Sometimes well-meaning people do bad things. Let’s work together to not be one of those…
i have two good friends who have recently faced different kinds of grief – one is desperately sick at the moment and the other lost his mom a couple of weeks back. They are surrounded by a lot of well-meaning people. Which sounds like a good thing. But sometimes it’s not. Here are a few things i’ve learnt/observed:
[1] When you are facing a traumatic experience, there is often a lot of admin. People who mean well want to know what is happening. People who mean well want to help. And this usually falls on the primary relationship people – the spouse or the sibling or the parents or the children. And in a time when they are the people who need to be able to just be and feel and process and spend time with and grieve, they are inundated by requests and comments and messages and questions. Your question/comment/request is not too much on its own. But add it to 50 more in the last hour and try and imagine what that is like.
i recently saw one of the best friends take over that role. Quick Watsapp group formed and all necessary information is passed through the group. No contacting the individuals involved. You will get what you need to know from the group. And unless you are the inner ring of most favourite people of that person [and get over it if you’re not!] realise that you don’t get to know everything. This is one of the hugest forms of respect we can give to someone in that situation – just backing off and giving them room.
Close friends and extended family, this is a chance for you to step up. Commandeer the phone [if they let you], start up a watsapp or email or facebook group and take the admin out of their hands.
[2] Do what is helpful for them, not you. i was with a friend this week who is facing some tough stuff – as i was about to leave i asked her if i could give her a hug. She said yes and as i hugged her she said, “Thanks for asking. There are so many who don’t.” That made me so sad [and angry]. When someone we know and love is in a lot of pain and hurt, we really need to check our motives – is this hug i am demanding for them or for me? What can i do that is best for them? Maybe it means not visiting or not hugging or simply asking if i can do either.
A powerful way to get involved at a time like this is to find a way to ask if you can make them a meal. Again go through their best friend or chief support – they are probably facing some huge life-changing decisions at this time and don’t need one more so even ,”Can i make you a meal?” can likely feel overwhelming. But if their closest friend is able to put together a week or two of different people dropping off a meal [and picking up the dirty dishes!] every day that might help in lifting a huge burden off of their shoulders.
i asked my friend if she wanted a place to stay as we have a spare room. She declined and my job then is to honour that. i know that i would prefer to be by myself if such a situation happened to me, but i also want her to know the option is there if she wants it.
Keep asking, “What can i do that is best for them?”
[3] For Christian friends in particular, think twice before uttering that Hallmark Greeting Card nonsense. This is where i move closer to punch-someone-in-the-face territory cos this makes me so mad. We have a tendency as humans to panic when we don’t know what to say and so questions like, “So what do you do?” happen when we meet new people and have absolutely no interest in knowing what they do. But when it comes to times of trauma, sickness and death we can say some of the most hurtful thoughtless things in the name of caring. Think twice before you say anything that might be hurtful. Don’t give promised to people that may prove to not be true. If you’re not sure then maybe stand in front of a mirror by yourself and say what you’re thinking of saying and try and imagine what it would be like to hear that thing.
Emile McDowell has come up with a series of Empathy Cards which help you express what you really mean to people suffering with cancer, and these give you a helpful example of the kinds of things that might be more okay to express.
But maybe the lesson there is if you don’t know what to say, then say nothing. If visiting does feel like a good thing [check on that – having ten people pitch up at once can feel overwhelming and also take away from the time the loved ones get to spend with their person] then it’s okay just to be there and spend time and not need to say anything great.
If you love or care for someone, as most of the guilty parties in these situations do, then take some extra time to really ask how best can you serve those who are hurting most at this time? And then do that – and help keep those who don’t ‘get it’ out of the way… maybe your biggest act of love is going to be an act of running interference and keeping out the shtupidts!
i’m sure there are more – if you are someone who has gone through loss or grief, what are some other things people did that were particularly hard or unwelcome for you, and was there anything someone did that was particularly helpful or encouraging? Leave a response in the comments.
[For the Second Part with some more specific advice, click here]
I came back to reread this – it is moving and very true. My prayers are with you and your friends. God bless.
Love this, Brett. 100%. My mom was murdered almost 5 years ago, and while most people were awesome, I also had some horrific encounters that led me to coin the term “gore whores” for people who callously demanded details from me. I was truly touched by the fact that her cell members and friends from church fed us for a month afterwards, and came to help entertain my son, who was 2 at the time.
