Grieving people would much rather have you stumble through your acts of bearing witness than have you confidently assert that things are not as bad as they seem. You can’t always change pain, but you can change how you hear pain, how you respond to pain. When pain exists, let it exist. Bear witness. Make it safe for the other to say “This hurts,” without rushing in to clean it up. Make space for each other. As a support person, companionship inside what hurts is what is asked of you. By not offering solutions for what cannot be fixed, you can make things better, even when you can’t make them
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