I have a friend at my clinical school who is a firefly – he cheers up everything he touches, wherever he goes. Whenever he laughs, everyone around him laughs, it’s one of those infectious ones where even if you didn’t find something that funny or didn’t quite get the joke, just the sound of his laugh makes the thing funnier and you begin to laugh yourself. He has a set of amazing white teeth and when he smiles you can see them all like little stars in the light and sometimes I wonder if they shine in the dark, like a portable torch.

One day I was mentally and emotionally drained, I had been scrubbed in for a long surgery and the prognosis wasn’t good, and as I sat in the common room dehydrated, sore and sleep-deprived, I thought of how devastating the news would be to the patient when they woke up, and my eyes began to well up and threatened to overflow when he walked in.

He noticed my concern, sat down next to me asked me what was wrong and when I told him he listened, really listened, not the listening most people do when they go mm-hmm and ask vague questions and tell you what you should do, he instead put his hands on my shoulder and let me pour my heart out while he sat next to me quietly and that was all I wanted. When I finished he simply sat with me for a bit, holding space, and didn’t say Everything will be all right, or You should cheer up, but rather that it was fine to mourn, it was even natural to mourn, because the people you care about deserve to be mourned over, it is a testament to who they are and what they have meant to the world, it is a recognition of their worth and place in your heart, that if something bad happens to a friend you should be upset, that love and its pain are what make us human.

When he said these things I was glad because he was able to put words to my emotions, and this made them more manageable to deal with, but more importantly, I was touched that he chose to spend close to one hour with me and carry my burden, when he could’ve easily ignored me and gone home to his own bucket of struggles and responsibilities.

I am lucky to know people who are fireflies: my partner, this friend and a few others, these are people who are beautiful during the day, but really shine when life feels unbearable and void of meaning. Their role is to provide a light, to reaffirm one’s place in the world and to guide one out of the darkness. To the outside, it doesn’t appear they are doing much, they may simply be sitting there, or patting one’s back, or listening intently, but inside, magic is happening, for these small acts of service are often enough to light a small but steady flame.

To my firefly friends, this one’s for you.