How many dark, dreadful days in a lifetime
measured against good, even great days?
For some, one day was too heavy to carry.
It was the day they decided it was too much.
For some in pain, a moment is an eternity.
An hour of all-consuming sadness is an
an incomprehensible span of time!
To consider one more day is unthinkable.
We cannot ever really know each other.
We can say “I know what you mean. I feel
your pain. I’ve been there.” But it would
not be impeccably true. It could not be.
Yet the gesture itself has its own bona fides.
An act of compassion in such a moment
bears the hope of comfort, even salvation.
It is often the least and the most we can do.
One must not demote such acts of hopeful
mercy, so crucial are they to our meaning,
the character and nature of mankind – to who
we have become after the safety of the womb.