Let’s embrace candidness. What do you say to someone when their life sucks? What do you give when there aren’t any words? I’ve wondered this for a long time. Even after having gone through “things,” I see people experiencing similar “things” and I still labor over that card. The text message. What on earth do I say to you? How do I begin? 

In the fourth grade, things fell apart. At least it sure looked that way to me. Dad was crawling through chemotherapy. Every few days he’d go to an infusion center and come back home having the last droplet of strength squeegeed out of him. “I look like death sucking on a dill pickle,” he’d say and rub a hand over his bald head.

I caught pneumonia and had to stay home from school until I stopped barking like a walrus. Mom was suffering from intense back pain and was waiting for surgery.

And then my Mom’s mother died. “Maw-Maw,” we called her. There’s not much I remember about that time, but I have a distinct memory of sitting in the hallway of Thomas Hospital, feet curled up under me. Ten-year-old me in uncharted territory, waiting for her to die, sobbing like the sun had set and would never come again. Nurses stepping around me, occasionally looking at me like they wanted to cry, too. 

The worst time to have a funeral is right after the person dies. It’s a haze of shock and adrenaline. Your grief is still afloat among the fruit baskets and lasagnas. It’s when the sympathy cards stop rolling in and all the flowers are dead that you stop and really realize what’s happened. How things have changed in unalterable, previously unfathomable ways.

Maw-Maw’s funeral was on a school night in March. I had a new dress and stood awkwardly while a thousand old people pressed me into their stale-smelling coats for a hug. I had to play a song on the piano, and holy macaroni and cheese, I wanted to wiggle right between the cracks in the keys.

But a friend from school came – Erin Legge. She stood in the back with her mom and held a card. They lived in Pliny, at least an hour drive from the funeral home, and on a school night it was no small sacrifice. That was sixteen years ago, but I’ve never forgotten. Sometimes I still think about that, curious why it’s made such a lasting impression on me. I’m not sure if we even said anything to each other. Maybe a hug, an exchange of the card. But it changed the whole evening for me. Because she was there. There weren’t words to say, but she was there.

Six years later I was at another funeral, this time a teenager in a new dress pressed into a thousand sympathetic sweaters. I had loved Maw-Maw, but nothing could have prepared me for my father. He was my best friend. I couldn’t comprehend how there wouldn’t be another summer spent competing in ping-pong, slurping down watermelon on the back deck, or watching Little House on the Prairie reruns. 

My grief was tangible. It lived in my tears, my sleepless nights, the thud of my heartbeat. There were many friends on hand and with them words of encouragement and love. But the thing I found to be most helpful came from my own sister. She hugged me one evening and sagely said, “This really sucks.” 

Not that it’s bad to say, “He’s in a better place” or “He will always be with you,” but in that moment, what I really needed was for someone to just acknowledge how deeply, darkly, horrendously it hurt. How much it sucked. We can put so much pressure on ourselves to make sense of the situation. To scavenge through our pain like a surgeon digging for a bullet. But sometimes events don’t make sense. Sometimes they simply are, and trying to understand is as futile as digging a well with bare hands.

Now that’s not to say that it isn’t without significance. I believe God is all-powerful and no small thing is without forethought or meaning or purpose. But I also know that suffering is an inescapable fact of living in a broken universe. Your pain or his death or her illness doesn’t need to be mined for its positive qualities. They are products of an upside-down existence where genetics run rampant and tectonic plates shift and brother hates sister. They are products of death. Someday they will be redeemed, someday they will be incorporated – brush strokes in a painting, threads in a quilt – but today they just hurt. 

Whether you experience that cold reality sooner or later, one day we will all end up in a place where the platitudes mean nothing. Where “thoughts and prayers” are just a jumble of letters. Where chocolate-covered strawberries cease to dry tears. In those moments, when things fall apart, I just want to know that you’re there. 

I’ve been blessed to have had several Erin and Anne Legges in my life. There has been Meghan’s soup. Erin’s texts. Bekah’s tea kettle. Hannah’s homemade cookies. Rachel’s silent hug. Small things but extraordinary things, too. Because they make all the difference. 

It doesn’t change the fact that my sympathy card might still be awkward. That even after having been shaped by grief, I still don’t know all of its names. But I want you to know that I’m here. That I care. 

So when your friend is hit with a pregnancy loss or a sick parent or an addicted sibling – you can start by just being there. Present. Willing. You can drive an hour for the funeral. Pay an outrageous $10 just to mail a bag of cookies. Simmer a pot of soup. You may never know how much that simple gesture means, but they’ll know. Maybe they’ll never forget. 

Miss a previous post and looking to feel better about yourself? You can read about my awkwardness here.

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