The morning of my son David's Halloween party I was running through the Naval Academy with my double stroller (with just Katherine onboard). I was rushed as always, trying to squeeze in six miles before showing up to the party for the games and costume parade.
"Excuse me!" I screamed to the guy in front of me, practically running him off the sidewalk. (The eating-disordered OCD in me was on a mission--fixated on getting to mile six).
The 60-year-old man, probably a math professor, turns around with a red face and tears running down his cheeks.
"My mother died this morning," he said to me.
"Crap," I thought, "there goes my six miles." (I know, how self-absorbed can I be?) I panicked, not knowing how to respond or what to do. I was used to being the crier, not the consoler.
I studied his face, his gray beard, and I asked myself what was most helpful to me during those uncontrollable crying spells during the year of my horrible depression. Certainly not lectures. They were annoying and offensive. Not tips. Just more things to feel guilty about.
What comforted me most was when someone just listened, and didn't say a thing.
"I suspect that the most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen," writes Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. in "Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal." "Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. And especially if it's given from the heart."
I stopped running and went to hug the man. Then I waited there, and listened to his story for about ten minutes.
"My mother was the greatest woman who ever lived," he said. "And that there (as he points to Katherine), that is the most important thing you'll ever do in your life. So treasure your time with her while you have it."
"When people are talking," writes Remen, "there's no need to do anything but receive them. Just take them in. Listen to what they're saying. Care about it. Most times caring about it is even more important than understanding it."
I remember that math professor and the lesson he taught me today as I write about how we might respond to the grieving families of the Virginia Tech victims. And I consider these words the theologian Paul Tillich wrote: "The first duty of love is to listen."
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In the book, "Good Grief, this quiet type of listening that's just being there for someone who's loved one has recently passed is called "sitting shiva." It's traditional in the Jewish culture. Years ago, when we lost my ex-husband's brother to a gunshot wound, (murder or suicide, we'll never be sure which), the people in the town in which we lived knew how to come to us and be just quietly there. It's the best thing they could have done! No sermonizing, no preaching, not even much talk about why; they were just there for us. What a priceless gift! Thank you for taking time to do the same for this man. Listening with your heart is a priceless gift! Robin Hummingbird Songs
It is so ironic that this would be in my e-mail today. I encountered a similar sitution with my sister who lives out of state and rarely visits me or calls outside of an engagement or crisis involving other family members. In my naive manner I keep confiding in her thinking she will be there for me and repeatedly she responds to me as if she's offended that I would reach out to her, ridicules me for reacting...in her way she feels she's admonishing me but she's really hurting me. To top it off she never returned my call however called our mother this morning (long distance) and told her why she couldn't call me back. I just said to my husband this morning that if we could embrace the concept of listening rather than judging we would learn so much and be that much more supportive than hurtful. Thank you for this confirmation.
What if a friend just wants you to listen to her and she can't or doesn't want to listen to you?
i love listening to people and i understand it is good to listen also is shows a great deal of love and care to listen to someone but i'm always not happy when orders does not listen to me and take me for granted it causes me a lot of pain and i always feel chited, hated and unwanted. what do i do?
Ok, I'm Latin and we do cry easily and openly. Now you make me think about this. How many times I've cried in front of others, how many times others have cried in front of me...? Many, many times. Sometimes a person begins a sentence with aplomb and ends it in a sob. We think that it's good to cry, just like it's good to laugh, both purge the system.
I've cried many times in front of others, but I've also found so many that feel uncomfortable, I've seen them looking embarrassed for me or maybe for them. Others have overwhelmed me telling me not to cry that everything will be OK. Well both approaches leave me feeling as if I've done something wrong. I think the best experience was when I called a friend long distance and began to tell her something then I heard her crying over my pain...we both cried in the phone for some time, my husband wanted to know why I was making a long distance call and crying and sobbing, and hearing the same in return. "But you're not saying anything!" He doesn't understand, he doesn't know...
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