Perspective

It's all in how you look at it...
A few months after Anna died we were in a grief group and the leader asked us to write down things that our loved one had given us.  I liked this assignment because it made me think about Anna's gifts to me.  She  left me with pain, grief, and suffering--but that's not all she gave me.  Because of her I have deep friendships,  trust in God, a range of emotions I didn't know existed--highs and lows that I never felt when life was "normal",  a focus on the unseen eternal, greater wisdom, a desire for Heaven, perseverance, and a new hope.
My situation is not unique.  If you are suffering, there is something there besides the pain.  You just have to have the right perspective.

"Let us not forget what the sorrow has done for us while it lasted, and what the night has been, though dark and sad.  It has been a night of grief, yet a night of blessing; a night in which there may have been many things which we could wish forgotten, yet many more which we should wish to be remembered forever... It was then that the Lord drew near, and the world was displaced, and self was smitten, and our will conquered, and faith grew, and hope became brighter, and the things that are unseen were felt to be the real and true:  (Heaven) above was seen by us as our proper home."  (Horatius Bonar)

Someone  who is maintaining the right perspective in the face of death...
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/erikludwinski