DON’T Say This

10/21/2014

Taboo Topics When Someone Dies–Part 1, Politics

Some topics are off-limits when a friend is grieving. Do you remember the classic dinner conversation advice given to prospective business associates (or future in-laws)? “Never discuss politics, religion, or money.”  Keep this in mind as a starting point, but to support mourning friends I recommend expanding the list.

Unless the mourner asks you, or unless it pertains to your already established professional relationship, don’t bring up politics, religion, money, physical appearance, or legal status. 

The rest of this post tells why you shouldn’t bring up POLITICS.*

Keep in mind that no matter how devoted the bereaved (and/or the deceased) may have been to a cause in the past, the surviving loved ones’ world has changed. It doesn’t matter that you and your coworker may have made lively political debates as much a part of daily lunch breaks as clocking out and back in again. For your grieving friend, in the initial shock of new grief, community or state, national, and even global concerns may shift into a distant blur.

Grief’s omnipresence overwhelms other concerns. To the newly bereaved, issues of political concern aren’t spelled P-O-L-I-T-I-C-S; they’re spelled P–loss–O–grief–L–loss–I–grief–T–loss–I–grief–C–loss–S–grief. (If that seems hard for you to read, think about how hard it is for your grieving friend to live.)

Perhaps the deceased was actively involved in political processes (campaigning, debating, petitioning, running for office, or simply following the nuances of opposing parties’ claims). Survivors may feel impelled to take up their loved one’s unfinished work and step into their footsteps — or they may actively avoid the entire realm of politics. Such activities may be far too painful (“too close to home”) as they grieve and adjust. Persuading (or worse, guilt-tripping) mourners to step into (or out of) the political arena does them a disservice. No one representing a political cause (or party) has the right to claim what the deceased “would have wanted.” Ever.

On the other hand, some survivors may need to immerse themselves in political processes. Perhaps circumstances surrounding the death of their loved one could have been prevented had legislation, policy, or decision makers been different. Working and fighting for related changes can be therapeutic and can help grievers direct or channel their pain — not remove or heal it.

If your mourning friend approaches you, by all means listen! Offer to help if you see the point of the changes they want to make. However, if you disagree (and when it comes to political matters, even reasonable, like-minded people can have passionately divergent opinions!), now is not the time to argue or debate the issues with the bereaved. For the mourner, the politics and the emotions may be inseparable, so don’t go there.

My husband loved our country’s political process. He watched (and argued at) the televised debates. He was passionate (and a bit one-sided) about campaigns and platforms. One of the things he loved about me was that I took the time to study the issues on the ballots and the candidates running for office prior to every election. After his death, it took what felt like superhuman strength to do even the most superficial research and to decide issues. I could not (and still can’t) abide the rancor of the adversarial debates. It was (and still is) repellent. Yes, I know the issues are important, but the mud-slinging is too great a reminder that “life’s too short” for that much anger.

___

*I’ll talk about the other taboo topics — religion, money, physical appearance, and legal status — in upcoming posts. (And yes, I appreciate the irony of talking about things you shouldn’t talk about.)

06/27/2014

Comfort after Mom’s Funeral

When my mom’s mother died, I was a preteen child. I remember looking up as grandma’s best friend put her arms around my mom and cried along with her. Through her own tears, she told my mom, “I know I’ll never replace your mother, but I’ll try to mother you for her.”

Twenty years later, after my mom’s funeral, that same dear woman (who was then widowed and had long since become Mom’s best friend) embraced me and said, “I know how much it hurt when I lost my mama. It has been years and years, and sometimes it still breaks me up. I won’t tell you it will stop hurting, because you never lose the hurt when you miss the ones you love. But it won’t always hurt as much or as deeply as it does now. One day you’ll feel the sweetness of your love as much as the pain.”

I found comfort in her acknowledgement of my grief. Her words validated the pain I felt. They promised I wouldn’t forget the love I’d always felt from my mom. They assured my love for her would remain significant, even in her absence.

In that time and place of acute, agonizing new loss, I didn’t want to hear anything that diminished the significance of my grief.

  • I knew I wasn’t the only person to have had a loved one die, but I didn’t want my grief compared to theirs.
  • It was helpful to hear, “I know how much I hurt when my mom died. I’m here for you,” but it never helped to hear people say, “I know exactly how you feel,” because they didn’t lose my mother.
  • I was grateful that Mom no longer suffered from the cancer that killed her, but I hated hearing other people say, “At least she’s not suffering anymore.” 
  • I fully believed then and continue to believe now that my mother’s soul IS “in a better place,” but it felt hurtful and trite to hear would-be consolers say, “You can take comfort that she’s in a better place now,” because the important, essential fact was that she was gone.

