Dr. Scott Peck writes in his book, The Road Less Traveled: “Life can be difficult. Scratch that. Life is difficult.”

It is not a matter of if challenging times or events will happen, it is a matter of when. I have not been immune to challenges or difficulties in my life. I wish I could say I have never had challenges times but there have been many.

Fifteen years ago, I experienced a flood of challenging events and one of them was literally a flood. The loss of a close family member, a cancer diagnosis of another family member, and my spouse having major surgery all happened in the same week. Months later, we lost one of our children. All of this was followed by a flood that took away almost everything we owned.

Life is difficult.

The past few years have been difficult for many for a multitude of reasons. It has been painful time with variables beyond our control, leaving us craving for respite that always seems to be somewhere beyond the horizon.

What can we do for those around us when life is difficult? For me, this is what I do every day in my work with patients, their families, and colleagues. I often wish I had a magic wand or some magic dust that would make everything better and make the bad stuff go away. Instead, I must journey into another’s experience without a new vaccine, experimental treatment, or other new medical tools or technologies. I must show up with the version of myself that often feels woefully inadequate to wade into the pain that is part of the human experience. To sit, however, in the midst of brokenness, anger, confusion, or exhaustion is a heavy and sacred privilege. I wished I had a crystal ball to tell the future and how everything would turn out, but mine broke. What I do know is there is wonderfully caring human beings like all of you who deeply care and advocate for those they know and those they don’t know.

I’m going to let you in on a secret from someone whose job it is to support others often on the worst day of their lives: There are no special words to make the pain go away. I instead make space for the pain of life, bear witness to it, and provide grace and love.

Don Miller in his book “Blue Like Jazz” writes, “I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve.” Life can be like jazz music. Sometimes what people need most is for another to listen in a time of desperation because there is no resolve. There is power in bearing witness to another’s suffering that says, “I see you, I hear you, I care about you, and in this moment, you are not alone.”

When I have experienced challenging times, the most powerful support provided for me was someone seeing me, hearing me, caring, and letting me know I was not alone. It did not make the situation go away, but it gave me what I needed to take the next step, to survive until the next moment, and to continue to breathe. Being recognized, having feelings validated, and having the presence of another caring human even for a moment is transformative. It helped me survive what seemed insurmountable.

What would the world look like if we each took a moment each day to be that person for someone else, in words or actions conveying: I see you. I hear you. I care and, in this moment, you are not alone. 

Be that person.

Photo by Ihor Malytskyi on Unsplash