It was an ordinary Monday. But the stories I heard – in one day – were anything but ordinary. A husband has stage 4 cancer. A wife lost her job. A woman is saying “enough” to abuse. A teenager is cutting. Parents lost their baby. A divorce might turn nasty.

I turn on NPR. I hear about Syrian refugees. I hear about how loneliness is an epidemic in the elderly.

As I’m hearing these stories, I’m thinking now of how we need sacred space. We need someone to extend the invitation to be held — for our griefs, uncertainties, the unnameable within us. Space to breathe and be seen. I feel myself sending prayers out to those I know – those who have shared with me – and those I do not know.

My husband had a late-night meeting. My daughter was tired and needed to get into bed. I could breathe through her cries. I know now that what she needs is just “space to be held.” I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to explain or try to “make it better” with words. And reasoning never, ever works. I can just be alongside her. “Holding space” through the cries of tiredness, through putting on pjs and brushing teeth. Just breathing. Just softening. Getting grounded myself. Helping her gently into her pjs, slowing down my movements. Softening the muscles in my face and shoulders — for me AND so she can visibly see me softening.

Soon into bed, I gently caress her face. She falls asleep quickly.

This could have looked very differently. I could have barked commands and gotten easily frazzled. I was tired, too. But I’m learning that taoist adage, “When in doubt, do less.” I’m translating it for moms into “When about to lose it, do less.”

Just hold space. Just be there.

I’m lying next to my son now. We’ve entered into a new season in our relationship — side-by-side in his bed, each of us reading our books. I’m thinking now of how so many need space to be held — and we don’t even know it. We have no idea what is going on in the life of someone we pass at the grocery store or dropping off our children at school. And we may think we have a clue about what is going on in the heart and mind of those even closer to us — our children, our spouse, our mom, our dad. But we never really know the heart of another. And we ought to tread so so lightly.

We are all walking around holding our own griefs. And often, in isolation.

When we extend a moment of sincere pause and kindness, we acknowledge the other person. We may not know the whole story, but our eyes and gentle presence can communicate, “I see you.”

Be that sacred space for someone.
Be that love for someone.
Be that Love incarnated.
Flesh and bones, saying, “You are not alone.” and “I see you. I love you.”

And tonight, after everyone is bed and I’m on the couch, waiting for Brian to come home safely, I think, “Is there anything else that matters?”

The Invitation to be Held
By Lisa McCrohan

For the mom who labored for hours to birth their still-born son

For the dad who was by her side feeling helpless, wiping the sweat from her brow

For the person who wakes up each morning with an ache of loneliness in her heart

For the single woman in her thirties whose triumphs don’t get recognized by our culture

For the husband who wants his wife to be happy, to know he cares for her but often doesn’t have the words, and carries a heart full of unnamed shame

For the mom who feels responsible for everything and the one holding it all, yet can’t ask for help

For the person who binges and purges

For the person who cuts

For the undocumented teenage boy crossing the border with the help of a coyote who will sell him tomorrow night

For the high school teenage girl being bullied not with physical threats but threats of “not belonging” that fly under the radar of school officials

For the Syrian refugees who flee war and death, only to find rejection and death

For the elderly woman who sits in the nursing home hoping her grandchildren will visit her today

For the elderly dad who longs for reconciliation with his son but doesn’t know how to say, “I’m sorry”

For the child who wants to be held and noticed but whose parents are too busy and full of their own hurts to put down their phones…

May the world hear your cries.

May the world pause to see you, really see you
and remember that you matter.

May your griefs – named and unnamed –
seen and unseen –
be held tenderly, with spaciousness,
with no sense of hurrying,
in your own hands cupped around your cheeks,
in the hands of the Beloved who is holding you, holding it all,
and in the hands of someone,
dear god, someone
in flesh and bones, who pauses long enough
to see you are hurting and what you are holding,
to feel your ache and respond with hands open
to hold you.

May you feel the warmth and compassion
of at least one companion who accompanies you,
offers you a cup of water, a nourishing meal,
a presence that says, “I see you. I am here.”

May you know a true sense of safety –
the safety of a mother fiercely protecting and
providing for her children –
in your home, your school, your country,
and foreign lands.

May you have the spaciousness, the sacred space,
to grieve and moan with the sounds stuck under your ribs,
again and again, letting your cries be your prayers
that shake the world awake.

May you feel the full exhale that comes from
being seen, held, and acknowledged by one person,
millions of people, a nation, our world,
opening our ears to hear you, our eyes to see you,
our arms to hold you, our homes to nourish you.

May the world wake up today
to see you and respond with compassion.

Lisa McCrohan, ©
MA, LCSW-C, SEP