What to Say to Yourself and Everyone Else When the Going Gets Tough (and Everyday)
When I sat in the Louisville, KY Veteran’s Hospital room holding my dad’s hand as his breaths moved from close together to further and further apart, there were only two words I spoke.
It’s OK.
Over and over again I said them: It’s OK. It’s OK. It’s OK.
He was dying. And I wanted - I needed - him to know that it was OK.
I still, looking back, don’t know exactly what “It’s OK” means except that I kinda do, too.
It meant lots of things…
It’s OK to let go, Dad.
We’ll be OK after you’re gone, Dad.
Where you’re headed is OK, Dad.
It’s the exact same thing I said when I was holding my mom’s fragile hand witnessing the closing moments of her time on this side of life a couple of years previously.
It’s OK. It’s OK. It’s OK.
Because, in the end, it is OK.
And here’s the thing: I would argue that we can embody an It’s OK attitude before the end, too.
Like, maybe, for instance, in the middle.
What does an It’s OK attitude look like?
I’d say it is enormously self-forgiving
It probably promotes inner talk that whispers things like “I’m enough.” “I’m worthy” and “I belong”
It no doubt is generous in how it doles out perspective; it knows things could be a whole lot better and also a whole lot worse.
It uses a little balm called Hope to heal those despair-y places.
And it if it had a sound it would probably be a content little giggle.
It’s OK is what we say to people when we’re holding their hands, rubbing their backs, holding back their hair.
Because it offers comfort in tender times.
Why don’t we offer ourselves that same comfort all the time?
The Divine wants this for us. I just know it.
So if you need to hear it today, let me be the first to offer it:
It’s OK.
