Does Nature Argue Fate? The Acorn Contains The Tree/
charcoal, pastel, and ink on paper/ Julianna Paradisi 2019
The human need to find meaning.
“Everything happens for a reason” is a saying I hear a lot in my nursing practice, from patients and coworkers alike.
The need to find meaning in the events of our lives, good or bad, appears to be a distinctively human trait. Ancient Greeks believed Clotho, one of the Three Fates, spun the lives of humans. In medieval times, Anglo-Saxons may have believed in wyrd, a concept similar to fate in our modern language. Elsewhere, the idea of karma teaches a cause and effect perspective on this life, and on future lives. These are only a few examples.
Learning to ask ‘why’ as a pediatric ICU nurse.
I began questioning if everything happens for a reason as a pediatric intensive care nurse at the beginning of my career. Asking “why?” is a natural response to watching a child suffer. Why is a baby born without a functional left ventricle? Why does an infant contract leukemia or a brain tumor?
Certainly genetics or environmental factors cause some cases. Regardless, it’s difficult to understand how the world would be negatively affected if these children were born healthy and whole, or cured.
Things oncology patients say.
Working in adult oncology hasn’t provided new insight. Lifestyle comes into play in some cases no doubt, but plenty of the cancer patients I meet practice healthy habits. It makes no more sense for a young adult to be taken away from their family, or a young parent from their spouse and children, than the deaths of my pediatric patients did.
Some patients tell me they believe everything happens for a reason. They feel their disease or injury has made them more compassionate, or led them to create foundations supporting others who suffer from the same health problem. I’ve heard of patients who believe the suffering they endure through treatment is their karma, and must be played out unto their death.
Supporting the meaning and beliefs patients find in suffering is part of my nursing role. I applaud their resilience and good works.
The ‘Great Ones.’
Years ago, I had the pleasure of providing nursing care to a man who asked what I had done before working in the outpatient infusion clinic. I told him I had been a pediatric intensive care nurse.
He didn’t wince, or remark on the suffering of children. Instead, he said, “Oh, you worked with the Great Ones!”
I didn’t understand what he meant.
“You helped the Great Ones, the ones who choose a life of suffering in order to lead the ones around them to a better life.”
I wept.
Nurses help people, whatever their fate.
Certainly, he hit a chord. Some people believe our destinies are programmed inside of us, like the oak tree within an acorn.
I still don’t believe that everything happens for a reason; there are too many atrocities in this world for me to think that. However, I do believe good things can come out of bad, like resilience, compassion, and activism.
And this is true: Nurses help people, whatever their fates may be.
Julianna, I, like you, waver between “meaning” and random acts of violence (sickness in good people) and when I waa a nurse working pediatrics, I railed at God or whomever hurt the kids. Since then, I have had cancer, a stroke and a grandchild die, and I can say that each tragedy or challenge has made me “more.” Does that mean I would rather have missed the opportunity to be “more” and skipped the challenges even for their meaning in my life. No. I’d skip the trip and have Greggy my grandson back if given a choice. But when not given a choice, as we often are not, our response to our suffering can be either to expand and evolve or contract and get stuck in the place of victim. I’ve used all my experiences to write and try to help others find some meaning in their suffering because for me meaning is as essential to life as air. Thank you for your article. I loved it. Carol Gino