I didn’t want to hear that I would stop hurting, because in that moment of bereavement when my LOSS surrounded me, the pain of mourning preserved my connection to Mom. To think of not missing her or to consider that I might stop mourning her felt like thinking of dismissing the bond between us and dismissing the significance of her role in my life.

I was pregnant with our second daughter when Dad’s mother died, and I was pregnant with our youngest daughter when my mom died. I can’t count how many well-meaning souls attempted to console me by saying, “At least you have the new baby to look forward to,” as if I should be content and ignore my grief because welcoming a new life should “undo” my bereavement over the end of my grandmother’s life — and then over my mother’s. As much as I glowed and grinned in the anticipation of each child’s arrival, I grieved for their yet-unborn losses, too, knowing they’d never get to know their great-grandma who’d nurtured and inspired me as much in my adulthood as she had in my childhood. I mourned for my youngest, that she’d never know the grandmother who’d rejoiced in putting as much loving energy into her too-brief years of grand-mothering as she’d put into decades of mothering me.

The condolences that offered me the greatest comfort in my new, raw grief (as a granddaughter, a daughter, and more recently as a widow) were the simplest, most spontaneous and heartfelt expressions of acknowledgment:

  • I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your loss. I’m so sorry to learn of the death of your mother, your grandmother, your husband.
  • I wish I knew what to say. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.
  • This is awful news. I’m devastated for you.
  • I’m keeping you in my thoughts. You’re in my prayers.
06/14/2014

Another Father’s Day–DANG IT!

Father’s Day. For three weeks I’ve written, revised, and discarded post after post, trying to decide what to say. It’s the night before, and I still don’t know …

I’m blessed and grateful that my dad is still here. He lives nearby and continues to be a rock of solid reliability. I can’t remember him ever directing an unkind gesture or a loud word my way (though when he spoke my full name in a certain tone I knew I’d crossed the line).

When I was a young, naive newlywed I remember my mother once telling me she hoped I appreciated how lucky we both were to have such good, kind men in our lives. I thought at the time that I did fully appreciate it.

Looking back now, I see how clueless I was, how little I understood. Since then I’ve seen glimpses, peeks at the hardships inflicted on many women and children because of the actions (and because of the failings) of the men in their lives.

So again I acknowledge how blessed I’ve been — how blessed I am.

And yet …

It’s another Father’s Day — DANG IT! — and my husband, the father of my children, is dead. This is our fourth without him. You’d think I’d be “used to it by now.” I thought I would, too. (It took years, but eventually I got “used to” the absence of my wonderful grandfathers. Sort of.)

But I’m not used to it. Not at all. Chances are that the widows and widowers you know, the mourning parents and the bereaved children of your acquaintance, or the grieving coworkers in your office aren’t “over it by now,” either.

Here are a few things you can do to show them your support:

  • Say something. A text, a call, a private message, or a note can be brief. “I’m thinking of you today/this weekend.”
  • Take the kids of a widower shopping so they can do something special for their daddy who’s trying to do two parents’ jobs.
  • Take a small treat to a widow (and her kids) “just because” to let them know they’re thought of on a day when they’re even more aware (if that’s possible) of their loss than on other days.
  • Let them know their loved ones aren’t forgotten — and neither are they.
  • Invite and include (with sensitivity). If the kids in the troop are doing a daddy-daughter or father-son activity, TALK TO their widowed mother. ASK if she’d like a surrogate parent or relative to “step in” for the event or if she’d like to attend with her child. (The same applies to asking widowers about activities geared toward moms.)
  • Listen. Whether the death happened recently or years ago, sometimes the bereaved need to share memories of their loved ones or feelings about their loss.
  • Ask instead of assuming.
    • “Are there ways I can help you with …?”
    • “Would you like me to …?”
    • “Would you like to talk about …?”
  • Don’t dismiss or diminish their grieving.
    NEVER say:

    • “At least …” anything. (Saying “at least” literally makes it seem as if the loss isn’t that important to the speaker, so why should it be so important to the bereaved?)
    • “You should …” OR “You shouldn’t …”
      (No one has the right to tell someone else how to go about the emotions or the business of grieving.)
    • “I know what you’re going through.” (Each loss is unique.)

You can’t “fix” your friends’ grief, but you can — and should — comfort them by letting them know you support them in it.

