Hold my hand

On Coping #8

She has borrowed a book from the library.

When she finishes it she hands it to me and says she thinks I’ll like it.

It’s called How to Have Tender Conversations.

.

Tender.

.

Not sympathetic.

Or kind.

Or helpful.

Or constructive.

Or productive.

Or even gentle.

But tender.

Tenderness.

.

Then, about half way through the book, I read this sentence:

“We offer more consolation by holding a lost hand in a dark place than by shouting instructions from the safety of the light.”

.

I understand.

.

I have stood in the safety of the light and shouted instructions.

And I have felt lost in a dark place.

I know what it is to want consolation.

To be offered it.

And to refuse it.

I see someone I love in an even darker place than I am and feel like I can’t reach them.

.

In fact, it feels like a long time since we were in the light.

There have been occasional blinding flashes - moments of illumination.

Surrounded by long chapters of dark.

Or a perpetual dawn cross-fading imperceptibly into dusk then back to dawn again.

.

And what if, within that darkness, there is a place so dark, we can’t reach the one we seek?

.

Most days now, I have little to offer her other than my hand.

Trying desperately to reach her through the gloom.

Previous > On Coping #7: Pray for miracles | Next > On Coping #9: Barely within endurance

---

On Coping is my story of surviving on the sidelines of cancer. It begins in 2022 with On Coping #1, written the day after my 41st birthday. The day my wife Imogen, the mother of my three children, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.  It’s the story of what happened next. Read from the start.

---