By Karlee Hemmert
A lot of things that day were a blur. It was about 12:30 in the morning when my aunt woke me where I was sleeping on the couch to let me know my father had passed away. He had been sick for a while, and his health had taken a sharp turn for the worse a couple weeks before that day. Although we had been expecting his death, the heartbreak was real and deeper than I could ever express in words.
Those early hours of the morning were a blur – the nurse coming, the men from the funeral home lifting his body in a sheet onto a gurney and wheeling it out the door, comforting my newly widowed mother, feeling my own resolve snap and weeping more than I ever had before, and finally slipping into an exhausted sleep.
I remember riding the train later that afternoon. I had only been awake for a few hours and was still in a shocked daze. I remember staring out the train window, feeling an absolute emptiness. In a moment I will never forget, I realized that no one on the train knew what I was feeling. No one knew my father had passed away that morning, or that I was aching inside although I showed nothing on the outside. And then I realized that I likewise did not know what anyone else was going through either. Maybe someone else on the train had also lost someone they loved, or had been diagnosed with cancer, or had been in a car accident, or any number of miserable experiences. In that moment, I realized how important it was to practice compassion. Ian MacLaren said “Be kind; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy burden”. As I carried my own heavy burden and considered the invisible burdens everyone else was carrying, compassion became real to me.
“Be kind; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy burden”
There was a lot of compassion I received accompanying that experience. My aunt, who simply hugged me when I woke up and cried with me when the tears started spilling from my eyes. The friends who took time out of their busy, stressful semesters to take me on adventures designed to cheer and lift my spirits. The many, many times my roommate held me while I wept, longing for my father when I wanted advice or to simply talk to him about school or other things in my life. The compassion was so freely given, with nothing expected in return.
And that’s what compassion is. As you can read in the My Best Self 101 Compassion Module, compassion is facing the suffering and pain of life and responding to it in a way that brings relief. Compassion is love and goodwill for the recipient. It does not shy away from the struggles of life, but rather welcomes them, recognizes the pain they bring, and seeks to bring light to the darkness that accompanies that pain.
Research on compassion has shown a number of benefits to well-being, many of which are summarized in the in the module. I can attest from my own experience of receiving compassion and giving it in turn, the benefits are real. The pain of losing my father never went away – I still feel it more than a year later. But when the ache is more than I know how to handle, I have a safe, secure support team around me to help me carry my burden, and that brings peace and comfort. Losing my dad isn’t so anxiety-invoking anymore because I am not afraid of the pain that accompanies it. Through compassion of others as well as self-compassion, I have learned to accept the grief when it surfaces and allow myself to feel it rather than bury it. As others helped me work through the strong emotions, I have learned to do it on my own. And as I have sought to share that compassion with others, I have experienced an increased calm and happiness in my own life.
More than anything I want to encourage everyone reading this blog to practice compassion. As someone who so desperately needed it to overcome a weight too heavy to carry alone, I know how much it can change someone’s life. You never know what someone is going through, but you can be sure that everyone at some point will go through something difficult, and your compassion towards them can make all the difference, whether it is a stranger or loved one.