 

04/23/2014

Never Tell Mourners You Know How They Feel

Yesterday I heard the umpteen-hundredth expression of “I know what you’re going through.” I felt as angry this time as I have every time well-meaning people sympathized with the same sentiment over the last three and a half years. Equally infuriating is hearing “I know exactly how you feel.”

stop telling mourners you know how they feel, grief, teal scarf, hand stop, orange tree, TealAshes.com

Stop telling mourners you know how they feel — even if you think you do. (photo of and by Teresa TL Bruce, TealAshes.com)

No, you don’t.

I’ve attempted civility by biting my tongue. (Yesterday I bit my lips together, too.) When in person, I’ve tried to neutralize my facial expression and body language, and over the phone I’ve modulated my voice with care. Grief (and repeated experience over and over and over) can inspire Academy Award-worthy performances, I’ve learned.

Inside my head, though, each time someone tells me they “know” how I feel, my honest response is more visceral than a simple “No, you don’t.” Fight-or-flight takes over. My heart hammers as claws and fangs extend, my legs tense as if readying to spring, and my mouth screams, snarls, and spits the red-inked, italicized, underlined, highlighted, bold-faced, all caps reply: NO! YOU. DON’T. KNOW!

Even at my most feral moments, I acknowledge that most of those who say such things are trying to relate their pain to mine. They want to empathize, which is a good thing. Their claims, however, do the opposite. Asserting their acquaintanceship with my deeply personal pain and my struggles through grieving minimizes the unique nature of my loss, and minimizing a mourner’s experience is never a good thing. Never. Not ever.

Every relationship is unique, so no two losses are the same. When a person loses a loved one, that loss colors every aspect of life. It creates irrevocable change. It is devastating and overwhelming and pervasive and personal. When I was newly widowed, very few widowers or widows made such a claim to me. Instead, they acknowledged aspects of my loss that they didn’t share. Rather than minimizing my experience by comparison to their own, they validated the multifaceted components of my overturned, grief-ridden world.

Need an example of what offered helpful acknowledgement rather than hurtful comparison? Here are a few:

  • “I can’t imagine what you’re going through. It must be awful that you didn’t have the chance to say goodbye.”
  • “I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I know it isn’t the same, but I know how badly I hurt over my husband’s death.”
  • “I wish I could say something to make it better, but I know my words can’t help. I’m here to listen to you.”
  • “When my husband died we’d already raised our kids and retired. I can’t imagine what this is like for you.”
  • “I lost my [loved one of whatever relationship], but I know it isn’t the same. I’m so sorry.”

As I recalled and wrote the examples above, I thought, “How bleak they sound …” The truth is that in the bleakest of life’s circumstances — the loss of a loved one — the most easily absorbed consolation comes in compassionate yet dispassionate commiseration. There will be time for cheering and lightening in the weeks and months and years to come (so stick around to help provide that in its eventual time), but in the meantime, in the immediacy of the misery of the loss, acknowledging the darkness will help your friend adjust better than stories of how you made it through your own dark times — unless your friend asks for them.

You don’t know what a mourner is going through — even if you think you do. In fact, the same should be said of other sources of trial and bereavement in life. Death isn’t the only cause of grief; a true friend will acknowledge the unique, acute, life-altering nature of the bereaved’s pain.

Michelle L. wrote “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know“ for the Segullah.org blog on April 17, 2014. While her writing addresses other kinds of life trials facing “broken and struggling families,” her admonitions equally apply to comforting and supporting the bereaved. With her permission to share this, I’m quoting Michelle L.’s main points below, but please visit her post (http://segullah.org/daily-special/you-dont-know-what-you-dont-know/) to see the full text.

  1. If you read nothing else, remember this: extend love; refrain from judgment.
  2. Don’t even talk about taking sides. … When a family is destroyed, there isn’t a side to take.
  3. You don’t know what you don’t know. Don’t make assumptions. 
  4. Offer kindness to those who are broken. The very best words to say: “I’m so sorry you are hurting.”
  5. Avoid trite phrases. 
  6. Your experience doesn’t translate into mine. 
  7. Don’t make assumptions about anyone’s spiritual state. 
  8. Statistics don’t matter. 
  9. Don’t offer advice or chastisement. 
  10. Talk about other subjects. Look beyond the wounds to the whole person. 
03/28/2014

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the Washington Mudslide, and Other Tragic Headlines Bring Grief Home Again 

One look at grieving faces on the TV news sucks me backward to 3 1/2 years ago. The agonized sobs in sound bites shove me once more into that bleak, table-sized, hospital waiting room. Again I feel the doctor’s unthinkable, impossible, unbearable words rip into my heart and shred my world. In the days, weeks, and months that followed that moment, one odd symptom of my grief was that I couldn’t bear looking in the mirror. It only took a glance to see the grief that covered my features more completely than any mask could do. Mourning permeated my pores and rewrote the face they formed.

