Dear Friend,
“Divorce is a bitch,” he said.
I looked at him with kind eyes and nodded. This is not what I expected.
Tears fell down his cheeks. Not the sort of gradual windup you sometimes see in a child’s face before they cry. His own words pierced him like a tap set just right into the bark of a maple tree. The sap began to flow without hesitation.
“I’ve been drinking too much,” he confessed.
He wiped his tears with his fingers, which could not keep up with the flow. He looked up at me, and another wave hit him.
For five minutes, I sat there with him as he cried. I felt an impulse to say something, offer words of comfort, tell him he’ll be alright. But I said nothing. I just looked at him and in some way said, go ahead, I’ll sit with you as you sit in your sorrow.
He was a stranger to me. I, a stranger to him.
Moments earlier, he had asked to sit in the empty seat across from me. I was on a date with myself, enjoying lunch outside at a tiny cafe table on a busy sidewalk. It was my vacation. I’d just finished my meal and was waiting for the check.
“Hey man,” he said, trying to get my attention.
I could feel his presence behind my right shoulder. I pretended I didn’t hear, like we do when we don’t want to be bothered by strangers who we fear might take away our peace.
“Hey man,” he tried again. “Hey man, can I sit with you?”
By this time, I had turned to acknowledge him.
“You need a seat?” I asked, confirming what I thought was an odd request. “I’m about to get up,” I said, “waiting for my check, but sure, you can sit down.” I wanted to ensure I had an exit plan.
It’s not always easy to read a stranger. Is the motive innocent? Am I going to get wrapped up in something I didn’t ask for? Is he going to cause a scene?
I don’t want to live with tall walls, closed off to the needs of the people I encounter, but I want to feel safe. We all do.
He dropped his camouflage backpack, the size you’d take on a backcountry adventure, and took a seat. He was muscular, with short shaved hair, wearing a blue Bass Pro Shop ball cap, knee pads, and dusty hiking boots.
I took a breath.
“You doing okay?” I asked, my voice a bit shaky. I slid my water cup across the table. “Want some water?”
His hands were unsteady, but he grasped the nearly full cup with certainty and drank it easily.
He burped.
He sighed.
And that’s when he told me about his divorce. And confessed his drinking. And began to cry.
After we sat together for those five minutes and his tears had dried, he said, “Thank you. This helps, this really helps.”
I smiled and nodded. What had I done but stay put while he cried?
“Thank you for sitting with me,” he reiterated.
That’s when I realized what this was all about, what was really going on here.
Drunk man stumbles upon stranger with an empty seat. “Hey man, can I sit with you?” was really, “Hey man, will you sit with me as I sit in my sorrow? I can’t bear this alone.”
I could have put my coach hat on and reminded him of his strength. I could have distracted him from his pain by asking where he’s from, whether he likes to fish. But I didn’t want to play coach. I didn’t want to talk fishing. What did I owe him? He had invaded my space, after all.
When we see suffering, our impulse is to fix or flee. We try to fix the problems of the people close to us. Or we flee from the suffering we encounter, for fear of being overwhelmed by it. The middle path is to be present without fixing or fleeing.
By staying put, by making eye contact, by giving a nod or offering a hand, by saying nothing, we can say everything. We say, your feelings are worthy of attention. We say, I see you in your sorrow and I know it in my own way. We say, in your loneliness you are not alone. You are human, and we’ve made it this far because of moments like this.
I didn’t have to become sad to hold his sorrow. I got to be me, at peace on vacation, a person having a good day. Because I was anchored in my experience, I was able to be a witness to his.
When we are afraid of getting swept into another person’s suffering, we aren’t able to be present for it. We lose our sense of self and merge with the other. When we trust in our separateness, we find we can stay put. We find that we can sit in sorrow together, one person feeling it, the other witnessing, and by doing so, we discover we are two people, feeling one thing — the suffering we all share.
I left that cafe table feeling tied to a thread reaching deep into a well of belonging. That man and I shared something universal and humbling. The vulnerability we all carry. The unbearable loneliness we feel when we lose someone we love.
We forget we all wear the same jersey, that perhaps we are passing suffering and beauty around like a baton and there is no finish line. Our job is to help each other carry the baton, let go, and prepare for the next. The game will continue for as long as we live. We just have to show up to practice, again and again.
I want to live in a world where an empty seat can be filled when a stranger needs to sit. A world where we offer our presence generously to the people we encounter.
To gift someone a few moments of your undivided attention is an act of resistance against a world that divides us and distracts us from what really matters — togetherness.
We don’t have to give much to give a lot to another.
Can you soften a little more, to the stranger at your door?
Yours,
Ryan
Beautiful Ryan, thank you x
“We don’t have to give much to give a lot” when we give ourselves. Thanks Ryan!