Next time somebody you know experiences the loss of a loved one, don't say "I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Just say nothing, and be there for the longest time, silent and knowing.
The moment will be stronger. You will have been of more assistance.
Just say nothing, and be there for the longest time, silent and knowing.
The moment will be stronger. You will have been of more assistance.
You can't be "knowing". Whether you have experience of grief has no bearing at all on whether you can understand someone else's immediate experience of it. You cannot. You would be a fool to imagine you could. There's a lot of foolishness around these days. That doesn't make this kind any less culpable.
"The moment" will not "be stronger" for any action you take. It is not your moment. You are no part of it. There's no way you can be. Stop trying to be.
You aren't the main character in this movie. You're not even an extra. There is no movie and, in this circumstance, you do not matter.
Except as follows: You can either be someone who intrudes on the grief of another with some kind of weird unhelpful behavior that needs to be managed, and whom everyone accordingly sees and remembers to be a jackass. Or you can not be that.
If you want to not be the jackass, do this:
1. Say "I'm sorry for your loss. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know."
(And mean it. That offer of help is a promise. If you don't mean it, don't make it.)
2. Fade into the background.
This actually does help. It helps by not making it necessary for the person who is grieving to interrupt that in order to deal with you somehow. If they need anything from you, they'll ask - after all, you've just invited them to do so. Until then, for pity's sake, leave them be. They already have problems enough without you being another one.
But as someone that recently lost my mom, I can tell for a fact: real, practical help makes a real difference. Common sense things like help with sorting out the affairs of the loved one, cooking meals or shopping for the bereaved person, help with planning a memorial, etc. And you don’t know to do these things by asking: “If there is anything I can do, please let me know...” Especially if you are close to the bereaved person, the about one of the worst things you can say. You usually know about some things you do to help without being a busybody. I took those who said that as being unwilling to provide any help whatsoever.
Somebody like that can still help, for sure. If nothing else, there's always at least some unskilled setup and teardown work to do for a funeral and a wake. If someone is the kind of person who looks for ways to be of genuine help, they'll find them no matter what anyone else says. They don't need this advice. If someone isn't, at least this advice, if taken, might stop them doing harm.
I can tell you anecdotally that when I heard this from people after the death of my mother, the euphemism -- something i'm pretty sensitive against, anyway -- of 'loss' enraged me.
Softening the blow isn't something that a death deserves -- it's important and soft language makes it no easier to deal with the practical realities of a death other than in some psychological sense that it may reduce the cognitive burden of the idea of death.. but that wanders a bit too much into escapism and denial for me.
Not only that, but the (almost always) empty gesture of the promise of 'help' -- whatever that ill-defined help may be -- was also offensive.
The best sympathies I received were simply things like 'I'm sad that your mother died, she was a great person and I enjoyed my time with her.'. Direct language; she died, and they would rather she hadn't -- Perfect.
Here's George Carlin expressing a similar sentiment against euphemism in the face of death[0]. I don't know if he's a great role model or not -- but his ideas and sentiments regarding the topic reflect mine , so I suppose that people like us (irritated by euphemism) aren't as few as one would think.
'You know, people say things like "You know, I lost my father." , "Ahh! He'll turn up! Have you checked the dumpster out back? He likes to take naps back there." ' [0]
About the offer of help I don't know what to say except that it's not empty when I make it. I guess if it would be, don't say it? And I should go back and edit "and mean it" into my earlier comment. That seems like something that should be able to go without saying, but so does "don't insist on yourself at someone else's funeral", and that needed saying so I guess I can't be surprised this does too.
It occurs to me also that maybe I should explicitly note that the opportunity to say something like this to the bereaved isn't to be sought out.
edit: From 2:06 in the video -
> You know what you tell a guy like that who wants to help? "Well fine, why don't you come over this weekend, you can paint the garage! Bring your plunger, the upstairs toilet overflowed and there's shit all over the floor up there. You drive a tractor? Good! That'll come in handy; the north forty needs a lot of attention. Bring your chainsaw and your pickaxe, we're going to put your ass to work." He wants to help? Fuck him, call his bluff.
Yeah, I mean, if you're not going to help, don't offer to help. Why do that anyway? If it feels good to think of yourself as the kind of person who offers to help someone who's grieving, doesn't it feel bad to have to think of yourself as the kind of shitheel who goes back on that offer when it counts?
> Whether you have experience of grief has no bearing at all on whether you can understand someone else's immediate experience of it.
That is absolutely untrue. There's a line in a Buddhist text that captures the experience well for me: "When two thieves meet they need no introduction: They recognize each other without question." People who had known loss, especially that of a parent, were often a balm to my soul because they could be present in the experience of loss with me.
Which I'm sure sounds vague to many HN readers, so imagine that you and a friend go to visit an art museum. You spend a couple of minutes contemplating the same painting, which you both find moving. As you turn to walk away, you exchange a look and know you don't need to say anything, because you both recognize you had the same experience.
> You aren't the main character in this movie. You're not even an extra. There is no movie and, in this circumstance, you do not matter.
You have something there, but you take it too far. Consider the Ring Theory of Grief: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-xpm-2013-apr-07-la-...
As the article explains, people definitely cause problems by making the moment about them, so you're right about that. But where you're wrong is that the only alternative is to vanish. Often, that is also somebody making it about themself but in a quieter way. Their anxiety and failure to process death leads them to hide away. I took people behaving the way you describe as ones I couldn't trust to be present with me. The correct choice is to be sensitive to circumstances and the inner-ring person's needs and act accordingly. Which does not have a simple heuristic, but sometimes that's the best you can do.
> If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know.
Having heard that a fair bit, I mostly took it as a sign of people either not sincerely offering or not really thinking about the situation. Which was fine; not everybody understands grief yet. The best replies to this for me were people who also made specific offers based on what they thought I needed and what they were able to give.
In that model, the advice I'm giving is directed to people in the outermost ring and maybe also the next-outermost. I'd expect anyone closer to the bereaved to have a more concrete sense of how they actually can help, and to be already doing that or at least trying to figure out how to.
That advice is also directed to people who basically don't have any idea what the hell to do, and feel some internal pressure to do something anyway. I'd assume that someone with a materially similar experience of grief, who has reflected enough on that to have some understanding, wouldn't need telling by me or anyone.
if you don't know how to help, just say "i'm sorry" and offer a reassuring hug. touch is powerful, especially around strong emotions. if you feel the need to speak further, give them fond memories of their loved one, like "i remember when your mom taught us how to make lamb vindaloo. it was amazing. she was so determined and funny..." try to forget yourself and your own concerns completely for that moment.
Sorry, where exactly did you do that direction? I have read it a couple times and can't find it.
It depends on the person, the relationship as well as the person being their vulnerable self. Being real and being in the moment is what I feel made it relatable.
And no, it will not make the pain any better. But the interpersonal connection will nonetheless help.
It was that way at least for me when my father passed away as well as when my stepdad passed away not so long ago.
What I found most disturbing were random strangers giving condolences when they recognized that I was taking about a person having passed away. Think terminating the telecommunications contract.
But, I did appreciated tgat people said it, it did made me feel acknowledged and somehow better. I just could not react to show it.
Please don't do this.
It’s about being selfless.