In earlier years I’d known families forever altered by publicly acknowledged deaths. Unavoidable traffic accidents and, in one case, intentional homicide, made their personal, private bereavement subject to local news coverage.* I’d witnessed their grief up close, but I shared only a thin shadow of a sliver of the pain of their losses. I remembered how I’d felt after the expected passings of my grandparents — and my mother — and after the unexpected death of my young adult cousin. I knew my own pain, but I also knew it differed from those families’ pain in their losses.

Now, in the present, I don’t know any of the  passengers and crew who went down with Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370; I’m not acquainted with any Washington residents impacted by the massive mudslide. Yet I recognize the faces of the survivors. I once wore similar expressions of shock and horror. I’ve felt that intense, disbelieving grief that colored both the appearance and the perceptions of my eyes.

Even so, I do not claim to understand their losses. I do NOT understand their losses. Even other survivors who share the same tragic circumstances alongside them do not fully understand one another’s losses, because every loss is unique.

Let me repeat: EVERY loss is unique. Some aspects of grieving are universal, though. Remember these points when your friends grieve lost loved ones:

  1. Acknowledge the loss. (A simple, sincere expression of “I’m sorry” is one way.) Follow up with them over the lonely weeks, months, and years ahead, particularly around the date of the death. Let them know you remember their loved ones, too, and that you remember the significance of the timing.
  2. Don’t make their loss about you and your woes. Supporting the bereaved means listening, not counseling, advising, comparing, or admonishing. Every person grieves differently, and such un-listening communications invalidate the bereaved for their ways. Don’t feel the need to fill contemplative silences, either. (What you perceive as uncomfortable may be comforting simply because you are there.)
  3. Find specific, physical ways to show your support, then act on them. Whether families are in shock over a sudden death or drained from the exhaustion of care-taking prior to an expected death, survivors will find it difficult (if not impossible) to carry out the day-to-day tasks of living. Even if they realize they need help, they may not be capable of asking for it. Asking, “Do you need any help?” is likely to get a negative reply, even if the need is dire. Lend a hand (with meal preparation, grocery shopping, laundry, child care, transportation, yard work, car maintenance, dish washing …). Don’t ask, “Can I help you with ___?” Instead say, “I’d like to help you with ___. Is today okay, or would it be better [give a specific alternative time]?”
  4. Avoid platitudes; bite your tongue on most of the “condolence” phrases that come to mind. To grieving ears they sound trite and insincere. (Some are even offensive, though their speakers intend them kindly.) To the bereaved, life does not “go on” as it did before, the cemetery or crematorium is not “a better place” for their loved ones, and whether or not the deceased is “at peace” does not diminish the survivors’ sense of loss.
  5. Let them know your thoughts are ongoing. Grieving is difficult, painful, lonely work, and it can help to know others are aware of that. Be specific in expressing your support:
    “I’m thinking of you and your family daily.”
    “You’re in my prayers.”
    “My Thursday morning prayer group will pray for you every week.”
    “I’m sending positive energy your way during my daily walks.”
  6. Where appropriate, offer financial support. Even small sums can make a big difference for families struggling to pay funerary costs and adjust to a lost source of income, too.
  7. Ask if they’d like to tell you about their loved ones. Give them “permission” to talk about them and say their names. Sometimes people fear that bringing up the name(s) of the deceased will bring sorrow, but in most cases the opposite is true. Offer the bereaved the chance to talk about their feelings if they wish, but don’t badger them into conversation.
  8. Don’t push your expectations of timing onto grieving survivors. Avoid words such as “still,” “already,” “yet,” “by now,” or “when.” Grief has no timetable, and grieving takes much longer than most people realize unless they’ve experienced a similar loss. Even then, some relationships, because of private concerns, may leave more complex grief issues to be resolved than others.
  9. Remember that nothing you do will “fix” their grief. You can’t bring back their loved one or make their lives “normal” again. Normal is gone. All you can do is offer your unconditional support, understanding, and strength as they make the most difficult adjustments of their lives.
  10. Repeat all of the above. The so-called “stages” of grief wax and wane. As bereaved family members slowly adjust to the shock of their losses, new situations and circumstances will arise that send them back to earlier, more intense phases. Your long-term, ongoing support will be as important in the future as your immediate actions will be now.

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*See Grief Is Not a Spectator Sport