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Comment by eckesicle | Hacker News Reader

My wife died 7 months ago.

On day one I received dozens of bouquets of flowers and enough food to fill the fridge and freezer three times over.

On day fourteen all the flowers had died and the food gone bad. I received practically no phone calls or visitors in the months that followed.

If you want to support someone through grief just stay in contact with them regularly over an extended period of time.

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Can't even imagine how it feels to lose your wife. I lost my sister a few years ago to cancer. In the 6 months before her death I visited 3 times a week because I could work on the train, and cycle from the station. I'd work at her house, cook lunch and chat. Then I'd cycle to the train and come back home. Simply being there, working, and having occasional chatter was huge for her. Her husband still had to work (unlike tech workers, most people have to "be there" for work, and few can simply drop with because a family member is dying, slowly, over months or years). After she died, i continued making my journey, but this time I was doing it for him. Spending evenings doing absolutely nothing, just listening to music, playing with their kid, talking crap, having a beer. I did that for almost a year, until things started to feel somewhat normal.

I want to second this, as someone who's lost a very close friend.

Grieving takes a long time, and is a delicate, individual process. It takes years to fully process. Don't rush anyone who's grieving, ever.

Encourage them to get professional help if THEY feel like they need to. Don't immediately push them to see therapists.

It might seem counter, but if you can make therapy available or more accessible to them without forcing them into going - if you can foot the cost, give them a ride, even just get referrals - that's massive. Hospice services also sometimes include check-ins from a social worker that eventually lead to a more tailored referral to a therapist, if one would seem to help.

I am sorry for your loss.

I have heard that flowers are the absolute worst thing to send for exactly the reason you’ve mentioned. I am sorry you did not have the social support that might have made a small difference.

Thank you.

We had a fairly rich social life before she died, but many people just stopped keeping in touch.

Maybe they don't know what to say or feel uncomfortable around us now.

Oh that's got to hurt. It's kind of a double loss, you're more alone then you might otherwise have been. Again you have my better thoughts, all that is hard.

One of the only good memories from a particularly terrible job was them sending me a really nice flowering potted plant when my grandmother passed. It was extra thoughtful because it was low maintenance and hardy.

When my wife's mom passed, her grief was deep. And she didn't want her mother to be forgotten, so we planted this insane rose bush. It didn't look like much then, but it's hard to keep the thing under control now. And we think about it all the time, it suits her personality perfect.

As an aside, this is one of the reasons Jews place a small stone on a gravestone rather than flowers.

Thanks. And you have my best thoughts.

We are supporting a close family friend in the loss of their son. I will keep this in mind. They will need us and it is easy to let it slip.

But have a plan, something to do, otherwise it's just reliving the funeral over and over and over.

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