When my wife's father passed, a few of her friends came over to the house, and without asking, just started to clean. She was catatonic in grief at the time, and this broke her out of it. She was beyond grateful, and holds those friends in the highest regard today.
So I - with my engineer brain - thought I had this grief thing figured out. Just be helpful, do the little things that nobody wants to do. Don't give meaningless platitudes. Don't bring food, there's enough of that. Etc.
Fast forward, a good friend lost his sister last year. A few days after the funeral I went over to his house and started mowing his lawn. He was pissed, maybe more angry than I'd ever seen him. He just wanted me to come by with a 6-pack and watch a game.
My wife loves a clean house, it is big part of her identity. Her friends knew/know that about her. My friend didn't actually care about his lawn, but he adores baseball, and loved watching Cubs games with his sister.
Grief isn't one-size-fits-all and helping people isn't paint-by-numbers.
Maybe letting your friend get pissed off at you was part of the process. You sound hurt by it, and that's fair, but maybe your mowing his lawn helped him more than you think.
Can't even imagine how it feels to lose your wife. I lost my sister a few years ago to cancer. In the 6 months before her death I visited 3 times a week because I could work on the train, and cycle from the station. I'd work at her house, cook lunch and chat. Then I'd cycle to the train and come back home. Simply being there, working, and having occasional chatter was huge for her. Her husband still had to work (unlike tech workers, most people have to "be there" for work, and few can simply drop with because a family member is dying, slowly, over months or years). After she died, i continued making my journey, but this time I was doing it for him. Spending evenings doing absolutely nothing, just listening to music, playing with their kid, talking crap, having a beer. I did that for almost a year, until things started to feel somewhat normal.
It might seem counter, but if you can make therapy available or more accessible to them without forcing them into going - if you can foot the cost, give them a ride, even just get referrals - that's massive. Hospice services also sometimes include check-ins from a social worker that eventually lead to a more tailored referral to a therapist, if one would seem to help.
I have heard that flowers are the absolute worst thing to send for exactly the reason you’ve mentioned. I am sorry you did not have the social support that might have made a small difference.
One of the only good memories from a particularly terrible job was them sending me a really nice flowering potted plant when my grandmother passed. It was extra thoughtful because it was low maintenance and hardy.
Hear them grieve. The release of strong emotion is important. It's a sharing of pain, and in that telling there is also bonding through shared experiences.
Spend time with them. Being alone can amplify strong emotions and can lead to dangerous behavior. Just being there helps. And like hearing them, having been there counts. It's a shared thing, a bond, that brings strength to all involved.
Help meet basic needs. Food, comforts, house work, and all the little things matter. Grieving people lack energy and a little boost can help them get through a day.
Getting through a day, especially the first day, matters a lot. Each day they get through sees the grief play out a little bit at a time. The early times are most important! Grief and it's impact on people is most potent at the onset.
And don't force things, unless it's absolutely necessary. An example might be not leaving a parent alone after they have learned a child committed suicide. I did that recently. No, not my loss, but a close friend of the family. Their grief is profound, and leaving them alone unwise. If you are faced with this, be a great human and do your best. There are no easy or right answers. Just caring and sharing.
I'm a bereaved father, who lost his only child 5 years ago.
If it's the loss if of their child, bring up the child by name. Yes, it will trigger some emotions in the bereaved, but it also lets them know that someone else remembers their child's life.
Other than that, perhaps help them seek out a formal self-help support group if they are so inclined. The Compassionate Friends -- such a group supporting relatives after a child dies -- is one good example for my case. My wife and I think that TCF really helped us. I'm sure there are similar groups for other bereavement situations.
Don't expect them to ever "be the same" again. They most likely can't be...
Something I heard was that there is no point trying to avoid mentioning the dead person out of year of reminding them - because they are thinking about them all the time anyway. So by mentioning them at least you are making that a shared experience which is much less lonely.
I've heard the advice that better than saying "let me know if there's anything I can do", is to additionally suggest things you could do for the person rather than leaving the burden on them.
I second the suggestion to bring food; ideally something that can be kept in the freezer if they're being inundated by food right now.
Or if you're a neighbor you could offer to walk their dog, or drive their kids to/from school with yours. Anything you can think of that makes sense for you to do that might take some of their burdens off their shoulders for a bit.
>I've heard the advice that better than saying "let me know if there's anything I can do", is to additionally suggest things you could do for the person rather than leaving the burden on them.
A lot of people told me to move on. That was probably technically correct, but seemed like the worst thing I could imagine - not feeling terrible about myself.
