08/12/2024
I spend all day, mostly every day, talking about death, grief, love, and loss. This is my chosen territory.
I keep track of important dates, especially for those I love. My calendar is full of notes like, "R's father's death date," and "M's baby's birth/death day."
Grief is my home turf. I'm comfortable here. Which makes it all the more stunning that I feel helpless sometimes. When a dear friend marked her father's death date, I knew she was in pain, and I wanted to make it better. I wanted to say something more than just acknowledge the date.
I found those useless platitudes leaping to my throat. I caught myself tempted to comfort by telling her this day would pass.
With everything I know, with everything I tell all of you at every turn, even knowing that pain cannot be made better - I still have that impulse: I want to make this better.
Witnessing pain in those we love is difficult.
Fortunately, this time, I caught myself before I let those "make this better" thoughts fly. And I told myself what I tell friends & family all the time: my job is not to make this better.
My job is to tolerate my own helplessness in the face of her pain, without trying to relieve that helplessness by offering platitudes or false comfort.
My job is to know that showing up, being present, acknowledging the truth that this hurts, this hurts, this hurts, is the best way I can love my friend.
And this is what we most want, isn't it? That our friends and family, the people who most want to love and support us - we want them to be willing to feel their own helplessness. To learn to tolerate it.
We want them to stand beside us, not trying to fix what cannot be fixed, not trying to rush us out of our grief. We want them to stand there, without flinching, and acknowledge what is true: This hurts. I'm here.
It's a work in progress, for everyone - including me.
How does the impulse to make things better show up for you? Even knowing what you know, do you ever find yourself tempted to offer platitudes to those in pain? What do you do with your own helplessness?
