My best friend’s father died tonight at 9:30pm, and I don’t know what to tell her. There’s nothing I can say to make her feel better. There aren’t words that I can recite to make the emptiness go away. I told her, “if there’s anything you need, I’m here” and her immediate response was, “I need a hug.” I’m only 45 minutes away from her, but I’ve never felt further away from her than I did right then. I hugged a pillow and told her that I was imagining it was her, but is that good enough? What can you do? The easy answer, the one that everyone will tell you is “just be there for her.” But that won’t really fix the damage, you can’t uncrash a car. I’m imagining it’s like a car wreck, but instead of your body being twisted and torn, it’s your soul. How do you repair that?

So tonight, the world is now short one father, one grandfather, one husband & one friend. And my best friend’s soul is being twisted and torn, and I’ll stand with her, and I’ll be there for her because that’s what you do.

But it’s not enough.