Just listen

The first text came in at 5:04 am. “Call me ASAP,” an old friend wrote, followed by questions she had about which rehab she should go to when she was discharged in two days.

“I’m spinning,” she texted. “Help.”

She was a dear friend. I fixed a quick cup of coffee and went out to call her from my car so I wouldn’t wake the kids. The street was completely quiet, the air cold.

In the dark, your mind can go to dark places.

This was not the first time, by any means, that I had received an after-hours text or call. I know now not to pick up, unless I’m on-call for a client, but this was a friend.

Earlier in my practice, at moments like these, I would jump into “fix-it mode.”

Now I know there’s almost never an instant fix. Instead it’s often a longer period of conditions and uncertainty. "If this, then that. If not this, then another path. We’ll have to wait and see…"

It can be compared to a ride on an emotional rollercoaster with no seatbelts.

The wise parish nurse at my church, Jean Williams, once told me when I was asking for advice on a very difficult case, “Often the best thing you can do is simply listen.”

So, on this dark morning, that’s what I did.

I listened and I breathed. I answered the questions I could and jotted down the ones I couldn’t. I reassured my friend that I would be there for her, as would her family and church, coworkers, friends and neighborhood.

“Listening is an act of love,” David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, once said.

It’s true.

Thirty minutes later, my friend’s voice was noticeably calmer. The sun was just rising. I watched as in the foreground the trees and Barbara and Peter’s house came into sharp definition; in the background, the sky was purple, then magenta, then cyan. My friend’s voice became clearer. And the moment passed.

If you find yourself on the other end of a 5:04 am call like this, I want you to know that you don’t need any kind of expertise to provide some real relief. Sometimes all you need is to simply listen.