helpful resources

02/01/2014

“How to Help Others” by Hope for the Broken-Hearted

This morning I discovered one of the most comprehensive pages I’ve yet seen in my search for others’ writings about what to say after someone dies — and what not to say. Although I add such links to my “Helpful Grief Resources” page whenever I find them, such updates aren’t publicized the way regular postings are.

The page I found this morning offers so much information I just had to “shout it” here:

“How to Help Others” by Debbie Kay
at Hope for the Broken-Hearted
http://hopeforthebrokenhearted.com/how-to-help-others/

The page is a long one, with many, many ideas. I hope you won’t let its length deter you from studying the suggestions offered by its writer. Included in the subheadings are:

  • Comments to avoid
  • Suggestions for practical assistance
  • Taking the initiative in offering help
  • Holiday support for grievers
  • Warning signs (where grief and depression overlap)
  • Misconceptions about suicide
  • Many, many resource links to sites specializing in grief (including both general and specific “types” of grief, such as military-related, loss of a child, widowhood, chronic illness, and end of life care)

If you’re reading this because someone you care about has lost a loved one, you’ve already taken a great step toward offering comfort. You care enough to learn what will help — and what will not.  Now take another step (or two). Browse through my posts, and please visit the links on my Helpful Resources page*. Then take the most important step: show your friend you care.

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*Please note: I do not receive any tangible compensation by posting the links I share on my site and on my “Helpful Resources” page. I have, however, benefited by friendly correspondence with some of the writers whose works I’ve admired and shared — and who have also shared mine.

01/28/2014

Do NOT Say These to a Bereaved Parent–or Any Other Mourner

Grieving the death of a loved one defies description. It hurts, disrupts, distracts, eviscerates, overturns, and shatters. When the Reaper removes a dear one from your friend’s life, that life is forever changed–and so is your friend.

Even others who’ve experienced a loss of similar devastation can imagine only a fraction of what your bereaved friend now faces. Every relationship between souls is unique, as is each loss.

Some principles, however, apply to comforting the bereaved in almost all situations. The link below is to a post called “6 Things Never to Say to a Bereaved Parent.” The writer, Angela Miller, tells exactly how some of the most commonly used but least helpful platitudes come across to mourning souls. Regardless of the kind of loss your friend has experienced, please read her article for helpful insights into what NOT to say.

(I’m summarizing her main points below, but please, please see her article in full!)

  1. Do NOT say “Time heals all wounds.”
  2. Do NOT say “Let go … Move on.”
  3. Do NOT say “Have faith.”
  4. Do NOT say “Everything happens for a reason.”
  5. Do NOT say “At least…”
  6. Do NOT say “Be thankful.”

I’ve not experienced the death of a child, so I don’t claim to know that pain. I do know that in each of the losses of my own life, the sentiments Ms. Miller describes are similar to what I felt and to what friends have expressed their feelings to be. (Please, please read her full article.)

12/13/2013

“Other” Grief (Not Triggered by Death)

For a while I’ve mentally composed this post about “other” grief triggered not by death but by different forms of loss. Not every person has experienced the death of a loved one (yet), but anyone mature enough to read these words has likely suffered their own significant losses, perhaps even grieved them.

If you’ve lost a job, you may have grieved the loss of income or the loss of stability. You may have grieved losing access to the company car (or to the “hottie” in the next cubicle). It didn’t matter that you–or your friends– “knew” you’d find another (source of funds, transportation, or “admiree”). What mattered in your moments of pain was that the situation was awful. It hurt. Long after you may have found your dream job, memories of that loss can still bring pain.

If you’ve lost your health, you may have grieved that loss. Whether illness impacted the whole sum of your parts or injury impaired the function in some of those parts, you might’ve grieved its physical (and/or emotional) pains. Even temporary conditions (a broken leg, a bout of the flu during vacation, a severe allergic reaction …) can trigger acute grief, though it soon fades. More life-altering diagnoses (an amputated limb, a loss of sight or hearing, a metabolic or mental condition, or the awful C-word — cancer …) can cause feelings of grief and despair that may take years to overcome. Life-altering means just that: life is never the same again.

These sources of grief are no less “real” than the death of a loved one. Your friend, relative, neighbor, coworker, random acquaintance or even your arch enemy who stumbles into such sources of “other” grief needs your kindness and understanding. You can apply tips from my related posts — and from sites listed on my Helpful Grief Resources page — to help you support them through whatever crises they face.

In some instances, their grief will be short-lived. They’ll find a better job or have their cast signed by a favorite celebrity. They’ll schedule another “once in a lifetime” trip in place of the one they spent puking instead of parasailing. They’ll heal. In other cases, the grief may linger long after you have “gotten over it” in their behalf; they are the ones still working their ways through the traumas. In either case, the most important grief to your grieving friends is whatever loss they are are feeling right now.

By all means, when comforting your friends, remember how you felt when you grieved your own “other” grief. You may not be a cat person, but you can remember the loss of your childhood dog to help you console the friends who mourn their cat. Draw upon the pain you once felt to help you relate to theirs. But don’t compare it aloud. Comforting them is about them and their pain, not about you and yours.

Has this reminded you of your own “other” grief? If so, please scroll down and share what it was (or is). What helped (or didn’t help) you deal with your “other” loss?