Curing vs. caring

"O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow..." -- Lamentations 1:12a (Douay-Rheims)

This morning after Mass I found myself holding and praying with a fellow parishioner whose 17-year-old godson unexpectedly committed suicide yesterday. There was nothing to say or do for a time but be there with her in her grief.

When I was younger--and even still now, to a certain extent--my instinct would have been to try to "fix" it: to say the right thing or do something to make the hurt go away. But many years ago at a retreat house I came across a small book by Fr. Henri Nouwen called Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life. In one of the meditations, he talks about the difference between "curing" and "caring."

When faced with another's pain and brokenness, we often want to cure them, come up with a solution, kiss it and make it all better. But many times our efforts, though well-intended, actually serve to inflict more pain. Our efforts fail to acknowledge the reality and depth of their pain. They rob the person of the right to struggle, to grieve.

Sometimes the worst thing we can do is say something like, "I know just how you feel." No one, even someone who has gone through an almost identical loss, truly knows what another's grief feels like. Each person's suffering is unique. Truly, "there is no sorrow like my sorrow."

Caring, on the other hand, doesn't approach the grieving and wounded as problems to be fixed. Rather, they are people to be loved. And the best way to love someone is often to just be there with them, sharing in their suffering. (Compassion in its Latin roots means "to suffer with.") Yes, there is a time for practical assistance. But often the best thing you can do, especially at first, is say nothing, but just be there, letting them know by your presence that they're not suffering alone. Yes, it's uncomfortable, especially at first. But with the help of the Lord and His Mother, it can be done.

I'm very grateful to Fr. Nouwen for having written that meditation. It redirected my thinking in a way that continues to have repercussions in my life even today, even this morning, as I held and prayed with a grieving godmother.