ON BEING ILL GRACEFULLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20252, 11 May 1929, Page 6 (Supplement)

ON BEING ILL GRACEFULLY.

AN UNCOMMON VIRTUE.

T.r KATHERINE CARR,

To endure illness that is irksome rather than alarming with as much grace as possible is a virtue that few of us possess. There are people who rather enjoy the reputation of being " not too strong," and make the most of it. Some of them go so far as to take refuge in their own little pet ailment whenever any demand is made upon their unselfishness or when they are asked to share with those around them some temporary inconvenience. We all run against people of this type now and again, and people who can faint or develop a headache or neuralgia or a limp at a moment's notice. They are unhappy souls, and uncomfortable people to live with. The majority of us, however, just hate to be put out of action by the ills that afflict the flesh, and to have the conviction thrust upon us that we are not the fine strapping specimens we like to think ourselves. All too frequently wo are apt to err in the opposite direction and to be rebellious, peevish and irritible when it comes to bearing pain that is new to us and illness that is wearisome. We fuss and fume and make a perfect nuisance of ourselves just as in childhood, when we were nicely tucked up in bed and the "light put out for the night we yelled, "Mum, I want a drink of water!"

Hospital nurses have much to endure from spoilt and peevish patients of the not-very-sick variety, and will tell you that tho woman who decides to go to bed in a private nursing home and take a " o resfc cure," looking pallid and beautiful in the prettiest nighties and bedjackets that- money can buy, is often exasperating in the extreme. Unlike the very-sick woman who usually bears her pain with high courage and is grateful for the attentions of her nurse, the not-veiy-sick one is all too often a sweet tyrant. She detains her nurse till the last possible moment, pandering to her whims, and then just as the tired girl is about to escape from her gentle clutches —and perhaps from an overlong duty—she calls again, " Oh, nurse, just before you go, please . . aud back comes the long-suffering little nurse looking professionally patient and amiable while the evil spirit that she crushes down within her says, "Slap the woman!" Pain and disease arc life's greatest horrors, and man will never cease to wonder why physical anguish should have been thrust upon him so relentlessly by the Great Creator. But it is too big a problem for the human mind to wrestle with. Our business is to make our bodies as strong and healthy as we can, to guard our youth and our health while they last, anil when sickness comes to endure it with all the courage and patience we can muster. And perhaps to those of us who are the " hale and hearty," an occasional touch of illness has a salutary effect. In the first place it forces us to realise, as we never did before, our dependance upon one another. We realise in a flash the innate kindliness of our friends and neighbours -that- little woman from next <-jor who just quietly slipped in during the morning to clear up the clutter of a man-made breakfast, tho neighbour on the other side who sent in- half-a-dozen new-laid eggs, arid all the other people who lavished kindness upon us in one way or another. Perhaps if the ills and infirmities that afflict us, set us wondering whether we are as kind to others as they are to us in moments of necessity, and whether we evei - realised before the meaning of friendship and devotion and, love—even pain and illness may have revealed to us some hint of the Divine purpose.