In the devastating crime film Wind River (directed by Taylor Sheridan, Lionsgate, 2017), a man who has already lost his own daughter finds another young woman’s dead body in the snow. Throughout the film, Cory Lambert is alone in his own grief and overcome with a need for retribution. “Lambert has shouldered the burden of his grief by himself. Lambert’s marriage has ended, his son is usually with his mother, and he spends his days silently hunting wildlife on the very reservation where his daughter breathed her last. In every corner of Lambert’s life for nearly the entire film, he finds aloneness. Yet in the final scene of Wind River, the two mourning fathers are side by side. ‘I just want to sit here and miss her for a minute; will you sit with me?’ the most recently bereaved father asks, Native American ‘death paint’ adorning his face. Lambert sits with him as the film ends. It is not the moments of exacting vengeance that have brought him comfort, though he speaks of them with the hope that they will, but the silent presence of another person after his years of mourning in isolation” (Abby Perry, “‘Sit with Me’: Currents of Grief in Wind River,” Christ and Pop Culture, October 13, 2017, https://christandpopculture.com/sit-currents-grief-wind-river/). We often cannot overcome our pain all alone. More than any other thing we may offer to the struggling, being present and validating the very real feelings that grief brings can be the best way to support someone.
