When words are hard to find...

Are words all that matter? And things left unsaid don't?

What can you say to a question like that. You know the answer, but interjecting between someone else's tears and saying it just right isn't easy.

Life is hard. Feelings, brittle. Friendships, a mass of interconnected wires that could shortcircuit when you least expect.

Grief arrives at the worst of times, just when someone else is preparing for a happily-ever-after. And sometimes that's enough to bring on hurtful thoughts that had remained hidden away for months, even years.

People sometimes reach out for a comforting voice that isn't coming, while the one to whom the hoped-for voice belongs goes to church to pray, but never mentions it. And the unsaid stands up like a mammoth Berlin Wall that for the time being, seems in danger of never crumbling.

But not everything is a tragedy.

Sometimes 40-somethings find long-lost best-friends-forever and giggle like jackasses across time zones and make plans to spend Christmas together. And that's when you know, life really isn't all bad.