My son’s dog, Clara, recently provided me with some useful perspective about pain and suffering.

IMG_4896During my recent visit to the Midwest, I spent 4 days in Urbana. I timed the visit to be there when Clara was scheduled for surgery to remove her right rear leg. She was injured when she was younger, and the injury was not attended to by her first owner. She has had chronic pain and very little use in that leg since then. Austin adopted her and has provided all the care he could, but the vet finally said that nothing more could be done to improve the leg or decrease the pain. Amputation was the next step.

Amputation is a brutal surgery. I wanted to be there for support and to provide any help I could for the first few days, for Clara and for Austin. In the process, I learned some things.

Clara experienced legitimate suffering because of her injured leg. She suffered through it on a daily basis. She did not let it diminish her life too much, but the pain was obviously there. However, dogs don’t do needless suffering. That’s the kind of suffering we humans do when we feel sorry for ourselves, when we ruminate about how things ought to be different/better. Needless suffering comes when we say, “Why me?”

Clara did not appear to be bothered much by her missing leg. She looked at the stump curiously a few times, expressed some understandable frustration when she couldn’t scratch behind her ear, but other than that, she began bounding around the room, learning to balance when she squatted, and all the other things that came with adjusting to something new. Having three legs seemed to become normal for her pretty quickly.

I imagined how depressed I’d be, how worried I’d be about making accommodations, concerned about how others would react. I imagined how much suffering I would do after a serious, body-altering, life-altering event like that, suffering that would go WAAAAY beyond the pain and recovery process. That would be my needless suffering.

I’m not saying we should think more like dogs. Our lives and our responsibilities are a bit more complex. But I do think there are lessons here. Needless suffering never feels needless. I consider my needless suffering as important and necessary as the legitimate suffering. But it’s not. It is elective. It is optional. It is of my choosing.

Pain and suffering are our teachers. We know that. Life teaches us that. Needless suffering can be our teacher as well, but the lesson it teaches me when I choose to listen is, “You’re wasting your time and energy on this.”

Thanks, Clara.