The Art of Presence

delivered January 24, 2014

David Brooks in the New York Times is often surprisingly compassionate.  

This week he expresses it in an column he penned called  “The Art of Presence.”  Brooks, who is Jewish, used his New York Times platform to share widely counsel that is universal, but also particularly Jewish.  

The Art of Presence is about remembering and being part of the life of people who have experienced trauma, usually the death of an important person to the individual.  

The Art of Presence is about being there--not just at the time of the trauma, but in the days, weeks, months, and yes, years after the trauma.

The Art of Presence is about being there, remembering, and being proactive.

We humans naturally want to be helpful at the time of trauma.  The most vivid example of this, to my mind, is when we gather to observe shiva after a death.  For those first few whirlwind moments from death to getting up from shiva, mourners are surrounded by family, friends, visitors, food.  It is like being part of the whirlwind.  Then shiva ends, the people leave, and the mourner is left with the sense of what just happened?  Where did everyone go?  Does anyone else remember?  It can be disconcerting, to say the least.

And what happens to us? We get diverted by our own lives.  One by one we drop off and the mourner finds herself, alone, still broken, which much healing remaining.

This is often made more complex by our not knowing what to say to the person who has experienced the loss.  So we choose to absent ourselves.

In his column, Brooks articulates how all of us can choose to be present for the long term for those who have experienced trauma.  

“Do be there.  Some people think that those who experience trauma need space to sort things through.  Assume the opposite: most people need presence.”  Brooks is right:  when an individual has suffered a loss, being alone in the aftermath can make it much, much worse.  This is especially true, as Brooks writes, for people with whom you thought you were friendly and who never show up to offer support at the time of the trauma or after.  

Many of us have no idea what to say other than “I’m sorry.”  Brooks notes that we fall back on words that are the antithesis of comfort when we try to make sense out of what happened by saying “it’s all for the best” or “she had a long life.”

It never is for the best.  It never makes sense.  And these words will ring hollow if you say them.  Even worse, they will offer no comfort.  Our Jewish tradition enjoins us from speaking to a mourner until we are spoken to first-- allowing our physical presence to be comfort enough, not burdening a mourner with another recitation of “what happened.”  

When people ask why or try to make sense of a tragedy, it is our responsibility only to acknowledge that they are answering questions for which there are no answers.  Those kind of questions are completely justified, just as having no answers for them is also completely justified.  

Why do we do so many of these things to others when we know if they were done to us how badly we would resent it?  I think it comes from a place of wanting to be helpful but without having the tools of knowing how to help, to seeing someone we care about overwhelmed, and that emotional chaos overwhelms us.

Another important point: when you are with the person don’t compare, ever.  The grief belongs to that person, the loss is unique.  Another person does not have it better or worse.  Comparisons never truly make a person feel better.

Never say “you’ll get over it.”  How do you know?  How can you presume what another person is feeling?  And saying “you’ll get over it” is among the least helpful things that you could say, ever.  Say only “There are no words.”  Here you are saying everything that needs to be said, with no judgments, no predictions, no guessing.

Brooks’s “Art of Presence” reminds us to bring food or meet needs without being asked to do so.  These signs of comfort are there when a person needs them most--when they are hungry, when they have an unmet need, say, for slippers and then slippers appear.

Brooks enjoins us to “be a builder.”  What he is saying is to be there for the long term. . .not only in the immediate aftermath of the trauma.  

Being present for another person understands that long after the initial shock a deep ache remains.  

It might be being alone on a Saturday night.  

It might be that former friends stop including you with other couples.  

It might be people stop calling, visiting.

It might be throughout the day when the person would speak with their loved one and the call is not there.  

As the person offering presence, we can never guess when the person will need us--so it is up to us to be there at all times when you or I would never think it would matter.  Cumulatively, it all matters.  The call, the visit, the invitation, the open ear.  

Human companionship is one of the only balms that works to reduce the deep hurt of losing a human being.

Make yourself known!  Do not leave them alone.

One would think that The Art of Presence would be second-nature to human beings.  It is not.  We do not always know what to do, what to say.  In using the New York Times, Brooks is doing us a great favor in reminding us, in real life terms, how important it is for us to bring our humanity to people when they are hurting.