What Do You Think?
“What do you think?” she asked, taking a drag on the last in yet another pack of cigarettes – a habit I knew she detested and had given up years ago. “About which part?” I replied, hoping my feigned confusion would allow enough time for the tears to stop cascading down the sides of my face, for me to collect my thoughts about all that she’d just shared, and for the oxygen that her words had sucked out of my lungs to return so that I could breathe again.
As my question hung in the air, I remembered our meeting in person for the first time at a conference in Chicago several years earlier after months of online messaging. I remembered being captivated by her irreverence, her sense of humor, her lack of a filter, her fragile, almost childlike spirit, her intellect and playfulness, her courage, and her willingness to stand in and unapologetically speak her truth, a by-product of her having come out on the other side of a lifelong struggle with misplaced feelings of not enough, of unworthiness. I remembered the stirring in my heart at the recognition of a kindred soul and wanting to pour into it. And, I remembered her talking fondly about him, about the guy she met in high school, moved away from, reunited with, eventually married, and later had kids with, the guy whose jacket she insisted I put on all these years later, before we stepped outside onto the unseasonably frigid back patio of a house that, until recently, they called home – a home he would never be coming back to. I remembered thinking “they had it all” - a loving relationship, a beautiful family, jobs that they were passionate about and exceptionally good at, and countless friends and family members with whom to share it. And, I remembered feeling a deep sense of envy for her, for him, for them, and for their kids.
“About all or any of it,” she said with a vacant look in her eyes. And, in an instant, I was thrown back into the moment – a moment that had its seeds in a series of text messages I’d received out of the blue a few weeks earlier, telling me that the picture perfect life I’d imagined them living from a few thousand miles away was splintering, that, after months/years of desperately searching for a way to piece it all back together, they’d decided to separate, that they were on the eve of telling the kids and understandably dreading the prospect of breaking their hearts too, that she “would appreciate” any guidance I might be able to offer to help soften the blow and provide reassurance that mom and dad remained committed to loving them and each other, that they’d already made plans for him to move out, that he’d found a nearby spot, and that, in a matter of days, she would be helping him settle into his new place. My heart hurt, but it all seemed so “agreeable” – until it was anything but, until I got another break-of-dawn text a few weeks later that he was gone, that the unimaginable had happened, that separation had turned to devastation, that the resulting pain was unbearable, and that guilt and grief had replaced what only days/hours earlier had been hope for new beginnings, leaving a cloud of anger, emptiness, and disillusionment that now hung over both our heads.
“What do I think?” I echoed to myself. “I think my heart is breaking. I think the breadth of this is too wide for anyone to wrap their head around. I think the chasm created by all this is too deep to ever be filled in. I think I’m hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with grief like you’re describing. I think there’s no way to understand or apply reason to the impenetrable darkness and depth of the despair he must’ve been experiencing to have felt that this was the only viable option. I think if he’d been allowed a moment of clarity, if his mind had not so grossly obscured/distorted his view of your heart, if he’d heard your bone-chilling, morning-of-discovery screams in his parking lot, if he’d been able to see the debris field his actions were going to leave in their wake, he might’ve made a different choice. I think he loved too much, loved you too much, loved your children too much to be able to visualize life “without” you, with just pieces of you – without all of you. I think that’s not on you, that no part of this is on you, that you loved as long and as hard as you could, sacrificed as much of “you” as anyone could reasonably expect you to in an effort to make it work. It just didn’t. I think all you’ve gone through in Life, all the suffering you’ve endured, all the skills you’ve honed, all the strength and courage you’ve had to find within yourself have prepared you for this moment. I think, knowing what I do now, that you were always going to be the one to shepherd your children to the finish line – and I think you’re uniquely qualified to do it.”
But, before I could speak a word of it, I realized something: It didn’t matter what I thought. What I thought wasn’t going to change a thing. It wasn’t going to take away the pain, quench the anger, dispel the fear, make sense out of irrationality, or answer any of the impossible-to-answer questions that were certain to follow – the “why did or didn’t I’s,” the “why did or didn’t he’s,” the “don’t you think I could’ve or should’ve’s,” “the what am I supposed to do’s,” the “where do I go from here’s.” I realized that what mattered was that I was there, that my friend knew she was not alone. What mattered was my offer of a non-judgmental ear to listen, a hand outstretched, a heart open – a willingness to come alongside her, to help her stay upright so that she could navigate the next right/necessary step on the bumpy road to healing, to recovery. What mattered was that I had traveled several hundred miles just to be with her, to reassure her that I was FOR her and that I wasn’t going anywhere. “What do I think?” I said at last. “I think I want to hold you” – and I did. And, had Life not intervened and demanded that we tend to it, I would have never let go.
