She Rode the Wheel

When you learn your lessons, the pain goes away. That’s what she wrote in The Wheel of Life. 

The famous Death and Dying lady lay on the hospital bed in her living room. She couldn’t get up. A series of strokes—nineteen or more—had left her severely handicapped. Paralyzed on one side. It was morning. She was thirsty. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross said a quick prayer. “God, please send someone. A cup of tea would be so nice.”

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I got lost on the back roads in Arizona. Even with a navigation system in my car, I couldn’t find the address. I bumped around on the roads in my four-wheel drive. The woman with me, Lori, frowned.

“Haven’t you ever been four-wheeling before?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Then it’s time.” She had quit her job as a reporter at the Miami Herald. Now she was freelancing and writing a book. Together we were on our way to interview Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. I don’t have a lot of female heroes in this world. Elisabeth is definitely one. She had done so much groundbreaking work on the subject of grief, death, dying, and life after death. And I wanted to meet her before she died.

Finally we found the address. Rang the doorbell. “Come in,” Elisabeth yelled. We pushed open the door.

“Hi, Elisabeth,” I said. “Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?”

We helped fix her some food. She asked me to help her put her shorts on. Carefully I did as she asked.

“It’s about receiving,” she said. “I never learned to receive. Now God has put me in a position where I have no choice but to ask for and accept help.”

I helped her get in the wheelchair, pushed her into the bathroom. I looked away, trying to give her some privacy while she washed her face and brushed her teeth.

I pushed her back to the living room. Lori and I sat down in front of her.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Ask away.”

Lori cleared her throat. “I’ve been researching a book. I’m trying to find out what it means to own my power.”

“That’s easy, my dear,” Elisabeth said. “All you have to do is be who you are.”

Elisabeth looked at me. “And you,” she said. “What do you want to ask?”

Now it was my turn to clear my throat.

“Do you really believe in life after death? Aren’t you afraid of death, at least a little bit?” I asked.

Elisabeth laughed. “Didn’t you read my book, dear?” she said. “It’s not about believing. I know there’s life after death. Dying is the easy part. It’s life that’s hard.”

We said our good-byes. Elisabeth did what she called an ET touch—gently extending her finger, as any more touch than that caused her pain.

I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Thank you. And have a safe trip home.”

Lessons. Lessons. And more lessons. Every step of the way there’s something to learn. Just when you think you’ve got them all under your belt, another lesson comes blowing your way.

Some of them come disguised as problems or issues to solve. Others are normal effects caused by life and by getting older each day. Within each category of lessons, there are many little mini-lessons, too.

Fear can be a fun lesson to learn. I started jumping out of airplanes as part of learning about that. Play is an enjoyable lesson too—although some of us are stiff and forced at first. Some people’s lesson is to stop playing and learn to work. Some of the other lessons aren’t as pleasurable. They hurt when they’re happening to us. Grief, a broken heart, hurts physically and emotionally, and can go on for a long, long time. The pain from loss and grief can take two to eight years—sometimes more.

Guilt is the worst. Absolutely the worst. The feeling is paralyzing, and we often push it down so deep inside of us we’re not even aware it’s there. But the thoughts keep floating through our mind.

It’s like being in a relationship with the most tormentive person on the planet. Constantly our guilt is telling us: you don’t deserve, people might find out, you can’t be who you are. Sometimes it can take us to the edge: you don’t deserve to be happy; you don’t deserve to live. It’s subtle and insidious. Even if we tell it to shut up, it still stares at us with condemning eyes.

Some of us not only have guilt as a lesson, we have guilt about the lessons we find ourselves going through. Guilt permeates our lives.

I thought the concept of lessons was interesting as a general idea–until these lessons kept happening to me. I kept waiting for the lessons to stop. And I would have moments of rest, play, respite. Until the winds blew another lesson my way.

Well, this is fine, I’d think. Let’s just get it over so I can get my piece of the pie, get my share of the dream. In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson talks about happy, joyous, and free. I wanted to get to that part. And each time I’d get another lesson under my belt, I’d think, now I’m finally there. Until the next lesson began.

At a seminar in Pasadena in 2001, the Dalai Lama said that all people want the same thing—they just want to be happy.

That’s what the big grinding Wheel of Life is trying to do—get us to that place of being happy and free. We do get the big brass ring—but it’s often not what we thought it would be. Sometimes slowly, sometimes in a flash of transformation, we get it—whatever the lesson we’re going through is. After years of waiting, we finally become so patient we forget that we’re waiting and what we’re waiting for. After years of trying to control everything around us, we wear ourselves out and finally surrender. After years of keeping our hearts hardened and afraid, we become flooded with forgiveness, tolerance, and compassion. After years of grasping at other people, we finally feel content and complete taking care of ourselves.

After years of being selfish and not considering anyone but ourselves, we learn to give. Or the opposite may be true. After years of giving everything away, we allow ourselves to become vulnerable and receive, too.

Experience. It’s both a noun and a verb. Things happen to us, and we immerse ourselves in those scenarios. We dive in. Go through it. Submerge. Then come out changed—or not. We may go around and around the lesson wheel again and again, sometimes at different levels, until we get the lesson being taught.

The lesson may be over, but don’t forget what you learned. You’re going to need it while you climb mountain number two.

From the book: Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter

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