Hallelujah Anyway, Anne Lamott, pp. 96-97

I’ve lived through times when a connected group of humans in grief and shock stayed together as things unscrolled, when a person was dying too young. Or after. What could we do? We showed up. When our best friends’ teenagers disappeared. When their fathers lost their minds. Or their babies or mates were in the ICU. We lay beside them in bed and held them in our arms.

We brought the bereaved a sandwich. We let them vent. Maybe watched a little TV together. We offered our presence, our warm bodies, and the willingness to feel like shit with them. One even bigger gift: no snappy answers. We could nod, sigh, cry with them; maybe go to a park.

Against all odds, these things work, however imperfectly, when a closed system breaks open and turmoil ensues: this collective, imperfect, hesitant help is another kind of miracle.