One Grounded Angel

The letters H O P E in outstretched hands

In February I wrote a letter to a Canadian woman I had never met. I had seen an appeal on social media by the woman’s daughter asking people around the world to send letters of hope and well wishes to her mother who was nearing the end of her struggle with pancreatic cancer. Because I do volunteer work at rest homes I have seen how much a simple handwritten letter means to people who are suffering and feeling alone, so I put pen to paper.

Sadly, a fortnight ago I found a message in my ‘other’ inbox on Facebook (which I seldom check) from this lovely woman’s daughter, letting me know her mother had passed away the day before my letter arrived. She attached a photo of a wall (see below) covered with letters from around the world, and said that it had brought her some comfort to know that so many people cared so much.

Once I got over my annoyance that it had taken me three days to post my letter (!) I realised that a beautiful thing had happened in this Ontario town. In a time of immense pain, this lady was able to derive a small measure of peace from small but powerful acts of kindness by complete strangers. It was a heartwarming thing to bear witness to, as well as to have participated in, in a very tiny way. Of course, no wall of letters can protect her from the unrelenting ferocity of grief but perhaps this visible reminder of the power of hope can provide fleeting moments of shelter.

This got me thinking about the ways we can help people as they grieve. I’m not talking about strangers here, I’m talking about the people we care about. It’s heart-wrenching watching someone dear to you in absolute agony over the loss of someone dear to them. What do you say? It’s hard not to fall into well-meaning but ultimately useless clichés: “Let me know if there’s anything I can do”; “Call me if you ever want to talk”; or the woefully inadequate: “time heals all wounds…” It’s so difficult to know what you can do that will actually help.

There are Cheryl Strayed quotes for these situations, as there are for every emotional quandary. A man wrote to Cheryl (aka ‘Dear Sugar’) asking for advice on how to support his partner as she grieved the death of her mother. Nothing he did seemed to help, he wrote, and it was tearing him to pieces seeing her in so much pain. Cheryl’s response explained that we have a tendency to want to rush in and offer advice or practical solutions when someone we care about is suffering. But what counts, she says, is not *how* we show up for that person, it’s simply that we *do* show up for them, again and again and again. We keep in contact. We let them cry. We listen. What comes from our heart is more important than what comes from our mouth. Anyway, that’s what I took from Cheryl’s response. Here’s what she actually wrote: “It feels lame because we like to think we can solve things. It feels insufficient because there is nothing we can actually do to change what’s horribly true. But compassion isn’t about solutions. It’s about giving all the love that you’ve got.”

Yes, it is. Thanks, Cheryl.