The Kindness of Others
“One good turn deserves another”. So I share a story of kindness. Last night, after being steeped in a painful situation for many months now, I reached out to a past lover and current friend. We call those people “friends” who can meet us halfway through the gaping chasm that often separates us all from one another no matter how close we stand or how much of each other’s exhaled breath we breathe. It is the friend who can stand on the other side of the earth and make us feel that we are touching one another through a secret portal in the time-space continuum.
Tonight, R did that for me. He reached across many miles, across digital wires, and held me, held my hand while I released the buildup of pain and anger I had been feeling. Right or wrong, I was feeling it. Everything I said, it was familiar to him. He could’ve written the script having had someone in his life so similar. “Don’t believe this”, he said, and while my head had been screaming it all along, my heart had become enmeshed so tightly in a web of confusion that I couldn’t sync the two.
“You’re a good woman”, he said, and I thought that thing in my chest had retreated too far to burst open and start beating again. I heard it in my ears, my own heart beating, my own mind returning to me, my sanity advancing and filling up the corners of my skull.
To be heard. To be nurtured, and held in someone’s care as I was hurting. It was a long cool drink of water after being in the desert. It was having someone put a soothing cream on a wound, touching me gently and murmuring soothingly until the tremors subsided. The relief, the sense of safety was profound. With each shared word, I felt my limbs return to life, I felt the blood coursing through veins along my bones, underneath my skin.
Sometimes you forget how much you’ve allowed deprivation to be the default. You definitely forget what sanity feels like. When so steeped in pain you don’t know which way is “up for air”, to have someone reach a hand out to you and gently say, “this way back to yourself” has to be the gentlest, kindest gesture from one human to another.
Thank you R for being that gentle hand. I owe you one.
As for me, it’s moving on. Wise words spoken from the heart should never be ignored
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I could have told you you’re a good woman. I have seen several of your ‘facets’ and I have admired every one of them. I’m glad you found a gentle hand to hold when you needed it, but know this - you don’t have to wait for the fortuitous call from an old friend to heal you. You have at least one new friend who is available EVERY DAY - who thinks you are a fabulous woman - and is willing to say that on a regular basis.
Thanks Lceel. It’s hard to say that you “know” me, but I guess you know my writing. Still, thanks.
It’s true, I didn’t need to wait for my friend to tell me how to heal, but it was a beautiful display of nurturing and I am grateful to him for it.