Jason Greene finds that simply being there may be the best consolation
This past week, I wrapped my arms around my mom in hopes that I could ease her grief. We stood in the kitchen crying together because of my step-father’s quickly declining health. As he rested in another room with cancer eating away at his body, my mother’s head rested on my shoulder. I so badly wanted to say a magic word that would take her out of the situation, but I had none.
So I stood there as she vented about her world crashing to an end. Her sadness didn’t revolve around what her life may soon become – possibly losing her house and not having a job of her own to support her wasn’t on her mind. Her mind was fully focused on the man she loved. The man who was suffering in the other room. The man she isn’t sure she can live without.
As my arms held my mother close, shallow things popped into my head to say – the things many of us say when confronted by an incredibly sad person – but I hid those words away. What she really needed was for me to return the love that she had given me freely for so many years. To let her know that there is someone that understands and wants so badly for everything to be alright, even if it won’t be.
Someday, I’ll find myself in a sad and depressing situation – death is the end for all of us, after all. Hopefully, the love and understanding I have shown my own children along their life journeys will be returned to me with open arms and a shoulder to cry on.
—photo by flequi/Flickr