Survivor's Guilt & Healing

 I just posted a conversation on survivor’s guilt, a topic I’ve been avoiding for a while now.  It is a tough conversation for me and I’d appreciate any insights people might have on the subject.

The New York Times editor, Dana Jennings, who I’ve quoted before, published another piece today about his treatment for prostate cancer:  Time Is a Trickster When Time Runs the Clock.  The part that resonated the most with what Ilene experienced was the recognition that healing takes place at its own pace. 

It may sound strange to compare healing between a disease that has a chance of being cured and one that does not.  But even with an illness that has no present chance for a cure, healing can take place.

The healing in this case is not one of the body.  It is a healing of the emotions and mind when faced with a terminal illness.  The first step for Ilene was to get her mind around the idea that simply “being is enough”.  She let go of “doing” as the measure of her value in life--not that she stopped “doing” whatever she could.  She stopped using “doing” as the yardstick for her life.

When Ilene allowed “being” to take over, she cherished the present moment more fully.  She even found moments of emotional perfection within what I saw as the tragedy of her illness.  Her poem “Perfect Moment” captured her feelings at a specific point not long before she died.

Perhaps this is a clue to how I can release my sense of survivor’s guilt. 

What do you think?