The text came as I was leaving a meeting today. It was from a friend, telling our group that she and her husband had suffered a tragic loss… again. My heart broke into a thousand pieces for her, for her husband.
I texted her that I didn’t yet have words to express my grief. I told her that I hurt with her. I said… ” We are inextricably intertwined when we love others.”
She responded that she needed to google what inextricably means. 🙂
I said it meant that this was total horse&*$% and I hated it for her but is technically defined as “in a way that is impossible to disentangle or separate.”
A group of us put our evening plans aside and headed over to her house, some bringing wine, others pizza.
We listened. We questioned. We tried to answer.
We talked. We laughed. We cried.
It was beautiful, messy and hard.
We are tied to the people we surround ourselves with. This is true at work, at home, and in our social lives.
Your people need you. More than you think and more than often they’ll say.
Be there for them.
When they say, they need you and more importantly when they say don’t.
Tell them the things that come easy to say, and then tell them the stuff that doesn’t.
Sit with them in silence, cry when they cry and laugh when they laugh.
Be the friend you know you’ll want when your time comes to lean on someone else.
We are inextricably tied.
We aren’t meant to do life alone.
*Photo credit goes to my good friend Lou Gerig