Survival

I was just watching a Garden programme on the tv where the man had been a prisoner of war and survived building the bridge in Asia that killed so many servicemen.  And I started wondering what it is that makes people survive in a situation that others don’t.  One-quarter of all the men building the bridge didn’t make it.  They literally lived in a hell hole and were dying of starvation.  But he lived.  Why?

Well, I can’t answer why one person lives over another.  But there is something that helps people to survive.  And it’s more than just a simple “positive attitude” kind of thing.  Somehow and someway that person has to have something to hold onto, some strength deep inside themselves that they can call on even in the very worst situations.

The other thing that person needs is hope. Hope that somehow, someway, someday things will change.  They can’t see it, but they KNOW it.  And it holds them.  The man was saying that even in the worst situation he could see and was planning the garden he was going to create when he got to a better place.  His present life was still horrific, but he could see the flowers he would plant and the painting he would make of them.

One time there were two men in a hospital and one of them had a bandage over his eyes for some reason or other.  And the other man would tell him stories of people that were going past and describing the scenery, calming him down and entertaining him.  The first man was so grateful for this help.  The second man left the room one day and the first man asked to be placed by the window, in the other man’s place so that when he could see again, he could look out the window.  And the nurses informed him that there was no window and the man next to him had been blind anyway.

You see, the blind man had a secret.  Although he wasn’t able to see at all, he could “see” inside his head and heart.  He knew that this helped him and that it would help calm the other man down.  He shared some of what kept hope alive and the strength inside himself that he could call on in his worst times.

It doesn’t have to be art or gardening or telling stories that makes the difference.  It’s something that you can hold onto, something that you can look to for the future and hope.  And the positive attitude will be there with all these things whether or not there are times that the person might be down, but that’s ok.  They’ll get up and carry on because they have to.  They have no choice but the hope remains that things will change.