HELP FOR THE HELPER
Most people want to support a grieving person in truly meaningful ways. If you are one of them, you might now feel remorse for having inadvertently hurt a grieving friend with something you said or did not say, something you did or did not do. If you had known better, you would have done better. You will know better now.
Let me begin by addressing the question that most haunts those about to encounter a grieving person: “What should I say?”
Here is the answer: “I’m very sorry.”
That’s all that is necessary. Really. Just mean it and then be quiet — even if you are so desperate to be helpful that you just want to keep talking.
Here’s what not to do.
• Don’t assume your experience or religious beliefs will be relevant to a bereaved person or that he or she needs educating about grief.
• Don’t question the length or intensity of a person’s grief, which might imply that a person is grieving in a “wrong” way.
• Don’t assume that your grief experience is the same as the bereaved person’s, and never compare one loss to another.
• Don’t compliment the bereaved about their strength or courage or tell them they seem to be “holding up well.” Appearances can be deceiving, and saying this could create an expectation that they should be “doing well.” That, in turn, could drive their true feelings underground.
• Don’t give advice unless it is specifically requested. Our usual inclination when we hear a problem or someone in distress is to assume that advice is being asked for. Instead, I suggest the following listening rule: never give advice and you will rarely be wrong in your response.
• And finally, avoid clichés.
The following are the most common clichés, separated into three groups. This first group implies that there should be a timetable for grief.
“Time heals all wounds.”
“You have to move on.”
“Grief happens in stages.”
“I hope you find closure.”
The next clichés are by-products of our culture of positivity.
“Be strong.”
“He wouldn’t want you to be sad.”
“It’s important to stay busy and productive.”
“You can’t dwell in the past.”
“Count your blessings.”
“Others have it worse.”
“This will make you stronger.”
“You seem to be holding up really well.”
“Look for the silver lining.”
“I know just how you feel.”
“You have your whole life ahead of you.”
“At least you’re young enough to have another child/remarry.”
Finally, religious platitudes imply that a faithful person should not mourn.
“God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“He/she is in a better place.”
“It was her/his time to go.”
“My thoughts and prayers are with you” might not be a cliché per se, but it is uttered so often that the words have lost meaning. The same is true for, “Let me know if there is anything I can do.” The offer is rarely sincere, and a grieving person knows it. Comedian George Carlin imagined a bereaved person replying, “Yeah, you can come over this weekend and paint my garage.”
If you want to help, be specific and follow through. Arrange meals, transport children, or mow the grass. A friend shared this story of a family doctor in a small town in the Midwest. Whenever a death occurred, the doctor would come knocking at the door of the bereaved. He was there to collect the shoes to be worn for the funeral.
“I’ll polish them and have them back to you in plenty of time,” the doctor said.
As the shoes were gathered up, he would sit, listen, and console and then head off with his bag of shoes. The doctor, his wife, and children would polish and buff and carefully wrap the shoes in butcher paper to be dropped off the next morning. It got to the point that the doctor no longer needed to ask. Unpolished shoes would be waiting for him on the front porch whenever there was a death. Everyone knew that he would be by to pick them up.
I still feel gratitude for our friends who, after our son died, put a trip together to the mountains to get us out of town so we could rest from the long and intense nine months we had experienced. They knew just what to do for us.
To be a true comfort, you must be able to meet the grieving person wherever they are, even if you find their behavior foreign to your experience or personal comfort. The charming little movie Lars and the Real Girl has much to teach in that regard.
The title character is a withdrawn and socially impaired young man who lives in a small Wisconsin town. His parents are dead, so he lives in the garage apartment owned by his brother and sister-in-law, who watch out for him. Lars is terrified of intimacy and keeps mostly to himself.
Then, on a whim, Lars orders a life-sized female doll from an adult website, calling her Bianca. Their relationship is chaste but intimate. Lars finally has someone he can talk to. Their bond is such that Lars asks his brother if he can bring a date to dinner. The brother is delighted at the prospect but is then shocked when Lars walks in carrying a life-size doll.
The town doctor is consulted and suggests that the best thing for Lars is for the town to treat Bianca as if she were real, allowing time for Lars’s fantasy to run its course. The happy couple pop up all over and are greeted warmly. For the first time in his life, Lars feels like he is part of the community.
But then his love affair takes a tragic turn. In Lars’s fantasy, Bianca comes down with a terminal illness. Women bring their knitting and food to Bianca’s death vigil.
“We brought casseroles,” they tell Lars.
“Is there something I should be doing?” he asks.
