How to Be A Friend to the Dying, Their Loved Ones and the Newly Bereaved

This is an excerpt from "Loving Grief" by Paul Bennett. It is his reply to a question from a friend after he, himself, lost his wife:

Make sure your friend knows she can call you for anything. Even if she never calls, knowing that she can will be a comfort.

Let her know, if she says she's okay, that you really hear she is okay. (I have a friend who would not accept that, who insisted on finding out how I was not okay. I left those conversations feeling invaded.) People can be okay in the midst of dying. People can need nothing when they are losing everything they value most. Do not let your wish to sympathize stop you from hearing the truth, and don't let your wish to help appear as her obligation to let you help.

That may sound like very unsatisfactory advice but the last part...of wanting to help and insisting, in some form or fashion, that the help be accepted, is one I was glad to see him speak to. I've been in that position, of people wanting so badly to help and the truth is knowing the right thing to say or do is so bloody hard. Saying the exact wrong thing is all to easy.

But the impulse to help is so strong and genuine. It's all very well-intended,  so the "No, I insist, tell me how you are, I really want to know" gets uttered but then the answer comes and there you are, suddenly realizing you have no idea what to do with it. It's awkward, and it's hard and it can put the grieving person in the position of having to help you feel okay with the fact that you ventured into territory that you really don't know how to help with. Or of them enduring the unintended missteps in silence and vowing to steer clear of answering such questions in the future.

I know for myself, support from a distance is the best thing for me.  At least that's how it feels right now.

After I lost my father, I was astonished by how absolutely exhausted I felt. I hadn't ever felt that utterly drained before outside of having major surgery. Cards are wonderful, emails are wonderful (if you don't expect replies for a long time), care packages are a delight, but conversations are hard for the sheer energy they take. One of the hardest things for me to accept is how one-sided the energy has to be for me. I just can't do a lot of mutual stuff right now. The rhythms of grief are so unpredicatable. That may not be true for everyone, but it is for me.

I know I can be hard to read accurately and can be a victim of my own inherently positive nature and the fact that I still attempt to get out and do things that sound like fun. I'm sure from the outside, particularly to Facebook friends, it looks like it's life as usual in my world. And in some ways, it is. But even going to a hockey game is an emotional experience. Just a couple weeks ago, I was still meeting people that I was telling for the first time that Michael had passed. And the sheer act of going to our old haunts without him there...I didn't think it was possible to cry while eating a double scoop waffle cone of Haagen Daas Cookies and Cream but I was wrong.

And from friends who didn't have a connection with Michael, and no clear reference point to understand our relationship the questions, "So, what's new? What have you been up to?" are just as hard. I've gotten these questions from people who KNOW the year I've had. I know if I were his actual widow, there would be some allowance made for this still being a fresh grief and no one would expect me to have gotten on with having fun. But what is the socially acceptable time to grieve a man for whom there is no term?

Do you want the honest answer?

I've been up to grieving.

Insert awkward silence...

Talk about a buzz kill.

My life post-Michael is only seven weeks old. I can't imagine seven months. Seven years. My tears, and I do have them, tend to bubble up at odd times, and mostly when I am alone, or in some anonymous place like a post office or grocery store. And I like it that way (the alone part, not the grocery store part). It's easier that way.

I cry better cries by myself, regardless of what Martin Prechtel says.

My grief is communal, yes, it certainly was the week after Michael died and through all the funeral proceedings but there is also an intensely private aspect of it. All I do on the way to the cemetery is pray that I won't see anyone there. I just can't share my time there with anyone else right now. I don't know when, or if, that will change.

But even so: I'm okay.

I can be okay and not have the energy, or the desire to call. I can be okay but not ready to go out for lunch. I can gather up energy to sit and listen to a concert and not be able to sit one on one and have coffee. I can be okay and not want to go to a single party. I can be okay and not desire to have any fun whatsoever. I can be okay and have to walk away from a social gathering for a long walk not even to cry so much as to just be alone because that's what I need at the time and it's as simple as that.

It's hard to explain what takes energy and why some of the simplest things seem like the hardest to do. I think it is something that every person in grief has to find out for themselves.

I can tell you having coffee sitting across from a concerned friend is very different than sitting in the dark listening to a concert. Sometimes carrying someone else's concern is more than I have the strength for while listening to a singer voice something I am feeling is medicine. But not all the time. Sometimes the coffee is exactly the right medicine.

That's hard on friends who love you. I know it is. Nothing has brought me face to face with powerlessness like these last few years. I know how hard it is to feel inadequate to meet the needs of those you love.

The grieving themselves are in virgin territory, so of course no one can know what 'right' things to do and say.

Each grief is different, even for the same person.

My grief for Michael isn't the same as the grief for my father. But if you asked me to explain that right now, I couldn't. It just is. Or maybe it's that each ended up being different than what I would have predicted so there were, and are, surprises with each that have taught me to just allow this grief to show up as it will and to respect it, and myself, as it does.

Thank you to all those who have been sending support through so many ways in my direction. It really does help. More than you might realize. And for those who are in the same boat, who are struggling with how to negotiate these same waters, whatever side of the equation you are on, I hope my sharing how it is for me right now helps you find your way as well...whether your experience is similar or not...sometimes it's seeing what isn't true for you that can help you name what is.

 

 

Comments

[Toni Ruppert]

Laura, I love the Paul Bennett quote. You touched something in me, because either I insert myself hastily into a situation because I want to help or I stay away because I can't help. Thank you for sharing deeply and honestly today.

[Laura]

You are most welcome, Toni. Such a learning process all this is, yes?