In the face of grief, it’s hard to find the right words to say. What matters is that you keep trying | Ranjana Srivastava

People who check in, even briefly, with their friends underestimate how much those friends appreciate it

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

Thus wrote CS Lewis in A Grief Observed after his wife died from cancer. I have thought a lot about these words while bearing witness to my friend's grief at the sudden death of her mother.

I had violated the first commandment of friendship: presence. Simply being there was all that had been required. I couldn't pass even that one simple test.

Well, everyone can master a grief but he that has it.