“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.” – Federich Buechner

I found out a couple days ago that someone close to someone whom is very close to me lost their mother. The girl is very young, only about 20/21 years old. She is the best friend of my boss’s daughter. Like many, she was lost to cancer. EVERY time I hear about someone losing a parent it eats me up. I mourn for someone I never even knew and for people I’ve never met, but I can’t help but have compassion.

Compassion is a funny thing, by definition it is “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.” As human beings, well most of us at least, we feel this naturally and have an urge to be able to take away the pain of others. Although we all know we will never succeed, we still want to try and do what we can. How comforting to know that others feel for you, try their best to know how it feels to live inside your skin and to not be personally at peace until you yourself are there.

I like to tell myself that others can feel my compassion from any distance, even though they may not know me. I hope that this family and their friends see an extra smile today, feel a little warmer or a little bit stronger due to the compassion and warm thoughts I am sending their way. The song linked to the picture below defines compassion for me…We are NEVER alone in our pain!