The Day I Failed at Bravery
I tried to be brave for Mrs. Gable. She sat in her sunroom, holding her husband’s pocket watch, her hands trembling. I’d been her chaplain for months, but that afternoon, she’d asked, “How do you keep going?”
My instinct was to be strong for her. To show her I’d faced the dark too. So I leaned in, voice steady, and said, “I lost my father when I was twelve. I thought I’d never breathe again. But you learn to carry it.”
Silence. Then, her voice thin: “You don’t know what it’s like.”
I’d been so focused on my story—my own grief, my own “bravery”—that I’d missed hers. I hadn’t sat with her pain; I’d used it to feel brave for myself. The watch slipped from her fingers. She didn’t cry. She just looked at the floor, and I realized I’d made it harder.
Afterward, I sat in my office, coffee cold, ashamed. I’d thought I was being generous, offering my story as a lifeline. But it was a lifeline I’d tied to my own need to be seen as strong. Bravery isn’t about sharing your wounds to prove you’re tough. It’s about holding space for someone else’s.
Here’s what I’ve learned: True courage in grief isn’t speaking. It’s staying silent when words fail. It’s letting someone’s pain be bigger than your own story. I failed her that day. I failed myself.
Now, when I sit with someone in the quiet of loss, I don’t rush to fill the space. I just sit. I let the silence be the thing that holds them. It’s harder. It’s not “brave” in the way I thought. But it’s real.
It’s okay to not be okay. And it’s okay to fail at being brave.
— Kyle Smith, sitting with what's hard