I don’t even remember walking into the restaurant.
I just needed a place. Somewhere with light and noise. Somewhere I could sit without anyone asking questions. My hands were trembling so badly I nearly dropped my drink before I got the lid off.
I must’ve looked like a wreck—mascara smudged, hair wild, coat barely clinging on. I didn’t touch the food. Just stared at it, detached, like it didn’t belong to me.
Then she walked in.
She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. Not a friend. Not someone I expected to notice me at all.
But she did.
She saw me—and without a word—she came and sat down.
No questions. No judgment. No “Are you okay?” She just opened her arms and wrapped them around me like she had been waiting for that exact moment.
And I completely unraveled.
Right there, in the middle of a Raising Cane’s.
I didn’t hold it in. I sobbed into her shoulder like a child, like the world had collapsed and she was the only steady thing left. And she stayed. Not stiff, not uneasy. She held on like she meant it.
When I finally calmed down enough to breathe, to think, it hit me—
I did know her.
She’d been my RA back in college.
The one who left a yellow sticky note on my dorm room door that said: “You matter more than you think.”
I’d kept that note tucked in my journal for years.
And now—here she was again.
Before I could even ask how she’d found me, she leaned in and whispered something I’ll never forget:
“I know where you hurt.”
Four words. Simple. Direct. But they pierced right through me—because they were true.
“How did you know?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
She just smiled. “Sometimes it’s not about knowing. It’s about being there.”
Her name was Mariam. Back in college, she had this quiet intuition—this way of noticing pain even when you hid it well. She never pried. She just… showed up.
“You’ve always had this gift,” I said. “Like you could see through people.”
She nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe I just learned to pay attention—not to what people say, but to what they don’t.”
That night, we stayed long after the restaurant emptied out. I opened up about everything—fights, burnout, feeling like I was failing at life. She listened. No interruptions. No quick-fix advice. Just pure presence.
When we finally left, she hugged me like she meant it and said, “You’re stronger than you think.”
In the weeks that followed, she became my anchor. She didn’t try to solve my problems—she just kept showing up. A call. A walk. A coffee. A silent sit on a park bench when words felt too heavy.
One day, I turned the question back to her. “You hold space for so many people. Who holds space for you?”
She hesitated, then opened up. She told me about caring for her chronically ill mother. About grief. About burnout. About the quiet strength it takes to just keep going.
And then she said this:
“The most powerful thing you can offer someone isn’t advice. It’s presence. Just being there. Really being there.”
I finally understood.
Mariam wasn’t just someone who listened—she was someone who healed. Not by fixing, but by making people feel seen. Held. Worthy.
And then came the twist.
She was leaving.
She’d accepted a position in a remote village to help a community recovering from a natural disaster. They needed her now.
I didn’t want to let her go. “I’ll miss you.”
She smiled. “I’ll miss you too. But you don’t need me anymore. You’ve found your strength again.”
She hugged me once more, and as she pulled away, she said the exact same words she had written on that sticky note years ago:
“You matter more than you think.”
And just like that—she was gone.
But her presence left something behind.
A reminder of the incredible power of simply being there for someone.
The life lesson? You don’t always need the right words. You don’t need answers. Sometimes, the most profound act of kindness is simply to sit beside someone and stay.
To listen. To hold space. To remind them they’re not alone.
Be that person.
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