Two months after his wife died, I visited the man. He looked frail.
"How are you?" I had to ask.
"It's our 44th wedding anniversary today."
I did not know what to say so I held my tongue.
"We've been celebrating our wedding anniversary for 43 years. She loved seafood and although I don't care much for them, I loved to watch her eat," he continued.
I nod silently.
"I kept asking. Why is this happening to me?"
I managed a quizzical smile, not the brightest of ideas but I wasn't sure where to take this.
"I've lost an old friend and a soul-mate. Can you see her? She is sitting right next to me."
My skin crawled. "So how are you spending this day?" (I thought that was a brilliant deviation.)
"I dined alone at the restaurant this afternoon and swallowed each morsel with tears. There's this dull ache in my chest and I haven't felt well since."
This isn't helping. I couldn't think of anything to say but to share the ensuing silence. I was planning to take him out to dinner but that didn't sound like a good idea anymore. His grief was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Oh yes! I said something pretty smart after a respectable silence. I said, "I'm sorry bro, but Time does heal all pain."
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares. - Henri Nouwen
* That was the last time I saw him. He died a few months later at the tail end of my chemotherapy.
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