
The amount of pain over losing my daughter is wholly unspeakable. It can only be borne in prayer, in a deep and silent place.
Yesterday in the grocery store parking lot, a voice came from nowhere, asking, "Want me to take your cart for you?" It was a woman my age, smiling. "I always park down at the far end of the lot to get more exercise," she smiled. That tiny gesture from a stranger nearly brought me to tears. I am steeped, for the moment, in gratitude for compassion.
When a friend stops by to give me a hug or to say he is praying for us, when a stranger smiles at me in passing, when a business associate offers a kind gesture, when a friend comes over to help me tackle the chores that have piled up in my grieving period, what I drink from is not so much the content--specific words and deeds--but the inner gesture of caring and compassion.
True compassion is wordless. It is a felt sensing of a heart pouring forth. and it is healing.