Stop Being Afraid to Say or Do the Wrong Thing

Hi,

Helpguide.org, in Helping Someone Who Is Grieving, offers 5 tips about how to help, in a meaningful way when someone you care about loses a loved one. This is one of the better articles I’ve seen for specific suggestions, which will support your grieving family member or friend more effectively.

1) Try to understand their grieving process, as best you can. While there are common experiences such as volatile emotions and extreme behaviors, each person’s grief journey is different and will take as long as it takes.

2) Know what to say. Acknowledge their loss and listen more than you talk. What any grieving person needs from us changes from moment to moment and across the months and years.

3) Offer practical help. Generally, people need food, company, a listening ear, help with paperwork or childcare or to go to a social event with them. Be OK if they say “No”. Don’t withdraw your support.

4) Provide ongoing support. Support is needed most in the first 5 years after a loss, with Year 1 being mostly numb and Year 2 realizing that the loss is real and irrevocable. After that, the pain eases off but still pops up unexpectedly.

5) Watch for warning signs of depression. Be aware that being depressed is very common at the beginning. It becomes a concern if it goes on too long. There is a delicate balance between intrusive and caring.

Click the link for the article, Helping Someone Who Is Grieving, to get more ideas about what to say and not say, do and not do to demonstrate your care for them in practical ways. Stepping back for fear of hurting them is the surest way to do so.

Listen Before Taking Action for the Win

When grieving, there is a push-pull between wanting to be taken care of and needing boundaries to be respected.

What complicates this is that your bereaved family or friend may be so heartbroken that they can’t figure out or communicate what they need clearly. In the face of this uncertainty, people who care offer unwanted advice and are rebuffed for breaching an unspoken boundary.

Since my husband, David, died of pancreatic cancer in 2016, I have been taking care of his mom, Joyce, who is now 101. She lives alone at home with 4-6 hours of daily support from me and 1 paid caregiver.

She gets very frustrated because her diminished mobility and mental acuity make it harder for her to contribute and serve people the way she used to, as an usher, as a music teacher, and as an executive secretary at a hospital, to name a few of her jobs.

As I help her more than she can help me, she feels the imbalance deeply. In her world, what she did earned her love. Now she can do less, she fears being less worthy of love.

When someone is grieving, it can reduce their capacity to get things done efficiently, be around people or manage unpredictable emotions in much the same way.

I walk a careful line between keeping her safe and honoring her autonomy by giving her choices. As human beings, we sometimes run roughshod over the requests and decisions of the elderly, the bereaved, children, and people with special needs.

It is a dance between making sure she has regular meals and showers, groceries in the fridge, bills paid on time, and friends to come visit and doing frivolous things like taking her outside to sit like two cats in the sun for no good reason.

As much as possible, I try to demonstrate that I respect what she wants by asking questions - what color shirt out of 3 options, blueberry muffin or warm vanilla custard?

I also watch and listen closely to her complaints. I try to think up a solution for what’s bothering her. Today, she asked me to scratch her face because it was itchy but instead, I smoothed lotion on it to stop the itch. When Joyce said the commode seat was too cold, I got furry covers to warm it up.

Too often, we are so anxious to do something that we execute our best guess about what we might want if we were grieving ourselves. There is nothing more important than listening and being present.

The point is that complaints by a bereaved or elderly person contain information about a challenging situation they need help to solve. If you offer support that answers a complaint, they are more likely to say, “Yes”.

If you know anyone who is grieving or supporting a bereaved person, please share the Life After Grief newsletter and invite them to subscribe.

Next Steps

This newsletter issue, Stop Being Afraid to Say or Do the Wrong Thing offers specific ways to support your grieving family and friends after a loss. If you are worried about hurting someone you love by saying or doing the wrong thing, let’s chat.

Schedule a complimentary 20-minute zoom call to talk about how to move forward with more ease on your grief journey. Click the link below: https://thebadwidow.com/ConnectWithAlison.