How can you be there when you cannot fix the problem?
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Your friend’s partner has left. You have been meaning to visit, but each time you reach for the phone, you wonder what you could possibly say. You cannot bring the partner back. You cannot make the coming weeks easy.
You decide to wait until you have something useful to offer.
That hesitation can be understandable. It can also leave your friend waiting for company while you wait for an answer neither of you has. There may be something you can offer now: an invitation they are free to accept or decline.
“Would you like company for a while this evening?”
Arriving without an answer
Imagine they say yes. At first, the visit is awkward. You ask about their day. They describe something ordinary, then stop halfway through a sentence. The silence makes you want to help quickly.
“Perhaps you could call and explain—”
“I’ve tried that.”
“Or ask someone to—”
“I don’t want to make another call tonight.”
You are searching for a solution while your friend explains why each suggestion will not work. What you intended as help has become another conversation they have to manage.
So you pause.
“I’m sorry. I keep trying to find an answer. Would you rather tell me what today was like?”
They tell you about coming home. Their partner’s shoes are gone from beside the door. The empty space hurt more than they expected.
There is nothing for you to correct in that account. You can hear it without finding a bright side, disputing the feeling or immediately turning to a similar experience of your own.
A Spark from The Vision
Just being there for someone when he or she needs you makes a lot of difference. It doesn't just add a smile to their face, but life to their heart, and days to their lifetime.
Your presence is not a lesser kind of gift
In “Being there for someone,” from The Vision, Innocent Mwatsikesimbe recalls supporting a person who had been abandoned by people he expected to help. The author had little to give materially. What he could offer was himself: time, encouragement and company informed by his own experience of loneliness.
The account challenges the assumption that care counts only when it removes a problem. The speaker discovers value in being willing to remain present when others have left.
That does not mean company can replace money, practical assistance or specialist help when those are needed. Nor does it guarantee that a visit will make someone feel better. The chapter offers a personal account of care, not a promise that the right words can heal every hurt.
It does suggest that lacking a solution need not make you absent.
Let the evening contain more than the problem
Later in the imagined visit, your friend asks about a familiar part of your life. You answer. For a few minutes, the conversation includes something besides the departure.
You do not have to steer it back to pain to prove you take the situation seriously. Being available to listen is different from requiring someone to keep explaining how they feel.
Another evening, they may want advice, help with an errand or time alone. Asking gives them a say in what being there looks like. If they decline a visit, you can respect that without treating it as a rejection of your care.
You can also make a practical offer small enough to answer: bringing dinner, sitting together while they make a difficult call, or taking a walk. An offer is useful when it fits what they want and what you can genuinely do, rather than what would make you feel most helpful.
Make the next promise one you can keep
Eventually, you need to leave. The problem remains, and that can make the goodbye feel inadequate.
You may be tempted to say, “Call me any time, for anything.” If you cannot mean that literally, a smaller commitment is more honest.
“I can call tomorrow after work, if you’d like.”
Being there does not require unlimited availability. It asks for care that can survive contact with your actual time and responsibilities. If you cannot make the call after all, say so rather than leaving another unexplained silence.
In this imagined evening, the shoes are still gone. You have not changed that. But tomorrow now includes a conversation your friend wanted, offered by someone who intends to follow through.
Sometimes that is the useful thing you were waiting to have.
Related lessons
AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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