Thank you, Janet, for sharing and so sorry to hear about your mom. And wow, sometimes words just cannot express the anger that stupidity deserves. It feels like a roadside accident mentality where we all slow down to see what happened often causing congestion or possibility of more accidents. I think the desensitization that television and the media have given us plays a huge role. It stops being a person to some people and becomes an event. Absolutely horrific but hopefully your sharing about it causes us all to question our motives and actions a bit more deeply. Thank you again.
Love Brett fish
Thanks for this Brett.
I think I could add two things here. Firstly, I once read (wish I remembered where) that dealing with tragedy in community, we should think in terms of ripples or concentric circles. The person/people at the centre should be supported by those closest to them. Then these closest people need the next ring of community to support them (and not jump straight into the middle), and so on and on. Not only does this model protect the innermost from being overwhelmed, but it also insures that others in the situation get the support they so need, as they look after their loved ones. Sometimes you are helping the person at the middle most by caring for those most dear to them.
Secondly, the the “how are you?” question is tough and not always helpful or easy to answer. Sometimes, the small change to “how are you at the moment/right now?” can make a difference.
Thanks Stace. Really appreciate the thoughts you added and stuck them into my next post. Absolutely on both of them. Really helpful, especially those circles…
Love Brett fish
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Good article Brett. My eldest sister died after eight weeks in intensive care/high care in 2012. The cause of death was domestic violence (her husband) and drug & alcohol abuse (her). Because of our history, I had years of trauma/abuse from my sister, as anyone who has experienced this kind of addiction with someone else. I had such contradiction in the hospital because part of me truly despised her but the bigger part of me truly felt she did not deserve what was happening to her. Our relationship was so strained at that time too, I do not feel my daily presence may have been the right thing for her (possible) recovery.
My mother had just moved into my cottage about four months before my sister entered hospital, and I was having my own processes about my mother living here. On top of that I lost my job at the time because the company said I was not interested in my job….I subsequently won the CCMA case. As a result of this case, I am ‘bad news’ in the industry.
Emotionally I was beyond depleted.
People did/do not understand my anger when I voice(d) my pain, and end up thinking I am a sociopath.
My other sister declared me dead after that to cash in a life policy from my deceased father.
I have made progress and I choose and have to look forward. May God bless me, everyone else and I wish this is on no~one.
Oh wow Cindy, thanks for sharing but sounds like you have been through a whole lot. Do you have any stories of any people who have you good support during that time or did it feel like something you were completely alone in?
By nature I am independent, so essentially the most of the journey was alone. What has helped me is alone time to get ‘strong’ again. People did try and help in their own way, but I think trauma/grief etc is very existential and personal. A hug with no words is probably the most effective.
Yeah I think we’ve seen that different people respond to different things and so what becomes key is finding a simple way to get the message to your people what will work for you without being burdened by the pressure of it.
Couldn’t agree more on the “Hallmark Greeting” point – no matter how TRUE it may be that “all things work together” or “Suffering produces endurance” or “consider it pure joy” or “God is in control” or “God has a plan”, it is not HELPFUL when your world is falling apart to have your grief and heartache dismissed with a glib, pithy phrase. In time, I have come to understand the truth of those words, right now, I just need to grieve.
Regarding not knowing what to say and/or saying the wrong thing – the absolute worst thing you can do is avoid saying anything, even saying the wrong thing is better than pretending my grief doesn’t exist. There is no “right thing” to say – nothing you say will change the circumstances of my grief, so don’t try – long after I have forgotten the content of your speaking, I will remember that you cared enough to say something. So speak, be sensitive to how your words may be received, say “I don’t know what to say” if necessary, but say something, be present, enfold…
Thanks Graeme. Helpful to hear your perspective on the saying something part and also your confirmation and expansion of the glib phrases. Appreciate it!
after losing my dad to cancer what I can say is worse than saying something horrid, usually by people not in your inner circle, is people who are in your inner circle not being around because they don’t know what to say. I think that is a cop out and more about their comfort than yours. When you’re in that space, you don’t want words from your closest friends, you just want their presence and love and to be able to escape the pain with a little bit of laughter and distraction. these are worth more than words that attempt to fix you
Thanks Sammi. Really helpful for us to hear and be reminded of those things.
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