“Sometimes you don’t need to walk in another person’s shoes to know how they feel. Sometimes the best thing you could do is sit beside them.”
After I lost my grandmother and went back to “real life”, I had a friend who would just sit next down next to me. He would talk about his favorite fruits, ranked in order of preference, of course. Or he would sit there in silence.
But I can only think of one time when he asked me if I was okay. At no point did he ever mention the story behind his dad’s death or try to relate it to mine. He just existed with me.
Many times after you lose someone, explaining anything is the last thing you want to do. You don’t want to explain how the person died, when the person died, what the person dying means to you. And explaining how you feel or what you need? You don’t even know how to put it into words for yourself, so how could you possibly figure out a way to explain it to someone else?!
This is why I connected so deeply with Red Band Society’s quote from last night.
My experience with loss and my friend’s experience with his loss are two completely different paths. He never tried to step on mine. He literally just sat beside me while I took my first steps, alone.
It was the best thing he could do.
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