what i am learning from pre-grieving.

{photo by A Bryan Photo}

I have been guilty.

That's what I want you to know first: I have been guilty.

And if this rather lengthy pre-grieving process is teaching me anything, it is that I have to become the change I wish to see.

If a friend grieves, I should make a meal. Send a card. Call to check in, even if my calls are greeted with voicemail recordings. Shoot a quick email.

Something, anything.

You know how I feel about Facebook. You know my thoughts on friendships and how I too often fail at being the friend I should be.

All of these thoughts have been stewing around in my head this week as I watch my family muddle through my grandmother's final days. I cannot tell you exactly what it feels like to be on this roller coaster; I can only tell you that it is, in one word, exhausting. I have a cloud over my head that just won't go away, not until my grandmother has been greeted into the next life and her loved ones have been granted peace.

What has meant the most in these difficult hours are the friends who have cared enough to show their love in even the tiniest of ways: a quick phone call, a meal for my family, an offer to help remove the burden of former commitments from my hands.  

Unfortunately -- and I think this speaks less about my friends and more about the times we are living in -- there haven't been a ton of those small gestures. I think technology and busy-ness have hindered those things. Why send a meal when a family can just buy takeout? Why spend money on a stamp when you could send a Facebook or a text message? 

Here is why: Because cards are meaningful. Handwritten words are special. They mean you took the time and effort to think about me, to think about my family. 

Meals let me know you cared enough about me to share something you made. They mean that while you were cooking or after you were done, you looked at what you made, and you said: "I should give the rest to someone else." 

Maybe we are too consumed with ourselves. Maybe we spend too much time online. Maybe we're just worried we won't be able to do enough, and so we do nothing. 

But when friends are grieving, or they've had a hard couple of months, or a baby has just been born, it's time to step outside of ourselves.

This summer, I was reading Shauna Niequist's Bittersweet, and I remember having a discussion with my family about how we respond to hurting hearts. And although I can't remember Niequist's exact words, I'm pretty sure they were something like: "Do something."

Meaning? Stop waiting for permission. Please, for goodness' sake, stop asking. Just do.

And in this coming year, that's one way I want to become better.

I want to get better at the doing. (It's part of saying no to other things, so I can say yes to the important ones.) I want to make meals and send cards, not because I'm part of a church care group or because someone else told me to, but simply because I am a friend. And that is what friends do.

Right before Christmas, before my grandmother fell and things changed, a friend called to tell me she'd left a meal for me and Jordan on our doorstep. There was no reason for it. We were not sick. I am not pregnant. At the time, we were not in the midst of grief.

She just had a new recipe she liked, and she shared it with us by making a casserole dish of it and sending it our way.

I cannot tell you how much that meant to me.

That is what friendship looks like.

And these past few days have taught me: The world needs more of it. More meals, more cards, more phone calls. A little less texting, less asking permission. Fewer Facebook messages and casual "how are yous" and "what can I dos."

The world needs a little more doing, and when this season of time passes, I will know better. I will leave these days with a better understanding of what friendship looks like and how best to handle those who are hurt and grieving. And you know what? Maybe I won't wait until illness or death or pain to show someone I care. Maybe I will be the kind of friend who sends random cards and leaves casseroles on the front step, just because. Because they are worth it. Because it is my calling.

Because really, that's just what friends do.