Power of Presence

In the past week, three very sad things have happened to people I know. And while hearing about trials is not at all the same as living through them, those of us bystanders feel their ache and are left wondering what to do, how to reach out, and when to simply let things breathe.

In thinking about this the last few days, my mind keeps recycling back to an essay I read from "This I Believe," a collection of personal papers gathered by NPR in the 1960s and 2000s. In one essay titled "The Power of Presence," a woman wrote about hearing that her good friend's mother had died and her conflict in not wanting to intrude on her friend's grief while also not wanting to leaving her alone with it. Someone finally told the woman to go to the hospital, to just be there with her friend. Since that moment, the woman wrote, "I have not hesitated to be in the presence of others for whom I could 'do' nothing. 'Being with' another person carries with it a silent power. [I am] repeatedly struck by the healing power of connection created by being fully there in the quiet understanding of another. In it, none of us are truly alone."

However much we'd like, sometimes there is nothing we can do for someone who is hurting; we can only be. We cannot remove their deep ache or real fears; we can only bear those feelings alongside them, as a silent but fully present companion.

So here is to our efforts to help those we love—not by removing what they feel, but by standing by them while they feel it.