Relating

I have found I have a hard time emotionally when someone I know is experiencing something really difficult that I have had a similar experience with. I feel like I should reach out and relate to them or do something to help, but it brings up difficult emotions for me, so I end up feeling paralyzed emotionally. I like it when I can fix things and make everything all better, but there are times when you can't put things back to the way they were and only move forward with life.

The other night when Fred came home and told me that the husband of a woman who did his rookie fire training with him committed suicide over the weekend. This is never information you want to hear about, especially when you know the people involved.

Unfortunately, I am relating the woman's experience because of my dad. I am feeling some of her pain and disbelief, and I'm at a complete loss of what to do for her. When I was experiencing loss on this level, there wasn't anything you could do for me because there wasn't a way to make it not have happened. I want to be there for her as someone who can relate to a similar experience, even though right now, her pain and mine feels too raw. It makes me wish I had the ability to not let anyone I know directly experience any of the really difficult emotional experiences I have been through like this.

With everything I went through with my dad's suicide and Fred's accident, I will reach out to her because even though I don't have the magic wand to make everything better, I do have the gift of friendship that so many people gave to me. I can only imagine what scary emotions and thoughts everyone had to swallow to reach out to me while I was in the thick of those deep, dark times. Now I will dive in and be there for someone else, knowing that I was held on one side of going through the experience and trusting that I will also be held while being there as a friend.