Live long enough and at some point all of us will find ourselves close to someone in profound pain. We’re not talking garden-variety suffering here. We’re talking about serious addiction, self-mutilation, suicidal despondency. Almost always we are talking about the end-point culmination of years of accumulated pain. There are no more tomorrows, the body is shutting down, hope is nowhere to be found. We speak often of our own suffering, but that of another can seem worse, can’t it? At…