My uncle’s brother died long ago, so he told me something of the opposite - that I would think about this every day of my life. But it had to become a piece of me, and not the whole me. And that I’ll never be able to reconcile the rest of my life, but I could, right now, set a timer and do something for the next five minutes. Like physically move 10 yards to sit on the lawn. And then a new place for the next five minutes. Write something down. Start with single words when sentences are too ambitious. Read one page from a book and then rest.
The gains from each tiny step in one direction add up. The focus is intense, like an addict. At the end of a year, I wasn’t just running marathons, I was winning marathons. It could have gone better, but it definitely could have gone a lot worse.
Jews have a tradition of Shiva (7 days where the bereaved stays home, and people visit them). The advice given in Shiva is don't talk, just listen.
If they talk, then respond based on what they said. In particular if they are telling stories (sharing memories) about the deceased, then you should as well, if you have any. Don't talk too much (especially not about yourself), but sharing memories is good, if they are, or if they seem to want to hear more.
If they are silent, then you also stay silent, and just be there.
If they seem uncomfortable in the silence, but don't know how to talk, then share a memory of the deceased, but you should not talk too much. You are not there to entertain them, nor are you there to "take their mind off things".
Do NOT make them host you!!! They should not be cooking food for you, and bringing you a chair, or anything like that. You should do it for them. They should just be there, with people around them.
Also, don't overdo it. People want time with others, and they want time alone. With Shiva the mourners are recommended to set a schedule saying when they want visitors, so they can control how much time they want alone vs accompanied, and it also lowers the burden of hosting, since they don't have to always be ready for a visitor. (Some people do an hour a day, others 5 hours or more.)
>Jews have a tradition of Shiva (7 days where the bereaved stays home, and people visit them). The advice given in Shiva is don't talk, just listen.
This.
When one is grieving, let them set the agenda. Don't push them to do anything. Everyone processes grief differently, and we all need to come to the reality of our loss in our own way and our own time.
If you start making "suggestions" or trying to "help" someone process their grief without being invited to do so, all you're doing is adding to the stress of the situation, not alleviating it.
And this doesn't just apply to the grief of loss either. Sometimes (often), in times of stress, folks want/need to express themselves and often ask questions and express doubts.
That doesn't mean they actually want answers. Rather, they're expressing their thoughts and feelings and just need to do so without comment, judgement or suggestions as to how to "fix" the problem.
So just listen and give the grieving person what the specifically ask for. The most important thing is to actually be there.
That's a lesson that took me a long time to learn. I'm someone who tries to be empathetic and wants to "help" by creating a solution. But often it's not a solution that's needed or wanted, just an ear, a shoulder and no judgement.
I've been going through grief, and silence is the most annoying thing I encountered lately. People are so afraid to talk about death and grief, they believe that if they say something about it, you'll turn into tears, but that's wrong most of the time. People just don't know how to deal with hard feelings to the extent they just do not say anything. And this is painful, since it vanishes last bits of a person from life.
There's nothing wrong with death, people's reaction what makes it sad. And it's in your hands to make it meaningful and help other people with it.
Do not ever be silent about death: talk, ask, listen, share a grief and never forget about it.
There's a lot that could be said about different cultural beliefs and rituals around grief that contribute to this. At least in my very white, Christian (or lapsed Christian) circles, it's treated as some private burden to bear with immediate family only, which isn't easy if you have little or no other family. But I've seen so many other cultures, even very close ones in demographics but in other countries, where rituals - wakes,
jazz funerals, potluck memorials - bridge these gaps and give people meaningful tools to help connect over loss.
It's possible to adopt or create rituals, if others who are grieving are willing to participate. But it often seems like ones already in someone's culture "stick" the best.
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So I - with my engineer brain - thought I had this grief thing figured out. Just be helpful, do the little things that nobody wants to do. Don't give meaningless platitudes. Don't bring food, there's enough of that. Etc.
Fast forward, a good friend lost his sister last year. A few days after the funeral I went over to his house and started mowing his lawn. He was pissed, maybe more angry than I'd ever seen him. He just wanted me to come by with a 6-pack and watch a game.
My wife loves a clean house, it is big part of her identity. Her friends knew/know that about her. My friend didn't actually care about his lawn, but he adores baseball, and loved watching Cubs games with his sister.
Grief isn't one-size-fits-all and helping people isn't paint-by-numbers.
On day one I received dozens of bouquets of flowers and enough food to fill the fridge and freezer three times over.
On day fourteen all the flowers had died and the food gone bad. I received practically no phone calls or visitors in the months that followed.
If you want to support someone through grief just stay in contact with them regularly over an extended period of time.
Grieving takes a long time, and is a delicate, individual process. It takes years to fully process. Don't rush anyone who's grieving, ever.
