You don't need the right words. You need something that might be easier.

Here is a picture of honesty

I have a greeting card that I like so much, I bought two of them and I hope I never need either.

It says:  I'm really sorry I haven't been in touch. I didn't know what to say. 

Whether you would send that card or not, the person who does is conveying that their sympathy is real, and probably larger than their ability to express it with the "right words." 

I like that. 

It wasn't until my brother died that I learned - from the receiving end - how much less really is more when people are feeling that absent the "right words," they have failed to comfort you. 

I remember being incredibly moved when someone looked in my eyes and said, simply, "You are going to miss him so much."

Because that was true, and the person who said it understood my feelings, more than he wrestled with making me understand his. 

Here are some thoughts about that.

When someone has suffered loss

...or has been hurt

...or is afraid

...or isolated

...or is alone

Don't worry about what to say.

Be able to say nothing.

No one is waiting for you to come up with something. 

No one is going to be disappointed.

No one is going to doubt your depth of feeling.

Don't worry about how well you can describe your sadness.

Be willing to imagine theirs. 

Keep your heart wide open.

Don't worry about the right words.

If you're present and listening and feeling

that's better than many things you could say.

Don't worry about the right actions.

If you can hold someones eyes, someone's hand

that's as right as actions get.

Don't worry about where to stand or sit.

If you are standing with a person in their place of pain

and you can give up the duty of right words

you are where you should be.

Far easier than finding the right words 

is looking into the eyes of a lost person

and saying with the part of your heart that knows: 

"You are hurting so much right now and I am here with you." 

They will hear you.

First love

When I was a young child I lived near an open field where sometimes, under the black night sky, I would stretch out to study the expanse of sparkly stars and wonder, what's beyond you? What comes after you? It was  incomprehensible to imagine anything bigger.

"Heaven," I decided. "That's where Heaven is."  Lacking any better description of Heaven, it made sense to me.

A week ago, sad over new and  lingering memories of my brother as a younger and younger person, happy and healthy, I looked to the sky again.

"Bill?"

Nothing.

"A little help here, please."

Nothing.

"Fine. Tell God I need him then."

Heaven is a busy place during the holidays, apparently, because God was tied up as well. I put those memories of retro-Bill away, reasoning that this stage of the goodbye process, was probably the last.

"Gone, then," I decided.

More than thirty-five years ago, when he was in high school, my brother fell in love with Robin, a girl nobody ever forgot - especially my brother.  She was small and lively,  with a laugh in her voice and joyful eyes that  made people feel lucky to know her - particularly my brother. It changed his life to find her, and they were inseparable. They shared interests, had the same friends, lived big, lived in full, like there was no tomorrow, also known as, today.

Eventually, life happened, distance happened, time passed. They went their separate ways, took different paths. Nobody saw or heard from her again - including my brother. For as long as I knew him, until he met his son years later, no other relationship lit him up like that.

He never did show up for our meeting last week, and for the first time since we lost him, I could not sense his presence. Gone, then.

The next day, Robin found me on Facebook.

She'd learned of his death in a high school newsletter and she was crushed. Not because she'd harbored hopes of reuniting - she hadn't. And not because she isn't happy in her life now - she is. But, was she the love of his life, as he was hers? Yes, I told her. Nothing else came close.   

Because, however great are the loves that follow, however lasting, or fateful  or tried and true - none will do to our lives and hearts what the first one does.

It comes with a life span, first love does; a beginning and an end. Its memory is perfect and intact, it occupies a special place  in our histories forever,  a bright, high sun over everything that follows. It is the end of a diving board, when taking a little risk to go further is first required and then becomes involuntary.

First love is proof that at least once, you possessed the capacity to connect without a thought for the why, how long, and "if" of it.  There is longing without reservation, adventure without caution and communication that is pure and not parsed.  There is knowing you may reach the end of the ride someday without believing it for a second.

First love is the cleanest thing in the world.

I don't believe anyone forgets, or doesn't love, their first love, a little bit, for the lifelong memory it creates of who we were and of what we can mean to someone else.   