“No, dear,” one lady responds. “Just eat. That’s what people do when tragedy strikes. They come over and sit.”
At Bianca’s funeral, the small town church is full.
Broken down, the word compassion means “to suffer with” (com means “with” and passion means “to suffer”). Supporting a bereaved person means just that — deciding to enter into their pain.
According to Henri Nouwen,
Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.1
This is a tall order if ever there was one. How, exactly, do you show true compassion for a grieving person? Here are a few ideas.
Show up at the house, visitation, or funeral; express simple words of sorrow; and then let the mourning person dictate what happens next. She may open her arms for a hug, or she may clearly want to keep people at a distance. He may be calm or agitated. She may be jovial or weeping. He may want to talk about his loss or about baseball. She may be angry or grateful. Be with them wherever they are.
I define intimacy as truly knowing another person and being known. Being with a person in grief is a unique, one-way intimacy. You are there to know the grieving person but not to fix or make him or her feel better. Don’t try to move the bereaved from one emotional place to another to make yourself more comfortable. Be with them without an agenda. You may be more comfortable with a person’s anger than with their silence, or you may rather talk about sports than the accident — but this isn’t about you.
Listen with your eyes and respond with nods that convey, “I get it.”
Laugh with them when it’s time to laugh. Cry if tears come.
Be like Bob.
I learned about Bob from my client, Casey, an intensely shy man of forty who was overwhelmed by the attention he received after the death of his mother.
“The night after she died, there was huge crowd at the house. Every time I turned around, someone wanted to hug me,” Casey told me. “Most people know I hate that, but I guess they figured that under the circumstances, it would be different. It got to where I would step away from people when they put their arms out.”
Bob, his old friend, was different.
“The moment I saw him, I relaxed,” Casey said. “He just stuck out his hand and told me he was sorry. Then he drifted off so someone else could say hello. A little while later, I noticed Bob standing by himself, sipping a soda, like he was biding his time. After a few minutes, he came over and said: ‘It’s kind of stuffy in here. How about some air?’ He realized before I did that the walls were closing in.”
“We went out back and sat on a couple of lawn chairs,” Casey continued. “I swear, he never said a word. We just sat there looking at the stars and listening to the wind. I think Bob knew I was overwhelmed with words by that point. The next thing I knew, I started to cry. He reached over and patted me on the back, but it was no big deal. After a few minutes, I said, ‘I guess I can go back in now.’ He said, ‘I’ll be around.’”
“He still makes a point of calling or sending me an email every so often,” Casey said. “We’ve spent a few nights out back, drinking beer. He never says all that much, just listens when I talk about my mom or whatever else is going on.”
Bob is a fine example of “companioning,” a wonderful verb coined by Alan Wolfelt, one of our leading writers on the topic of supporting the bereaved.
Companioning is about being present to another person’s pain; it is not about taking away the pain.
Companioning is about going to the wilderness of the soul with another human being; it is not about thinking you are responsible for finding the way out.
Companioning is about honoring the spirit; it is not about focusing on the intellect.
Companioning is about listening with the heart; it is not about analyzing with the head.
Companioning is about bearing witness to the struggles of others; it is not about judging or directing these struggles.
Companioning is about walking alongside; it is not about leading or being led.
Companioning means discovering the gifts of sacred silence; it does not mean filling up every moment with words.
Companioning is about being still; it is not about frantic movement forward.
Companioning is about respecting disorder and confusion; it is not about imposing order and logic.
Companioning is about learning from others; it is not about teaching them.
Companioning is about curiosity; it is not about expertise.2
Neuroscience now confirms what those of us in the counseling field have long known — listening with deep attention and compassion literally changes something in the brain of the person being heard. Psychotherapy is, in fact, described by one researcher as “a specific kind of enriched environment designed to enhance the growth of neurons and the integration of neural networks.”3
In Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman said:
Full listening maximizes the physiological synchrony, so that emotions align. Such synchrony was discovered during psychotherapy at moments when clients felt most understood by their therapists . . . Intentionally paying attention to someone may be the best way to encourage the emergence of rapport. Listening carefully, with undivided attention, orients our neural circuits for connectivity, putting us on the same wavelength.4
Mourners crave that shared wavelength, especially when their brains may be disoriented and chaotic, flooded with thoughts and feelings. You do not have to be a trained therapist to connect to the wavelength of the bereaved. But how can you listen this way?
