You do not need to know what to say

When someone close is crushed—an illness, a death, a heavy blow—we often stay away for a reason that sounds reasonable: "I don't know what to say to them." And because we cannot find the phrase, we do not show up. But the one who suffers is not waiting for the perfect phrase; they are hoping not to be left alone. Being close, even in silence, already says "you matter to me." Sometimes advice is superfluous and presence is missing. Someone who sits beside you without offering an instant opinion, who can bear the silence with you, comforts more than ten well-thought phrases. So do not wait to know what to say before drawing close, because that moment may never arrive. Show up, listen, stay. What is remembered later is rarely what you said, but that you were there.