Virtuoso of Kindness
My person's grief met a quieter Chidi.
This is a short one, and it is written with a lot of raw emotion.
I just had a heart-wrenching conversation with one of my best people, as she lost her father yesterday. As she was sobbing desperately on the phone, confused as to how this could happen, I was taken aback at the difference b/w the Chidi who was comforting her on the phone today, and the Chidi ten years ago. I listened to her, did not interrupt her weeping, just let her say whatever she wanted to say. I didn’t offer any solutions, and even when she reminded me that I had just experienced the same a year ago, I quietly reminded her that this was not about me. It was about her. I knew what she was going thru, but I did not say that.
It was not about me.
The Chidi of ten years ago would have been just as well-meaning, but I probably also would have started suggesting some tools to get her to calm down, find some peace. Remember her Dad the way he was, the badass that he was. Breathe. Don’t look at the negative; he’s in a better place now. I admit that I probably would have said something like, “I can imagine how you feel.” Which is absolute BS. Even today, if I had said that to her, it is BS, because this loss thing is such a viscerally personal experience; no one can know how you feel.
You just get better at this stuff with age. That’s it. Because age means experience, and experience means you know when to shut up and listen, and when to open your mouth. And also to know that you will need to be more patient.
With age, you become more patient. And patience, it turns out, is kindness. And when she called me today, she was not looking for Oga Problem Solver Chidi Extraordinaire. She just needed Chidi the Listener, the Kind, the Patient. The Chidi who has done this before, and has had it done to him.
Brian McFadden wrote a piece called “The Most Flattering Way to be Kind to Others and Yourself" years ago, arguing that patience is the most flattering form of kindness because it costs you time, and time is the one thing you cannot manufacture more of. He talks about "virtuosos of patience," these sages who are masters of waiting, letting things pass and mature. He was right, and I have the scars from life lifing to prove it. So I happily take on that title these days, a time-honed, battle-tested virtuoso of patience, as this patience thing requires time, which is the biggest luxury every single one of us has. So when you extend that patience to others, that is valuable, luxurious time, and giving that time to others can be such a hardcore act of kindness.
Right? Deep stuff.
Think about when someone extended that patience, taking valuable time to help you, offer you relief, and give you grace. It gives you the warm fuzzies, yes. I am not saying my time with my person today gave her that, but I did notice she wasn't as…inconsolable as she was when I picked up the phone.
The big act of kindness, if I may say so myself, was being patient with her. And that was the kind thing to do for her, at that moment, when she needed it the most.
Rest in peace, Papa V.