of isolation grew deeper every day. I seethed inside with anger that no one understood my agony.
Then the man in the thin coat, whom I suspected lived on the streets, looked into my eyes and said gently, “Your knee hurts. I hope it feels better soon.” He walked on then, a sad smile on his weathered face.
A wave of gratitude swept over me. Here was a stranger, this man who had his own troubles and his own pain, reaching out to me. He understood. At that moment, I realized I had to find other people who also understood. It took nine months, but the next August I started the chronic pain support group. At that first meeting and at every meeting I facilitated for the next 15 years, at least one person would nod, first in amazement and then in relief, that here, finally, someone understood what it meant to live every day in pain. The group adopted the motto, “Pain is inevitable, misery is optional.” The link to others who understood allowed me to take that first step toward rejecting misery, accepting my new life—pain and all—and grabbing all the joy I could every day.
Hard to believe that was more than 30 years ago. Today and every day, I thank the members of the Chronic Pain Support Group of Southern Maine, past and present, for a most precious gift—the gift of understanding that opened my pathway to acceptance and a joyful life.
—Susan Dudley Gold