Witness to Your Life

When marriage ends, when death or divorce arrive, you lose the person who carries your story. One of the most beautiful things I learned about marriage when I was desperately trying to save mine, was the gift of bearing witness to one another’s lives.

We all need others to bear witness to our lives, and to our pain. Not to fix it. Not to share it by telling us how they relate to it, or how they can’t imagine it. Because in both responses I leave witnessing your journey, as I enter my own. Trying to relate or imagine what you’ve gone through takes me out of your pain and experience.

Read that again.

To bear witness is to love and support another by loving them without judgment in good times and in bad. It reminds them that they aren’t alone, and that they matter.

To have someone bear witness to your life will help you feel less alone, and like you matter. 

If you’ve lost your primary witness this year, notice how this is part of your grief journey. How will you share the story that person was holding for you?