Showing Up

The other day it took my new friend Cem about a week to reply to my message. «So I wanted to reply right away after your message but I realized I did not know the answer to the question how I am doing», he told me once he got back to me. The simplest questions are often the deepest. 

How are you?

A question we are used to ask and being asked a tousend times per year, often not even taking more than a split second to think about our reply. It’s only when we know the other person is in deep pain that we suddenly hesitate to even ask. When they just lost their job, their partner or even their child it suddenly feels uncomfortable, shallow or weird because we have a hard time dealing with their potential answer.

The last couple of months I had to witness my dear friends spend the last bitter-sweet months with their terminally ill daughter who is Maya’s age. For months, I have been trying to make sense of the unbearable mixture of endless love and excrutiating pain, trying to understand how the most precious things are so fragile and how death makes us so much more present. I am trying, but I can’t. There are no words to express what they have been through and what they still are experiencing now that their little girl closed her eyes forever on Monday. 

I really wanted to be there for them in any way I could – and I was lacking the right words all the time. It felt stupid and out of place to ask how they were doing every couple of weeks. I did it anyway. 

It feels like we have unlearned how to deal with pain publicly (if we ever knew…). We have a tendency to hide our own struggles and to only show them once we managed to overcome them. To call our kids only after we got the results of a check-up we were worried about. To get up on stage in order to admit our start-up failed only after we managed to successfully sell the next one. To not join our friends› baby showers until we got pregnant because it is so damn to show up when you’re suffering. 

It looks like we have to re-learn how to hold the space for someone in pain without trying to fix it, deeply listening or just holding their hand. Opening up a space where it is ok to not be ok without being worried about making the other person uncomfortable. Where it is ok to not hide from the world until we’re feeling better, but to continue showing up while feeling all of the emotions which – surprise! – are not mutually exclusive. 

So the next time you ask someone «how are you?» – really mean it. 
The next time someone asks you «how are you?» – really think about it. 
The next time you haven’t heard from someone in a while – ask: «how are you, really?»

Let’s not back down when there is sorrow. It is trying to teach us a universal truth. Let’s walk right through the pain, let’s keep showing up for each other and ourselves. And let’s love the hell out of this one life we got.

Tanja

PS: If anyone has experienced a tragic loss or supported someone in times of grief, I’d love to learn from you if you feel comfortable sharing your journey with me.