Grief is having all the skin on your body ripped off in one fell swoop. Now you are walking around in your flesh and bone, bleeding steadily from all over your self. Even the slightest carelessly reassuring touch can be excruciating.
If you would comfort this naked, bleeding wreck of a human, sit quietly a little apart and listen to the story. Don't try to touch them, or bind their wounds, or apply healing salves. If you must do anything; merely breathe, gently, as our mothers did when applying stinging bright red mercurochrome to a skinned knee when we were children.
But most of all, sit and wait for the weeping, which will come suddenly in the middle of otherwise normal conversation or daily routine. Then just be there. A silent witness to the Thing That Happened; the moment that excoriated your friend.
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