The key is to be fully present and in the moment. Empty your head and heart and be focused on the person who is speaking, without judgment. This is very hard to do. It takes discipline and practice. Their words inevitably bring up your own thoughts and feelings that cry out to be expressed. Even if you want to offer feedback, don’t do it — unless a grieving person asks.
We are all quite accomplished at “pseudo-listening” — looking attentive but thinking about an email that needs sending or groceries that need to be purchased for dinner or the rapidly approaching work deadline. Be aware of when you are pseudo-listening and bring your attention back to the present.
We can lose focus if what is being said makes us uncomfortable. Be aware of the discomfort and remind yourself of the important purpose that your presence serves. The words attunement and mirroring best describe this type of listening. As John Prendergast explained, “By attune, I mean to accurately sense and resonate with, as when a string on one guitar begins to vibrate in harmony with a string that has been plucked on another guitar.”5
As we become attuned to ourselves, we can attune to those we sit with in their loss. This may not be easy. It is perfectly normal to feel anxious when in the presence of emotional pain. I still do at times, even after three decades of being with the bereaved. Breathing into and through that anxiety will help you in the attunement process. Our anxiety about being with the bereaved comes from a good place — it signifies our ability to take in and mirror another’s sorrow. It means that, at some level, we may feel what the bereaved person is feeling. It takes conscious effort on the part of the supporter to first be aware of that anxiety and to then push through it to remain present. Doing so is certainly contrary to our instincts for seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. But intellectually we can assure ourselves that pain is serving a higher purpose, and we will not be damaged by it.
Much like a mother who mirrors the expressions of her infant, thereby creating a deep bond, the bereaved also seek mirroring and connection, or attunement, in their sorrow.
Try this exercise, one I learned in training. Find a television news or talk show and listen to one sentence, then mute the sound and repeat the sentence out loud. Try two sentences, three sentences, and so on. Notice how quickly you form opinions about what you hear. Notice how easily you become distracted by other mental chatter. Keep at the exercise, focusing on the sentences. This will help you develop your listening muscles.
It is when you are truly listening that you can most effectively validate the words of the bereaved person, and validation is the whole point. Again, never challenge sadness, anger, fear, happiness, or confusion. Validation means offering nonjudgmental nods of the head and words of encouragement that say, in effect, “I understand how you would feel that way.”
For those who mourn, the wake and funeral service are often blurs of adrenaline. The true pain of bereavement typically comes later, after the funeral, when the last casserole dish has been returned and ordinary life resumes. Love and compassion thus have the most impact on the days, weeks, months, and years to come.
Here are some ideas for supporting a grieving person over the longer term. Some of them are from my own experience — little things that were meaningful to me or that I wish someone had done for me as I’ve grieved for Ryan. Some are things clients have told me meant a lot to them or would mean a lot to them.
• Bring a meal on the two-month anniversary of a death.
• Send an email to say you were thinking about the grieving person or the one they lost.
• Call and leave a message. A quick text could mean everything, especially if it is received on a particularly difficult day.
• When you are with the bereaved person, say the name of the one they lost. Grieving people love hearing it from the lips of someone else.
• Don’t assume there is a timeline to grief. An email a year after a loss could be more meaningful than one a week later.
• Remember the bereaved on holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, or any day that you know has special meaning.
• Offer to visit, but always let the choice be that of the bereaved person. Offer, “I completely understand if the timing is not good.”
• Don’t assume that a bereaved person has sufficient emotional support. For example, family members often have a hard time supporting each other. As we’ve seen, each will grieve very differently and will often be incapable of taking care of anyone but him- or herself. Consider trying this: you and a group of friends could coordinate how each of you will support a different member of a grieving family.
• Be curious about the grieving person’s relationship to the one they lost. Try asking some of the questions from earlier in this book or one of the following:
“I don’t know how you and Suzy met. Can you tell me?”
“I know the two of you loved to travel. What was your favorite trip?”
“What do you miss most about him?”
“How are you doing today?”
“We’ve never really talked about the day it happened. I’d like to hear about it if you’re able.”
“I am sorry I did not get to meet your dad. I would love for you to tell me about him.”
• Bring up your own memories: “Remember that time we double-dated in college?” or “You may not know this, but your dad was a big influence on my life.”
• Offer to listen to a grieving person’s story. Tell them that this book taught you the importance of that listening, however they want to share it. A bereaved person might be looking for a safe set of ears, a place for the story to land. That could be you.
Remember the words of Shakespeare: “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak / Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.” Make room in your own heart to let the bereaved “give sorrow words.”
Above all, make sure they know that the one they lost has not been forgotten.