Some Moments Don’t Need Words – They Just Need a Witness

There are moments in life that don’t ask for speeches, clever observations, or any kind of polished response. They arrive quietly, unannounced, and the only thing they really require is that someone be there—fully, honestly, without flinching. Some moments don’t need words. They just need a witness.

We spend so much of our lives trying to say the right thing. Comforting the grieving, encouraging the struggling, steadying the overwhelmed—we reach instinctively for language, as if the perfect sentence could repair the fracture in someone else’s soul. But sometimes the most powerful thing you can offer is simply your presence. Sitting beside someone who’s hurting, or frightened, or trying desperately not to fall apart—your presence becomes the anchor.

I’ve come to believe that witnessing is a form of love, a form of generosity that doesn’t announce itself. It’s choosing to stand with another person in a moment that might be too heavy for them to stand in alone. It’s knowing that there are no magic words for heartbreak, no easy lines for grief, no tidy script for uncertainty. And so you stay. You breathe with them. You hold the space. You don’t give answers; you give yourself.

I’ve seen it on hospital floors, in parking lots after funerals, at kitchen tables where old resentments and fresh wounds overlap. And I’ve seen it in courtrooms—those cold, formal spaces where the stakes couldn’t be higher—when someone is being railroaded, unheard, dismissed, or crushed under the weight of a process that should protect them but instead steamrolls them. In those rooms, a true witness matters even more. Not someone to argue or outrage, but someone who simply sees the truth of what is happening. Someone whose presence says, You are not invisible. They may not hear you, but I do.

I’ve seen it in quiet moments with friends who didn’t need advice—just someone to witness their sorrow, their joy, their fear, their truth. Sometimes the greatest kindness isn’t what you say, but the silence you’re willing to share.

And there are moments for ourselves, too—moments we live through without an audience, but we remember who showed up. The friend who didn’t try to fix you, the sibling who stayed on the phone until the shaking stopped, the colleague who saw the stress you tried to hide and simply nodded in understanding. Those are witnesses. They mark our lives more than any speech ever could.

Maybe that’s the real miracle: being seen. Not solved, not analyzed—seen. To stand in a moment too big for one person and know that someone else is holding part of it with you.

Words matter, of course. I use them for a living. But I’ve learned that the deepest human connection is often wordless. It’s presence. It’s attention. It’s the courage to stay when someone is unraveling and to sit quietly in the storm until the air clears on its own.

In a world that loves noise, being a witness is a radical act of compassion.

Some moments don’t need words.
They just need a witness.
And sometimes, when life gets real and heavy and impossibly human—that witness is everything.