There I was sitting on a circular couch of sorts in the middle of a large hallway in a beautiful hospice home on the west side of Ann Arbor.  It was not a place I had fully expected to be nor had I ever been.  My great uncle Vern had recently moved to my side of town to an assisted living facility closer to my home.  In an unfortunate and sudden turn of events, somehow, instead this place had become where he would spend his final few days.

I was sitting with his granddaughter as the nurses attended to him.  For privacy’s sake, we ventured to the hallway for some respite and to give them space as they took care of what was necessary for his comfort.  His wife, my great aunt, had passed away three years before and had entrusted his care to my family.  The granddaughter and I had come to know each other better during that time frame, and so we began to catch up as we sat on the long couch.

As we quietly spoke in the hallway, where many rooms adjoined the area, we began to hear a voice cascade out of a room across from where we were sitting.  Our voices hushed as the tone and urgency became more apparent. The voice was insistent and demanding in nature, much to our surprise.

It took a few minutes to figure out, but a set of friends had decided to visit the woman residing in that room. She must have been alone for no one intervened as her friend’s voice began to rise.  Soon more words began to fall out that made us cringe…

“You can’t leave me!  I won’t let you.”

“You are going to get better!  Things are about to change, there’ll be a miracle, and you’ll be just fine!”

“We are all praying for you.  Everyone is praying for a miracle!  You can’t give up now!!”

“You can do this!  You can get better!”

“Who will I have to talk to?  Who will I be able to call late at night when I need to talk?”

“You just have to get better!  You understand, right?  You can’t leave us.  We need you.”

With each statement, our hearts began to break for the woman on the receiving end. Trapped and unable to respond, she was given a weight that she should never have been asked to bear.  It took all of my strength not to intervene.  We were clearly at a hospice home where people were coming to die, and somehow this friend had missed that marker when entering.  Somehow, she had refused to see the truth of where her beloved friend was…

And sure enough, the next morning, the dying woman was gone.

There was no getting up, no getting better.  There was no miracle to be had for her here on this earth, though I am quite sure her friend was unable to appreciate the miracle of her being in the arms of our loving God who was, indeed, calling her home.  The insistence of her voice, the demands in her statements, the unwillingness to see that her friend could not raise herself up has never left me.  Further, I believe God graced me with that uncomfortable experience for a reason and it has guided me through difficult and painful moments with others.

Commiserate.

It was a synonym that practically jumped out to me off the list of synonyms for the word, “nourish”.  In part, because it was not a word I expected to see.  However, as soon as I saw it, it made perfect sense.

Most of us often struggle with life when it is not all sun, fun and smiles.  We say easy things like, “You can’t find a rainbow without the rain!” or “It’s not that bad!” or “It will be okay! It’s going to get better.”  When the difficult becomes too great, we immediately begin to look for the silver lining long before it is ready to be seen.  When we can’t find it, we seek to dismiss the uneasiness away with platitudes of positive thoughts and reassurances. But sometimes, many times, those remarks fall flat and ring untrue.  Maybe even a little insincere in light of the honesty of what another is going through.

To “commiserate”, according to the Noah Webster Dictionary (1828 version), is to feel pity, to be compassionate towards, “to feel sorrow, pain or regret for another in distress.”  It is to be sorry for, to feel regret for or towards another.  And understand, I am not speaking of situations where another is constantly creating distress in their lives looking for pity. Rather, these are life-altering, life-changing, life-ending circumstances that no one likes to experience.

It is sometimes where the painful truth best lies.  When we commiserate with another, we are validating their experience.  There is no triteness there.  No dismissal. No denial.  No amplifying another’s feelings of alone-ness in this life by pointing to a better life, results, or alternative ways.  Instead, as painful as the situation might be, a gentle expression of its truth by means of commiseration can give a soul the peace and acceptance of their truth because it is validated through the eyes of another.

Acknowledging fear, assuaging the pain, admitting there are no easy answers, attesting to the helplessness, deferring to another’s discomfort, recognizing the confusion of not being able to control what impacts one’s own life or its end, upholding someone’s wishes, yielding to the truth of their situation over the need to comfort oneself with “it will be alright” all convey support. They are forms of nourishment coming through a willingness to compassionately allow another to feel sorrow, pain, anger, confusion, dismay, acceptance, or regret in their journey.

Ignoring their plight, refusing to see their dilemma, contradicting their pleas with ones that make us feel better, rejecting their situations, shunning from interaction, resisting the truth of where they are, are just some of the antonyms to commiserate…the opposite of what it takes to nourish another soul.

Internally we can wish for, hope for, want for…something different, but we cannot continue to live in this world and pretend the truth of another’s situation doesn’t really exist.  Not without doing a world of damage to that soul (and potentially others) by insisting on what we want their truth to be…for that is not truth, not at all.

That is what that woman’s friend did that night.  She refused to see the truth of her dying friend, and instead of commiserating at her side, helping her to feel validated, comforting her soul while she had the chance, and cherishing those last moments even if only spent in silence, she gave only what she wanted to hear, saw only what she wanted to see.

As we sat there and listened, we both shook our heads. It was a terrible weight to put on a dying soul. It was terrible thing to hear among all the souls that her voice drifted over and onto that night.  And understand, we are all headed out of this world someday. Everyday we hold the potential to give nourishment or to withhold it.  Both have an impact. On another, on ourselves, and even those we don’t realize are listening or watching…

The next time an opportunity arises to nourish a soul, consider the power of commiserating. Do not make it about you, but instead, allow it to be about them.  You will find that often holds more meaning and healing than any other gift or effort you can make.  For there is power in the truth, even when it is not what we want or would have wished for…

Remember it is more blessed to be comforting than to try to receive comfort at another’s expense…

“I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak.  And remember the words of the Lord that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”  Acts 20:34-35