Recently, I had a brief conversation with someone I know.
He asked how my husband was doing.
I said that this season has been very hard on him. We lost Dustin years ago. Dustin was my son, and my husband was his stepfather. Kayla, though, was both of our child.
Losing Kayla has affected each of us in different ways.
For me, this kind of grief feels familiar. I’ve lived with deep loss before, and I know how to carry it in my body and still move through the day. Losing Kayla brought everything back to the surface, raw and present again.
For my husband, this kind of loss is new.
He listened quietly and then said, “I can’t even imagine. My heart truly hurts for you both.”
He never had children of his own. He’s a retired teacher. But he lost his mother and then his brother within a short period of time.
He didn’t compare losses.
He didn’t offer explanations.
He didn’t try to make sense of it.
He just stayed present.
Sometimes the most meaningful moments in grief come from people who don’t need details, who don’t need to understand fully in order to care. They recognize pain when they see it, even if the shape of it is different from their own.
That brief exchange stayed with me.
Not because it fixed anything, but because it reminded me that quiet, uncomplicated compassion still exists in the world. And sometimes, that’s enough to get through the day.
