By IHE Fellow Angela Knobel
“We suffer because of our dependence on others. And we must choose this suffering. Much of life is an attempt to distinguish between those sufferings that we ought to try to weed out of the soil of our lives and those sufferings that are seeds that might bear fruit. By seeking to eradicate suffering, to eliminate those who suffer, to bury that which makes us dependent, we find ourselves withering. Only one choice bears fruit.”
–Aaron Cobb, Loving Samuel
This summer I read a short book, by Aaron Cobb, Loving Samuel. In that book Cobb reflects on his family’s experience of learning that the son they were joyously awaiting would not survive his birth. He describes how, in the days following the diagnosis, he researched his son’s disease obsessively, looking for some way to prolong his son’s life, and how – anticipating incomprehension and platitudes – he avoided telling others about his family’s situation. But he ultimately came to see such actions as attempts at control, as ineffective attempts to manage and contain his suffering. Cobb ultimately claims that there are some sufferings that must be chosen: not because suffering is somehow good or desirable in its own right, but because some sufferings are inextricably linked to love. “We suffer,” says Cobb, “because of our dependence on others. And we must choose this suffering.”
I want to reflect a bit on the idea that sometimes, in order to love well, we must “choose” suffering. The reactions Cobb describes having in the days following his son’s diagnosis – his obsessive research of his son’s condition, his desire to hide his family’s pain from all but his closest friends – all seem like perfectly natural reactions. Why see them, as Cobb does, as attempts to “bury that which makes us dependent,” as things which contribute to the “withering,” rather than the flourishing of the self? What does it mean for suffering to “bear fruit”?
I think that Cobb’s point is likely deeper and more profound than I can do justice to here. But I think I understand at least part of what he has in mind. Why is a choice to love a choice to suffer? Because in choosing to love, we choose to let ourselves be affected by what is outside of our control. When we love, and to the degree to which we love, what is good for the one we love is good for us too; what threatens the one we love is a threat for us too. When we love, and to the degree to which we love, our happiness and well-being depend on factors outside our control, and especially in sharing our lives with others. The more meaningful and complete that sharing is, the more suffering we risk. Those who have enjoyed long and happy marriages suffer a great deal more at a spouse’s death than those who loved less or not at all. But who, having experienced such love, would choose to forego that suffering? Most of the time when we choose to love, the suffering is comfortably distant. But in the Cobb family’s case, the choice to suffer and the choice to love were intertwined: the more they chose to welcome and rejoice in their new son, the more they confronted the reality of his death, the more they positioned themselves to suffer at his loss. To really accept another with open arms is always to open oneself to suffering.
The month of August is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Mary’s heart is said to be immaculate because of the purity of her love. Cobb’s reflections on suffering and dependence show us, I think, just what pure love requires.
