BEING A CAREPARTNER( continued)
Accepting Charles’ s disease and making meaning out of it didn’ t mean that we didn’ t feel pain. Coping with this type of degeneration was difficult physically and emotionally for Charles, the person with the disease, as well as for me, the caregiver. We faced many trials— some successfully, others not. But we both became better people through experiencing his disease.
M. Scott Peck starts his book The Road Less Traveled with the sentence“ Life is difficult.” He goes on to explain that once we accept this, we can begin to make the most of life. Charles and I had discussed this concept a number of times when we faced problems at work or with other people. The misfortune of his disease forced us to face our greatest life difficulty, truly testing our ability to accept adversity and then move on.
I don’ t know of anyone who expressed this thought better than Viktor Frankl in his book Man’ s Search for Meaning. Frankl survived the atrocities and indignities of a concentration camp in World War II. He realized there that to renew our inner strength, we need to have a future goal. He quoted Nietzsche’ s words,“ He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” I found that“ finding meaning” is a way to define the why. The act of looking for and finding meaning in Charles’ s disease focused and empowered me.
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