Two days ago I went to do my laundry in a self-service washing machine. It takes about 30 minutes, so I decided to use the time to walk to a nice café nearby.

The last time I was there, I noticed that some local facilitators had left their business cards on the table. I thought about planting another seed of my own work there. Leaving my card felt like making myself visible. Saying, this is who I am. This is what I do. And if that speaks to you, here is a way to connect with me and book a session.

So I started walking towards the café.

I was looking at my phone when I saw an older lady fall in the corner of my eye. I heard her too.

I immediately ran towards her.

“Are you hurt?”

She was scared. Her voice and hands were shaking. She pulled up her skirt a little and I saw that her knees were scratched.

She was in tears.

She showed me a plaster and told me she had fallen at home a couple of days ago. Then, with a shaking voice, she said:

“My knees don’t listen to me.”

That sentence immediately brought me back to my granny.

She had told me something very similar many times when she fell at home.

My granny had become frustrated with her own body. Frustrated with the fear of falling again. Frustrated with not knowing whether someone would be there to help her get back up.

And she was frustrated with her doctor too.

He had about fifteen minutes with her. He would give her pills, tell her that these things came with age, and send her home.

I remember how helpless I used to feel and not being able to find any solution to her suffering.

When I stayed at her place, I would wake up whenever she got up to go to the bathroom at night. I would listen to hear whether she was okay. Then I would wait until I heard her get back into bed before I could relax again.

I wanted to find something that would help her. I researched alternatives. I wondered if there was something the doctors had missed. I wished I could find a cure.

But I couldn’t.

The only cure I had was to be there for her.

To listen.

To help when she needed it.

Or sometimes to find something that would make her laugh and take her attention somewhere else for a while.

Standing there with this woman, I could feel the tears coming into my own eyes.

It was her voice. Her hands shaking. The tears in her eyes. Her words about her knees.

And yet something was different this time.

The woman wasn’t alone.

Her friend was with her, and another older local woman had already come over to help. She knew the woman’s name and spoke to her kindly.

There was something warm in seeing people who could leave whatever they were doing and make another person their priority in a moment of need.

I helped the woman get back on her feet. I held her shoulder for a while so she could feel more secure and calm down.

As her friend and the other woman continued talking to her, I slowly started moving away.

Then the woman grabbed my hand and looked me in the eyes to thank me.

I smiled and with my eyes filled with water I walked towards the café.

I still looked back a few times to make sure she was really okay.

And before entering the café, I stopped for a few minutes.

I could feel the tears I had been holding back.

Maybe they were for her.

Maybe they were for my granny.

Maybe they were for the helplessness I used to feel when I couldn’t make things better for someone I loved.

But there was something else I noticed.

I didn’t feel responsible for this woman.

I didn’t keep scanning her to see whether she needed something else from me. I didn’t feel that I had to remain available.

She was standing again. She was calmer. She was surrounded by two people who knew her. Her friend was already walking with her towards the health centre.

I saw my part was complete.

And I was able to continue towards what I had intended to do.

Towards the café.

Towards planting that little seed of my own work.

I’m learning how much more powerful it is when my attention stays with me.

When I don’t immediately jump fully into another person’s experience and lose myself there.

When I can notice my own tears and my own needs too.

When I can be there when my help is needed, without feeling that I have to remain available endlessly for that moment to have mattered.

Maybe a simple moment of being there can be complete on its own.

And maybe I don’t need to take someone’s pain with me in order to prove that I cared.