Sometimes, when confronted with something bigger than I can comprehend, my mind automatically reverts to details. Immediately after my mother passed away, when at the time it was so sudden and unexpected, my mind went into survival-mode. What are the next steps? What to do now? My mind focused more on practical day-to-day living than on the fact that I had lost my one and only mother. When I stopped to think about it, my pain was around the fact that I would never hear her voice again. I often have dreams where I am trying to call her and she doesn’t answer the phone. Or she doesn’t want to speak to me. Her voice is not heard.

A colleague is going through a difficult time. I immediately went into survival-mode, and became detail-driven. How did it happen? What next? What did you do? What are you going to do? He said to me, it would only be from you, Vonita. All these questions, and lack of subtlety.

Perhaps it is a lesson to just be still. To feel the pain that others feel. To have a heart that is soft. To allow myself to feel my own loss and pain. To have empathy.