I found out about it through Facebook, the source of most of my news these days. A friend’s brother had passed away in a particularly tragic way, and I struggled to find the “right” words. As if there are any. So I wrote about how this would be turned to good, and how that would be such a powerful component of his ministry one day.

He wrote back and thanked me for my thoughts. Then he said, kindly, that though he knew the “turned to good” stuff was true, he was not ready to go there. When I read the response now, I am struck by his graciousness in the midst of grief. But I remember being, at the time, stung–that my words were “wrong.” I needed to be stung, though, exactly in the spot where I was, in the place that values correctness over empathy, being appropriate over sharing grief. I didn’t need to be right. I just needed to be there.

Last week, one of my dearest wrote to me about the miscarriage. She said that she had been trying to think of something to do to make it better–that she wished she could fix it. And I totally understood. Just her telling me that helped, I said, because I knew how sincere she was. It was like when I texted SS the news and the phone immediately rang, all “Oh hell no, we are NOT doing this via text.” And though the conversation was tears and “I’m so sorry”s and not one thing happened to reverse the events, the call was a healing balm because of what it meant: one person coming alongside another and staying.

Personally, I am a recovering “I don’t know what to say so maybe I’ll say nothing and no one will notice”-er, a “when will this awkwardness pass so we can tell jokes again”-er. So I understand when there is a lack of response, or the casually tossed “Praying for you!” As if informing someone that we are in talks with God about their painful situation is all he meant when he said to share each other’s burdens. What does it mean to take care of each other? I think it means more than “I’m praying for you” and a bundt cake. I think it means taking on their grief as your own, and that looks like different things to different people but I know this: other people’s pain doesn’t stop me in my tracks nearly as often as it should.

All losses hit closer to home the bigger our hearts are made by grace.

This particular event in my life is not going to just fade away–I know that. I’ll carry it around, like the scar from the time The Sis accidentally threw a stainless steel dog bowl at my head. Or the story my arm tells about when she turned a key into a shiv and the pool of the Perdido Key Beach Club into a prison yard. (I may need to discuss anti-violent conflict resolution with The Sis.) I’m learning from this season how circular a thing healing is, how we revisit the grief from time to time, with warning and without, how the throat tightens and the tears show up uninvited but wet and present nonetheless. I’m learning about how to treat people who are hurting, both from the way I’ve been treated and the way I’ve treated others. I’m thankful that while karma operates in lessons, grace operates in love, and this is a walk full of both recovery and redemption.

And when the tears pass, and I open the bathroom door and walk back into my life, I feel the glorious weight of grace’s best agents. There is The Kid, who nightly now climbs the stairs with The Husband behind him as I cheer wildly from the landing. He turns to look behind him, and if it were fear doing that he would just stop climbing–but he turns back to me and smiles, as if he knows how far he’s come and just wanted to be reminded. We put him to bed, and I walk into our room and see the ridiculously overpriced custom-framing of our medals from the half-marathon, the training and running we did together. Because even though he’s a dude and he has a half-foot of height on me, he stayed beside me the whole time. Every run, right to the finish line. And I know that while the old Footprints story tells me that the single set of them is from when He carried me, I know that there’s always more than one set. Because that is how he carries me.