What wakes you up in the middle of the night, not in fear, but in the threshing buzz of low-grade panic?

Dread of being alone?undefinedOf getting older?undefinedOf illness? Of death?undefinedOf being unable to help alleviate the sadness of those close to you?

What’s your demon?

I have a friend, a woman I consider one of the blessings in my life, who is facing a whole bunch of those nightmares right now. Her nightmares are sitting there at the kitchen table with her. Maybe you know her; maybe you ARE her. Many of us have been where she is, in the dark night of the soul, at some point — but when you are inside the tumble and hiss of the bad time, it is almost impossible to imagine rescue or survival.

But we, more or less, survive.undefinedEither the worst happens or it doesn’t. We brush up against the savage edge of loss and cut ourselves, counting ourselves lucky to have been only scarred, only mangled.

Because there are worse possibilities: those times when you can’t back away and you can’t move out of range; the edge saws away until it can no longer be borne.

Or change the image: the hurricane that obliterates everything in its path goes through a place we once thought safe as if to teach one lesson: Nowhere is safe. At least not forever. At least not all the time. Happy times and bad times move through our lives like the weather. There are accurate predictions to be made, but there is nothing to be done when a force of nature moves in. You can see the horizon darkening but whether you run to it or flee from it, you cannot change what will happen. You are stuck in that moment of time with only yourself as your shelter.

So what is there to say when someone you love is deep inside that storm?undefined

Or change the image again: What is there to say when a friend is playing a part in a great tragedy, on a stage too removed, too terrible, and too awesome for you to offer help? You can’t shout out lines because the script is not yours to invent; you can’t offer to replace her in the part because it is not your role. What is there to say that does not trivialize pain by offering sentimentality or that does not show disrespect by offering mere palliatives?

What I want to say to my friend is this:undefinedI honor you as you move through this time. Not as a martyr or saint full of gracious sorrow, but as a fighter, as a warrior, as someone engaged in a contest for her soul, as someone who refuses to surrender to despair or to plot a coward’s escape.

And Iundefinedwould remind her of an old story: Late one night, three demons decide to ambush a woman who lives alone. The three demons are manifestations of her worst nightmares: fear, anxiety, and despair. They make a racket, breaking things, ruining what she holds dear, disfiguring what she cherishes. Gleefully, they spend hours immersed in their rampage. They’re enormously confident because they figure, “She’s all alone and she’s past her first youth, so why should we stop?”

They go at it for hours, into the darkest part of midnight. The woman they are tormenting is almost inconsequential; the destruction of her world has little to do with her.

When she starts to build a fire at the hearth, therefore, they barely glance over. But the demons become more thoroughly distracted when they notice that the woman is busily setting out a kettle.

Wary now, they ratchet up their activities. When she calmly sets out three cups, nevertheless, they stop in their tracks. Her hands aren’t even shaking. She looks calm, if weary.

“What are you doing?”undefinedthey cry in unison, breathless from their tasks of destruction. “We are everything in the world that is against you. Why are you boiling water and setting out dishes?”undefined

The woman stares at them and gives a tolerant shake of her head as she opens the cupboard. “I know all of you by now. You’ve been here before and you’ll be here again. You might as well make yourselves at home.”undefined

Raising one eyebrow and fully meeting their gaze without rancor, in full possession of herself, she asks familiarly, “What kind of tea would you like?”