Thinking about pain.

I'm up tonight. Thinking about pain. And how one measures it. I hurt my back. And went to the doctor. And he asked me to quantify my pain. On a scale of 1 to 10. From hardly any pain, to excruciating. I said, 4 or 5. And I wondered, is it really that bad? I told him it's better when I'm standing, or walking. Slowly. Sitting or lying down -- well, that ain't good. I thought I'd be up all night. I tried to sleep for a few hours. Now I'm up. Tried to walk it off. Now I'm up writing. Trying to get my mind off the pain. Writing about it. Helps, believe it or not. I'm trying to convince myself that it could be far worse. I fell off a ladder. It's happened before. I should know better. Anyway, I didn't break any bones. Not the pelvis. Or a hip. That would have been devastating. I didn't kill myself either. Like my brother did on his birthday last month. When he fell and konked his head. So, I'm relatively unscathed. Alive and able to heal. And to reflect on the importance of being careful. I'm certain it's pain I can live with. Because I know I'm gonna heal. I suppose the worst kind of pain is the kind that won't go away. When Jeanne died, I initially thought the pain would never go away. But it does. One grieves. One heals. And gets on with life. Because I think maybe it's a sin to live with excruciating pain forever. I suspect that if I had that, I'd want to die. It wouldn't be worth living. --Jim Broede