The Real Question & Only Answer

What Does Suffering have to do with It All? 

Is there any character that Robin Williams cannot play--he's one of my favorites!  But I believe his best performance comes in Patch Adams.  You have to wonder if his characterizations in the psych ward came from first hand experiences--he is that good.  The most riveting turning point in the movie is when the medical student he loves is killed by a psychopathic patient.  He drives out to a steep cliff where he had been building his clinic and is ready to jump.  Then we hear this dialogue:

Hunter Patch Adams: [standing on the edge of a cliff contemplating suicide. He talks to God... ] So what now, huh? What do you want from me?
Hunter Patch Adams: [looks down over cliff, a rock tumbles off] Yeah, I could do it. We both know you wouldn't stop me. So answer me please. Tell me what you're doing. Okay, let's look at the logic. You create man. Man suffers enormous amounts of pain. Man dies. Maybe you should have had just a few more brainstorming sessions prior to creation. You rested on the seventh day. Maybe you should've spent that day on compassion.
Hunter Patch Adams: [looks down over the cliff again] You know what? You're not worth it.
[walks away from the cliff]

As he leaves, a butterfly lands on his arm with the message of hope and renewed life.  He walks away from the cliff and goes back to medical school with his idealized vision of the "patient as person" before any other priority.  We ant to believe it with him.  We have also been treated and know differently.

                                          The Real Question.....

What if the real question was not why do bad things happen?  After all, we do have free will. But, why when bad things happen, do people rise to a new level of compassion.  They don't give up on life.  They offer it--and in very extraordinary ways.

I once worked in a burn unit.  I witnessed perfectly horrible sights and sounds and never smelled the horror of burnt flesh.  That's hell.    But that was the same place where the nurses were angels, a Greek word meaning "messengers," who brought the message that they had not lost their humanity, indeed would recover their humanity in a whole new way.  They were the butterflies from Patch Adams which landed on the lives in that Burn Unit.  

The Only Answer.....  

You treat a disease, you win, you loose. You treat a person, 

I guarantee you, you'll win, no matter what the outcome. 

                                                                            Patch Adams