Trust

Many of you know about my book, “When Words Have New Meaning.” Some of you have read it. Some of you know what it was I was trying to do when I wrote it.

The book is filled with words we use every day, words we often say casually, sometimes without really stopping to consider what they mean. Many of those same words take on an entirely different meaning when we enter the world of end-of-life care, grief, and loss.

So, I took those words and gave them my meaning. Not a dictionary definition. Not necessarily the meaning everyone else would give them. My meaning. The meaning I have learned through years of sitting at bedsides, witnessing people die, supporting families, experiencing loss myself, and simply living long enough to understand that some words become much more meaningful when life asks you to really know them.

There is one word I wanted to put in that book but never did.  Trust.

I couldn't quite find the words for it then, but I think I can now.

Trust has taken on an entirely new meaning for me. As a child, I didn't feel like I had very many people I could trust. The person I trusted most was my older sister. She was my safe place. As I got older, I began to understand how much of my life had been shaped by the presence, or absence, of trust. Relationships were difficult when they weren't built on it, and some of them ended because it simply wasn't there.

I think one of the hardest things about my last relationship was always feeling as though there was one foot in and one foot out. A part of me always knew that I could never completely trust that person to be fully with me. And when you don't have trust, you don't feel secure. You feel like you're walking barefoot on bumpy ground.

Every step is uncomfortable.

Every step hurts a little.

And sometimes you get so used to walking that way that you forget what solid ground feels like.

For a long time, I hid how deeply that ache affected me, but life has a funny way of bringing us back to the things we haven't completely figured out. And as I have faced more situations where trust has become important, I have started to understand something I didn't fully understand before:

Trust isn't just about believing someone else, it is about becoming someone another person can safely believe in.

That changed everything for me, because I don't just want people to trust me, I want to be someone who is worthy of their trust. There is a difference.

You cannot walk into someone's life and simply say, “You can trust me.” Those words don't mean very much on their own. Trust is earned. It is built through actions. Through consistency. Through honesty. Through showing up. Through keeping your word. Through being the same person when no one is watching.

Trust is something you prove. And nowhere has that been more evident to me than in my work in end-of-life care.

I have sat at a lot of bedsides. I have looked into the eyes of people who were dying and realized that before they would allow me to help them, they needed to know that they were safe with me. They needed to trust me, and I needed to earn it.

I had to be authentic.

I had to be real.

I had to be willing to be transparent.

I had to listen, not just to the words they were saying, but to the things they were struggling to say.

I couldn't pretend to be someone I wasn't, because people know. Especially when they are vulnerable. They know when you are being genuine.

And then there are those moments when something shifts, when a patient looks at you differently.

Their shoulders relax.

They begin to tell you things they haven't told anyone else.

They become more open about what they are experiencing.

They ask questions they were afraid to ask.

And sometimes they look at you and say,

“Okay, Gabby. We trust you. What should we do?”

Those words are powerful; I don't take them lightly. When someone who is dying places that kind of trust in you, it isn't simply a compliment, it is a responsibility.

And honestly, it makes me want to be the person they believe me to be.

I want to be that person.

I strive to be that person.

Because when someone trusts you enough to share their fears, their wishes, their regrets, their secrets, their uncertainty, their deepest hopes for themselves or their family, you have been given something incredibly valuable.

A gift.

And trust is a gift we often unwrap too quickly.

We accept it without really looking at what we have been given.

We forget that someone has placed something precious in our hands.

We forget that it can be fragile.

Trust can take years to build and only moments to damage.

I have learned that trust isn't only something we ask of other people, it is something we have to offer them, too.

I want my children to trust me.

I want my grandchildren to trust me.

I want my friends and coworkers to know that when I give them my word, it means something.

I want the people I care about to know that they can tell me something deeply personal and it will be safe with me.

Am I completely transparent all the time?

Probably not.

I am human.

But when I tell someone something, I want it to come from the most truthful place I can find.

Because I never want someone to wonder whether they can trust me.

And there is another part of trust that has taken me much longer to understand:

Trusting myself.

There have been times in my life when I didn't trust myself to walk into certain situations.

There were things I avoided because I didn't know whether I could safely be in them.

Sometimes we think of trust as something that exists between two people.

But there is also a relationship we have with ourselves.

Can I trust myself to recognize when something isn't right?

Can I trust myself to leave when I need to?

Can I trust myself to say no?

Can I trust myself to keep a promise I make to myself?

Can I trust myself enough to believe what I already know?

Those questions matter, because becoming someone others can trust also means becoming someone you can trust, and maybe that's one of the greatest gifts of getting older.

You begin to recognize yourself.

You become more comfortable with your own truth.

You stop needing to convince everyone else that you are okay.

You learn that being authentic doesn't mean telling everyone everything.

It means that the person you present to the world is actually you.

And when someone asks something of you, you give them your best.

When you make a commitment, you honor it.

When someone shares something private, you protect it.

When someone is vulnerable with you, you don't use their vulnerability against them.

When you say you will be there, you show up.

That's trust.

Earned.

Given.

Received.

Protected.

And after everything I have lived, my childhood, my relationships, my friendships, my losses, being a parent, becoming a grandmother, sitting beside people who are dying, being present with families in some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives, I think the word that wraps itself most tightly around all of it is “trust.”

I want to be someone people can trust.

Not because I told them they could.

Because I showed them they could.

And the people I choose to have in my life need to be people I can trust, too.

People who are safe.

People whose actions match their words.

People who show up with both feet in.

People who understand that trust is not something we are entitled to.

It is something we earn.

And when it is finally earned, when it is freely given, when you can look into someone's eyes and know that they feel safe with you…wow… what a gift.

Maybe that is the word I was trying to write all along…I just wasn't ready for it yet.

But now I am.

xo

Gabby

You can find my book, "When Words Have New Meaning," here:

https://www.amazon.com/When-Words-Have-New-Meaning/dp/B0GDFT9WL3/ref=sr_1_1?