Ah friends.

Thank you for taking care of people who need care. For whatever reason, you are alongside what most everyone would call tragedies. A teenager left brain-dead through no fault of their own. A teenager left fatherless through no fault of their own. A teenager whose cancer did not stop.

This isn’t the algorithm feeding tragic stories. This is you and you and you in real life.

It’s really hard to be the ones who are alongside. Especially when you have your own grief. But I’m grateful for the sake of them and their families that you are present. Because we’ve talked enough that I know you understand grief from the inside and the out.

You are committed to taking time to listen. You are committed to not having flippant answers, to not trying to help them get over anything. You will slow down enough to match their steps and stumbles, to catch and not control, to be around for a long time. You will help coordinate care for every part of their pain for as long as you can.

And you will remember the pain as it crashes into Thanksgiving, leaving them space and permission.

The writer of psalms says that the Lord is close the broken-hearted. What I know that feels like, sometimes, is you.

Thank you.

Jon