Photo by {meagen}
This week was a tough one for two important women in my life: my dear friend lost her unborn baby, and my mother-in-law lay sick in bed after her first round of chemotherapy treatments to fight breast cancer. It’s times like these when I’m tongue-tied, lost for words. It’s hard to know what to do or how to support someone through a difficult time. I don’t like to make assumptions about what I think someone needs or wants. Everyone handles darkness differently. So, I often end up ruminating: Do I pick up the phone? Do I make a meal? Do I let her sleep? Do I send flowers? Do I just show up?
A little over two years ago, when the tables were turned (during the first trimester of my pregnancy), I had a friend who did all the right things. Somehow she knew that there was nothing she could say or do to make my suffering disappear. She never once said I understand or I know what you’re going through. She didn’t know, nor did she pretend to. She never made my symptoms seem small or insignificant, nor did she try to play doctor or psychologist and fix my problems (and there were many). Instead, she sat with me.
A long-time family friend and Hospice pioneer, who has since passed away, Fr. Charlie Hudson, once read a poem about friendship that I will never forget:
We had a jar with a butterfly.
We opened the lid and it flew to the sky.
And there are things inside my head
waiting to be thought or said:
Dreams and jokes and wonderings are locked inside
like the butterfly in the jar.
But then when you are here with me,
I can open the lid and set them free.
I love those last lines: “But then when you are here with me, I can open the lid and set them free.” Notice how it doesn’t say, “but then when you make it better, cook me dinner, bring me a gift, do this, do that.” No. Here, the focus is on our presence, our very being, which may seem not seem like enough (if we judge it). Naturally, when someone I love is hurting, I want to set him/her free. So I struggle, because I know the truth: I can’t make it go away. It is what it is- painful, life-sucking, and really hard.
For me, this poem is right on. When I’m at my worst, weak and fragile, I tend to push people away and isolate myself. In essence, I lock myself inside the jar with my fears, justifying my actions with the erroneous belief that nobody wants to see me like this. But I’ve learned that when someone sits with us, weeps with us, stretches out a hand, and listens, we turn that lid just a little to the left. Even in our darkest hour, we do not have to crawl down the road alone.
Megan at Simple Kids says:
Oh, this is so powerful and moving. I know that feeling – of just not knowing what to do, how to help. thank you for the reminder that our presence is sometimes exactly the help that is needed.
Megan at Simple Kids´s last blog ..Finger Food: 11 Ideas for Breakfast and Snacks
August 24, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Faith says:
Your blog really hit home for me. When I was hurt a year and a half ago it wasn’t the gifts that people sent me, or the “everything will be ok’s”, it was the days when I just wanted to cry and you, Miriam, and Mom told me that it was ok to want to just cry, and so I did. I let it all out and just to have you all by my side was eough….
August 24, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Stacie @ newmommyhelp.net says:
I have felt that helpless feeling on both ends too. When I had a miscarriage, I didn’t want to pick up the phone most days, but even the message was comforting. I knew I was not alone and that people cared about me. It’s enough and it’s okay to not have the right answers. I really love that last line MJ: “Even in our darkest hour, we do not have to crawl down the road alone.”
Stacie @ newmommyhelp.net´s last blog ..Feel Like A Failure? Encourage Another Mommy
August 24, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Erin says:
such a beautiful post. I also had a MC just about 9 months ago. As I approach what would have been my due date I feel myself pulling back from life a little…but I am fortunate to have a sister and best friend who know, while they cant take away my pain, they can just be there and I am forever grateful.
August 24, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Judi Evans says:
Such an beautiful
assesment of how we all feel when someone we know is hurting…to call or not to call..to go or not to go. We make it such a struggle when it would be so simple to merely show up and LOVE.
Thank you for reminding us that the first duty of love is always to listen and to just “be”.
August 25, 2009 at 8:37 am
Allison @ Slice of Heaven says:
Thanks so much for this post! I needed to hear that. The last few days have been a rollercoaster. At some moments I am laughing with the kids and so thankful that I have them and others I get the constant visual reminders like my burgeoning belly and a frame that I found that I had bought for the baby’s sonogram and I just burst into sobs. However, each day, it is getting better. I am just taking it one day at a time. As I said in my blog…God has a plan, and we trust in His plan! Love ya!
Allison @ Slice of Heaven´s last blog ..In Memory
August 25, 2009 at 9:29 am
Sarah Morris says:
a friend of mine sent me the following poem after my mother died- for me, it helped. It’s certainly a jumble of emotions, but during that dark time, I felt jumbled…I still feel jumbled.
An odd byproduct of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ’say something about it’ or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t.
- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
August 25, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Laurie says:
That was truly inspiring. So sorry to hear about Tim’s mom… Please know I am thinking of both of you!
August 26, 2009 at 9:35 pm
mike says:
Thanks M J –the butterflies are back flying around–thanks for being there when I couldn’t open the lid Love you, “Mike”
August 29, 2009 at 10:11 am