Don't Just Do Something, Sit There

On tending to wounded hearts

Our master bedroom is right over the kitchen. In the 10pm weeknight hush–no soccer balls being dribbled in the hallway, no sounds from the piano or TV–I hear the muffled tones of my wife Emma’s voice, one floor below me.

I’m lying on our bed fully clothed, feeling like a fool. 

I can’t quite make out what she’s saying, but I know she’s comforting our teen daughter over a recent upset. 

I know because I tried to console our daughter myself, just a few minutes earlier. To be more precise, I tried to help her. We talked past each other, which made her even more upset. Now I’m upstairs with a hollow feeling: I’m no good at this. Thank god she has Emma.

Moments later, Emma’s at our bedroom doorway, saying, “She needs you.” 

“I tried,” I say, sitting up. “I just don’t know what to say.” 

Then I remember something so simple, I can’t believe I’ve forgotten it. I head downstairs.

Do something. Now.
EMT training is all about remembering what to do next, especially when the situation might feel overwhelming. In the first week of EMT class, we trained a two-rescuer scenario with an unconscious patient. 

My partner and I approached the mannequin, its mouth agape in mute agony. Neither of us could remember what to do next. The instructor barked at my partner in his Brooklyn accent: 

“Quick! What’s the first thing you do?” 

My partner looked startled. “I guess… call 911?”

“That’s you, dummy,” the instructor said. “You’re the first responder. Now what do you do?” 

Over the next five months, we learned what to do, often through mnemonics, like:

ABCs (airway, breathing, circulation). Check A, then B, then C. Repeat as needed.

Everything’s quick, memorable, actionable. It helps us to avoid freezing up, which could be disastrous.

One of the best medics I’ve ever worked with, an Air Force veteran, once told me, “It’s always better to do something than nothing. The sooner the better.”

I felt even more freaked out as a new dad than I did as a new EMT, but there were all these concrete, practical things I could do: changing, feeding, swaddling, burping, swaying, cuddling. It was exhausting, but I felt capable when my kids needed me. I could mostly make them feel better.

There were plenty of bigger emergencies in our own house, too. Before my kids were out of diapers, we dealt with:

• Respiratory emergencies

• Head injuries

• Cuts and burns

• Falls down the stairs, from stools, chairs, tables, a bench

• Anaphylactic reactions (I’ve used the Epipen twice on our son)

The kids come to me again and again with all manner of injuries, and it reinforces this idea that I can fix things for them. 

I find it easy to be positive and silly with the kids, too. I’m good at the good times. What I didn’t expect was that as they grew older, dealing with their bigger disappointments and losses would stop me in my tracks.

I used to believe that my own emotional suffering in childhood was mostly a result of deficient parenting. What a naive discovery, then, to learn that all of the love and support we surround our kids with hasn’t somehow inoculated them from having their hearts broken by the world.

When my kids are upset about something bigger, I immediately jump to solve whatever’s happening. I like to imagine this is the EMT in me, but when I look closer, it’s something else.

It seems I have a low pain tolerance—for my kids’ pain. A wounded knee? Easy: bandage and cuddle. A wounded heart? I just want it not to be wounded.

Fortunately, earlier this year I learned something simple and powerful for these moments.

James “Fish” Gill, a wonderful coach and facilitator, says when someone’s really upset, we can simply respond with variations of these two phrases:

1. Of course

2. It makes sense

“Of course you’re upset. It makes so much sense. How could you not feel that way?”

Validate, validate, validate. 
This aspect of parenting, learning to be with our kids and their wounded hearts, is actually very similar to meditation: You learn to be with what is, as it is—without trying to change anything at all in this moment. 

It’s simple, but far from easy.

I forget, again and again. The desire to fix comes up quickly, sometimes before I get a handle on it. When I feel I’ve screwed this up, which is often, it helps to remember I can use these phrases with myself.

Of course you’re feeling frustrated and worried. It makes so much sense. How could you not? It’s so hard to see your kids upset.As I head downstairs to my daughter, I know my job is simply to sit with her, letting her know that everything she’s feeling is perfectly understandable and okay, exactly as it is. 

We’re alone in the kitchen now, she and I, and the pressure is off to figure out anything at all. I’m listening to her like it’s the most important thing in the world, because it is. 

Of course you’re feeling that way, my love. Of course you are. It makes so much sense. How could you not?

A constriction in my chest relaxes, and I’m feeling more open. My shoulders are noticeably lower. Listening’s so much easier when I’m not trying to figure out what to say or do next. 

I give her the biggest hug. The two of us are now sitting with this heartache. We have no idea how or when it might get better. We’re not searching for a road out, but just taking in the landscape together. 

My daughter knows plenty about my own heartaches and losses, and that’s actually why she asked for me. What I once thought of as my own “bad” experiences are suddenly a bridge to her. 

Something arises in this quiet moment. There’s a sense of abundance, this felt sense that nothing’s missing, nothing needs to be different in any way. I’m so grateful for her, this sweet, wonderful soul, and the ever-dwindling time I get to spend with her.

A day later, my daughter and I are driving in the first snowfall of the season. As we pass a car I recognize, I lift a few fingers off the steering wheel at my friend, who does the same in return. She laughs and shakes her head. “Such a dad wave.” I tell her that I am, literally, a dad waving. What else would I do?

Minutes later, I spot a stag up ahead on the snowy road, and I reflexively call out, “DEER!” in a way she finds “nerdy and embarrassing.” She imitates me over and over, until she’s laughing breathlessly, tears streaming. I never want this to end.

Back and forth we go, between happy and unhappy tears, both the joys and the heartaches growing bigger and deeper as our kids grow older.

Throughout all of this, our ultra-sensitive teen is teaching me how to sit and hold even deep sadness between us. How not to turn away from what hurts. How everything in those moments, too, can only really be felt when it’s felt exactly as it is. How sharing that makes both of us feel so much less alone.