Change: The Fuel for Growth^℠

Monica Gomez

Through the Valley of Death

February 14, 1998

A woman gives birth to her son, Tomas. At the moment of birth, the baby is diagnosed with Down Syndrome; a real shock for the mother. As you can imagine, nobody wants to have a disabled child. The baby´s father cannot cope with this reality and leaves. The woman is an only child, and has the support of her parents, but when the baby is only 20 days old, this lady´s mother is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

What’s this I’m telling you? Is it the plot of a new soap opera? Not at all. I’m telling you a moment in my own life. That woman I’m talking about is myself. In less than a month, I lost my husband, I lost my job (I had to quit) and was alone with a Down child and a Mum with cancer. Do you think I felt like a victim? Of course, you bet I did!

Some years before, in a Personal Growth Seminar, I had learned that we’re never victims. The idea was that we always create, cause or permit whatever happens to us. Now, what had I done to create this crisis in my life? We could split hairs and say that I hadn’t wanted to have genetic tests done during the pregnancy because I was not ready to abort in case of problems. So, in a way, I had allowed this child to be born with a disability. OK, we could say that.

However, what had I done in regard to my Mum´s cancer? In that case, I could find no explanation of how I had permitted that to happen to me. I felt a real victim.

Let’s have a look at other examples, on a bigger scale. What did the Jewish people do for the Holocaust to happen? What did the people who died in the World Trade Center do to deserve that horrible death? What did their families do, for that matter? What did African kids do to be born with AIDS?

Some people who believe in reincarnation find comfort believing that the answer to all this is that they bring karma from past lives. That may be… who knows? Maybe my situation was karma, but I didn’t feel any comfort from that thought!

Yesterday I saw on TV a survivor of the atomic bombs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This Japanese man was saying something that really surprised me. He stated that Japan had been responsible for the bombing attacks, because the U.S. had been urging an end to the war, but the Japanese leaders had refused. He believed that, in that way, the Japanese had caused the tragedies. That is, he thought that – even though the use of the atomic bomb was not justified at all – there existed a shared responsibility on the part of Japan. He concluded his speech by saying that both the American and Japanese governments should express their regret publicly for the atrocities that they caused.

All this confirmed in me that we’re not really victims. But let’s leave aside these drastic cases and come back to my humble story. There was a moment when I realized that I could choose how to respond, how to face whatever was happening to me. What was I going to do with this situation that life was bringing me? It was my choice.

I remembered Christopher Reeve, the former Superman who suffered an accident and was paralyzed. Here’s what he wrote about his own tragedy:

“It’s not about what happened to you, but whatever you do with what happened. A true test for a human being is what you do after the catastrophe. It’s what you do with it. This is not a road I’d have picked but a lot of times things get picked for you. Either I give in, or I say, ‘All right, let’s make the best out of this’.”

So… what could I do with my situation? I could really get depressed. Of course. I remember my own therapist telling me that any other person in my situation would spend their days crying in bed. Well, I felt I couldn’t even “afford the luxury” of doing that, as I had a baby and a sick Mum to look after, which reinforced my feeling of being a victim.

All this went on until I started becoming aware that I had a choice. I could give up, or I could try to survive. I had no idea how to, but it was a question of Attitude. It was like choosing between dying or staying alive.

The film Castaway shows this very clearly when Tom Hanks’ character says: “Keep breathing. You never know what the tide might bring in tomorrow.”

Another example is that of Viktor Frankl, a psychologist whose whole family died in the Holocaust. In the worst moments of suffering, Frankl tried to make sense of what he was going through. He said, “You can deprive me of everything, even of my dignity, but the only thing that can’t be taken away from me is my capacity of choosing the attitude with which I’m going to face the things that happen to me”. He also stated, “That which doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger”.

The point that I´d like to make clear is that you can choose how to respond, you have the power to choose your own attitude toward your predicaments. You can’t choose whatever happens to you, but nobody can deprive you of your free will to choose your own attitude. You can despair and give up (even commit suicide!), or – while you go through your pain – you can go on breathing and open up that magic door that appears when you state your intention to survive, to move forward, and to try to make the best of it.

Those who know me know that that magical door opened up and took me a long way that I would never have even imagined. Exactly five years after my crisis, I got married to a wonderful man who adopted Tomas, and with whom we adventured out of our native Argentina in search of a better future in Italy. If I had given in, I would never be telling you this story right now!

So remember: we’re not really victims. Whenever we have to undergo a tragedy, we have the great power and the wonderful freedom to choose how we’re going to deal with it.

Bear it in mind. It’s up to you. You’re always the master of your life!