In Their Shoes

Fabian Omini

April 28

A series of events that played out in April.

I re-downloaded Medium on my phone after deleting it a while back. I tried reading a couple of articles and I couldn't even get an inkling of what it was I was reading. It wasn't because these writers weren't writers enough, but it was because I read the pieces too fast, too soon. Then I realized that to arrive at the writer's destination, or to even start on the journey, I had to first listen for my heartbeat as it tags along in rhythm with the punctuations and paragraphs. Sometimes my heart stops at the end of every sentence and resumes when the writer bids me to.

I love the fact that when I read articles or some lengthy novels, I get to live their lives, feel their joy, believe in their pain, await a story that captures their hope, and rest in the fact that everyone would be alright in the end. Being able to reside in their world, to watch and behold and feel this variety of emotions. Just like Mirror-Touch Synthesesia.

Walking through Old Calabar on a sunny afternoon, with two of my friends. I think they were looking for some camera adapter or converter, or one funny tech equipment that I did not care for. For the first time, I noticed quite several old, antique buildings lining the street: some of them already repainted, and others looking old and grey. Starring at these houses gave me deep pleasure, and as I imagined all the furniture inside, my legs became weak.

These houses reek of its history: a history I have no idea about. A history bigger than the building itself, maybe the history of the colonial era, or the civil war, or some family feuds that resulted in chaos and separation and divorce, and a remarriage, maybe an extended family, then anniversaries and retirements, and funerals, and an endless cycle of joy and pain. I could feel peace standing with me, and I enjoyed every moment.

I recently heard a story of a woman suffering from a Rectovaginal fistula (RVF). After browsing a bit about the condition, and watching some short videos on YouTube, I couldn't explain the way my body felt afterwards. Maybe the feeling of being in a collapsing building; or having your stomach squeezed like you would do to a loaf of bread when held from its middle; or having your skin pierced with a thousand tiny needles, and your eyes go bloodshot, and screaming isn't enough to convey the intensity of anguish you feel. It's intense, acute, and passionate all at once. It's something I wish I couldn't feel.

But I did. And after a period of personal anguish, it morphed slowly into this fierce feeling of intense sorrow and compassion. All I could think about for a while was how much she must be going through, all the money spent, all the nights spent questioning God for answers that'd never come, all the hopes dashed on the wall. What more could I offer the talebearer than my empathy?

Pain has been a part of my existence, well that's for as long as I could understand what the concept of pain represents. To feel it, to carry it within one's bowels, to build a home for it, to nurse it and watch it grow into sadness and grief. Funny enough, I wouldn't have enjoyed life without the ability to dance with it, to feel its hands caress you to unholy satisfaction, and you're left with pieces of you: fractured, fragmented, a piece of fine art.

To feel and know pain is one side of the coin. To feel the pain of others is another side often left unexplored in most cases. What makes us human is empathy and compassion.

A conversation with a friend opened me up to the fact that lots of writers are depressed, relapsing, or in between. Or they cherish the idea of being depressed, and so they grab a hold of it and plot out a masterpiece that stuns the world. I've been reading so many of them these periods, maybe like 20 a day. I can safely say that 70% of all I've read is filled with tales of a life that stands parallel to what they would have desired.

They try to bring their readers into their pain. If you read it slowly and patiently, at their pace, the way they intend for you to read it, you'd shed a tear, or two. Then if you're bold enough to face reality, you'd see that you're a shitty writer who can't bring his writers into his world, to feel his pain as if it were real: to have this empathy and compassion we have been talking about, to have pain synthesesia or as I called it before mirror-touch synthesesia, for a broader sense.

Mirror-Touch Synthesesia (MTS) describes a rare condition in which people mirror the sensations they see and then experience emotional and physical touch. Although it's a rare condition, I still believe everyone has it, in some measure at least. The ability to look at a hurting person, to share in his pain and agony as though it was happening to you, to put yourself in someone else's shoes.

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines empathy as experiencing someone else's feelings, perceptions, and thoughts. Some studies suggest that those with MTS experience enhanced empathy, which can cause them to display unselfish behaviors. Similarly, research in 2018 indicates that individuals with MTS experience increased emotional reactivity and a better ability to recognize a connection between themselves and others.

I've made mistakes this month, costly ones that'd take time to fix. One day I prayed, and Jesus reminded me that he is the "man of sorrows, son of suffering". He tells me he always understood the pain of people: the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, Matthew being rejected by his people for being a tax collector, when Lazarus died, and he wept, feeding the multitudes too, and all of the unending stories captured in his short stay.

If only we would try to be a bit like him. Do we need to wait for some psychological and neurological condition to propel us to show compassion on days when we would rather mind our business? Jesus showed me mercy on my worst days. The least I can do for him is to show mercy to others: to put myself in their shoes. Because most times, the left cheek, the other tunic, the extra mile just lie in making people not feel outlawed for feeling pain. Someday every tear will be wiped away, but until then, drink water, love Jesus, and remember that our pain is too little to care for alone.

"Love your neighbor as yourself" would always remain the royal law.