Encourage them to get professional help if THEY feel like they need to. Don't immediately push them to see therapists.
I have heard that flowers are the absolute worst thing to send for exactly the reason you’ve mentioned. I am sorry you did not have the social support that might have made a small difference.
We had a fairly rich social life before she died, but many people just stopped keeping in touch.
Maybe they don't know what to say or feel uncomfortable around us now.
We are supporting a close family friend in the loss of their son. I will keep this in mind. They will need us and it is easy to let it slip.
Hear them grieve. The release of strong emotion is important. It's a sharing of pain, and in that telling there is also bonding through shared experiences.
Spend time with them. Being alone can amplify strong emotions and can lead to dangerous behavior. Just being there helps. And like hearing them, having been there counts. It's a shared thing, a bond, that brings strength to all involved.
Help meet basic needs. Food, comforts, house work, and all the little things matter. Grieving people lack energy and a little boost can help them get through a day.
Getting through a day, especially the first day, matters a lot. Each day they get through sees the grief play out a little bit at a time. The early times are most important! Grief and it's impact on people is most potent at the onset.
And don't force things, unless it's absolutely necessary. An example might be not leaving a parent alone after they have learned a child committed suicide. I did that recently. No, not my loss, but a close friend of the family. Their grief is profound, and leaving them alone unwise. If you are faced with this, be a great human and do your best. There are no easy or right answers. Just caring and sharing.
If it's the loss if of their child, bring up the child by name. Yes, it will trigger some emotions in the bereaved, but it also lets them know that someone else remembers their child's life.
Other than that, perhaps help them seek out a formal self-help support group if they are so inclined. The Compassionate Friends -- such a group supporting relatives after a child dies -- is one good example for my case. My wife and I think that TCF really helped us. I'm sure there are similar groups for other bereavement situations.
Don't expect them to ever "be the same" again. They most likely can't be...
I second the suggestion to bring food; ideally something that can be kept in the freezer if they're being inundated by food right now.
Or if you're a neighbor you could offer to walk their dog, or drive their kids to/from school with yours. Anything you can think of that makes sense for you to do that might take some of their burdens off their shoulders for a bit.
That is really good advice.
My uncle’s brother died long ago, so he told me something of the opposite - that I would think about this every day of my life. But it had to become a piece of me, and not the whole me. And that I’ll never be able to reconcile the rest of my life, but I could, right now, set a timer and do something for the next five minutes. Like physically move 10 yards to sit on the lawn. And then a new place for the next five minutes. Write something down. Start with single words when sentences are too ambitious. Read one page from a book and then rest.
The gains from each tiny step in one direction add up. The focus is intense, like an addict. At the end of a year, I wasn’t just running marathons, I was winning marathons. It could have gone better, but it definitely could have gone a lot worse.
Good luck soldier.
If they talk, then respond based on what they said. In particular if they are telling stories (sharing memories) about the deceased, then you should as well, if you have any. Don't talk too much (especially not about yourself), but sharing memories is good, if they are, or if they seem to want to hear more.
If they are silent, then you also stay silent, and just be there.
If they seem uncomfortable in the silence, but don't know how to talk, then share a memory of the deceased, but you should not talk too much. You are not there to entertain them, nor are you there to "take their mind off things".
Do NOT make them host you!!! They should not be cooking food for you, and bringing you a chair, or anything like that. You should do it for them. They should just be there, with people around them.
Also, don't overdo it. People want time with others, and they want time alone. With Shiva the mourners are recommended to set a schedule saying when they want visitors, so they can control how much time they want alone vs accompanied, and it also lowers the burden of hosting, since they don't have to always be ready for a visitor. (Some people do an hour a day, others 5 hours or more.)
This.
When one is grieving, let them set the agenda. Don't push them to do anything. Everyone processes grief differently, and we all need to come to the reality of our loss in our own way and our own time.
If you start making "suggestions" or trying to "help" someone process their grief without being invited to do so, all you're doing is adding to the stress of the situation, not alleviating it.
And this doesn't just apply to the grief of loss either. Sometimes (often), in times of stress, folks want/need to express themselves and often ask questions and express doubts.
That doesn't mean they actually want answers. Rather, they're expressing their thoughts and feelings and just need to do so without comment, judgement or suggestions as to how to "fix" the problem.
So just listen and give the grieving person what the specifically ask for. The most important thing is to actually be there.
That's a lesson that took me a long time to learn. I'm someone who tries to be empathetic and wants to "help" by creating a solution. But often it's not a solution that's needed or wanted, just an ear, a shoulder and no judgement.
It's possible to adopt or create rituals, if others who are grieving are willing to participate. But it often seems like ones already in someone's culture "stick" the best.