Solace

I’ve been standing by, watching as the sobs wracked her frame and she caved in on herself as if attempting to disappear into her own lap, to comfort herself within the confines of her own being. I’ve been holding her in my arms and telling her, “I know…” and “It will be alright…”, all the while thinking, “What do I know? What do I remember of pain like this, of feeling like I have been shattered into a thousand pieces?”

(Why does the heart hurt the most?)

Of course, I’ve been there. But those memories have been tempered by time and words, space and hindsight. What solace can there be in my company right now? How can I help assuage such a profound grief if I can’t remember what I needed, when?

“I love you, and you deserve the best,” I encouraged, my hand laid gently on her leg, my thumb a steady metronome of comfort. “You must know that you do deserve to have it.”

Everything, I wanted to say. You deserve everything you could ever dream of or desire. Everything you will ever give, you deserve to have returned to you and then some. You are worth what you crave, exactly what you fear you are not worth having because you have yet to truly experience receiving it.

(You deserved better.)

You don’t understand how this happened. You don’t know how to put yourself back together, how to get through a day without feeling like you’ve lost all of your air… You forget what it feels like not to be sad, to feel guilty, to want to scream out in anger. You solve it all by collapsing into your bed, by burying your face into the neck of a furry friend, by holding on to someone you love until you remember how to breathe.

(I remember this pain.)

I love you! My heart remembers and swells in empathy, and as I hold you I encourage it to beat strongly, to pulse true. I will it to set a cadence loud enough for your heart to hear — a steady reminder of breath, of life, of love.

“I know…” I whisper into your hair. “It will be alright…”