Prunella: (Deep sigh)

Sonja: I know. I mean actually, I really really don’t know.

P: When did you find out?

S: Last night, just before midnight.

P: I’m so sorry to hear this Sonja. Truly. I know that’s inadequate. And I can sense a hug or holding your hand isn’t what you’re wanting right now

S: Ah Prunie, just having you sit beside me in the nothingness of nothing we can do soothes the unsoothable.

P: There’s never nothing we can do…

S: True. Being with is not nothing. It’s a powerful, silent, deep listening, comforting form of quiet care that is an action. A wise not-doing, that doesn’t need anything in return. I haven’t told anyone this yet because I can’t bear the thought of the deluge of well meaning words and actions, which are often more about the human need to fix, advise, avoid, problem solve, be useful, be seen to be kind and wanting to connect.

P: You’re doing that thing…

S: What thing?

P: Let’s just sit here quietly together for a bit.

Sonja looks at her friend. Smiles wanly. Looks at her hands, which are beginning to look like her Mum’s hands. Her eyes glaze into not seeing, staring at a fixed point that she doesn’t take in. The quiet, the rain, the presence of her friend who is comfortable enough to hold her, without holding her. A thought flits. Funny how generally affectionate she knows herself to be, but in these kinds of moments it feels as if her skin has thinned to the point of peeling away…as if her heart has dissolved and is busy flavouring her cup of tea, now grown cold. In these moments, touch makes it hard to breathe.

Prunie accidentally nudges the table with her knee and the ripples in the tepid water in Sonja’s cup start the movement of water from her eyes, sliding without permission, down her cheeks, which are soon wet.

Prunie is ostensibly looking out at the rain. Sonja can feel gentle, clear strength ebbing from her friend’s heart to her own. Not in that ‘we’ve got this’ kind of way. Rather, both sitting comfortably enough in the discomfort, in the fullness and realness of their humanness.

Both feeling the intense beauty, vulnerability, robustness, fragility, quiet overflowing joy, boundless well of grief… all that the privilege of connection in this moment offers. Here, without words.

Sonja reaches her hand out to Prunie without looking at her. Prunie meets her hand with her own, without shifting her gaze. Sonja half smiles. They look at each other then.

Sonja takes her first deep breath. Her cheeks are wet, her nose snotty. The loss feels like a wide open cavern. Her friend’s warm hand enables her to notice that her own heart is still beating. Life, it seems, in all its mystery, to continue. Somehow.

A fresh rivulet meanders over her cheeks. No move is made to search for tissues. No scuttled rush to make fresh hot tea. Yet.