For anyone who laments that it came, and then went without the right send off, take heart. If you were ever lucky enough to experience this starter-love, and wise enough to let it go while it still had the power to shape your future, you did it right.   

If you haven't fallen in love yet, take heart.  It can't be rushed, there's no deadline, and you can't ask for it. No serious love - whether it's the first or the last - responds to invitations.  

And then, one night, one day, one afternoon, you will suddenly realize that without  meaning to, trying to, or even wanting to, you've already opened your heart to someone who wants to be nowhere else.

There is only one  thing that will come of this company which is to answer  all your questions about everything in the world that matters.

If you've already experienced this, you're better for it.

If you haven't,  lucky you, it waits.

Thank you Bill, and Robin, for showing up.

Over-over

Foreword:  This post will be about coping with the  loss of  my brother Bill and it's going to be sad. You may wish to leave  and come back next week when I'll post about trolls.  If that's the case,  I will understand. On the other hand, I recently posted "Now to Then and Back Again" about the shock of grief,  and was contacted by readers who found comfort in those words. If life isn't  always happy and funny, at least the way to deal with sad and serious can be shared.

Remember. Next week, trolls.

The basic process

Over-over

It stops. 

The struggle stops. The suffering ends.    

And then he's gone.

The place in your mind where you did your circular thinking  - I need him in my life, but his suffering needs to end, but I need him in my life, but his suffering needs to end - is an empty room, clear of debris.

It's over. 

It's not over-over.

Beyond the death, the reaction, the announcing of it, the work to cobble together a service which will both offer comfort and tell of an entire life, is where over-over begins. It starts the first night you don't have to think about saying goodbye in public, when you take your grief off display.

Over is what was. 

Over-over is what won't be.

Over-over happens when you drive behind a truck that looks too big for its driver like his seemed. As you watch, the driver doesn't just reach for something on the passenger seat, but disappears from view altogether to fetch something from the glove compartment or floor, the way he would have.

You will not see that truck parked at  gatherings anymore, or know that inside  he'll be waiting for you - hand raised high so that you are sure to see him in the crowd.

Over-over happens when you're in line at the supermarket and you see a short, wiry guy in a baseball cap standing a register away, who looks like he should sleep more, party less, and probably shave. He holds a six pack and a package of hotdogs, and stares at the woman in front of him who is demanding to know why they stopped selling the generic brand of tile cleaner that she likes.

You will not hear about the kinds of people who really piss him off anymore.

Over-over happens when you're in your work out, or folding laundry and realize it's Tuesday - the night you had dinner together each week. You crumple a little as though the wind has been knocked out of you. It's less startling than the last time . You know now that  there will be more moments like this bad one and  that it's easiest to stop and wait it out.

Over-over happens when you roam through a day without a plan, without doing anything especially meaningful other than to let your mind travel where it wants to go. You realize you're wading into sadness that is beyond the help of those who would do anything to make you feel better and it scares you.

In the days that follow, you cry less often and less easily. But you always  cry to remember his face when he told you, "This scares the shit out of me" or, his eyes when he said, "I dream about being healthy." Or, the way you helped him reconstruct a memory of his youth the way you would help someone remember lyrics to a song.

Over-over happens when you sit alone with your too-heavy thoughts and consider how grief has already changed you. You don't know when, or even if you'll feel better, and it's occurring to you that this is what has replaced him.

You look to the night sky and say to him, "I don't think this is going to get better."

You wait.  You want a response.

You don't get it.

He  doesn't appear like a deer at the edge of the forest, as you hoped he would.

And yet, later, something lifts. You don't know what to call it, but you feel like you do after a good night's sleep.  

Later still, you're loading the dishwasher and you think of something funny he did once. You smile. You hear yourself laugh.

In the days that follow, it happens more often, and more easily.

You know you'll have trouble when you see that supermarket guy again.

But you know there will be more moments like the dishwasher ones.

You know they will come, as over-over begins.