Maybe the answer to this question is, "the same way you would care for anyone who is grieving." But do you have any special tips for caring for a fellow nerd/hacker?
Likewise, if this has been an exhausting time for them, don’t just say “how can I help”. Saying “hey, I’m making lasagna, do you want me to bring you one” or “I rented a power washer for the whole day, want me to swing by in the afternoon and do your porch” is an easier decision that requires less executive function.
Besides that, encourage them by saying you’re doing something to celebrate the deceased’s life. Big funerals aren’t happening, so the passing of a loved one can feel surreal. Knowing someone else is acknowledging the liss can mean a lot.
The therapies suggested here are good ideas, and various people did various versions of these, and I think it did help somewhat.
But in the end, the thing that helped me the most was talking to the husband of one of my wife’s friends. He was older, and had more life experience than I did, and had recently had some of his own family who had recently passed away.
The biggest thing he did for me was to tell me that the pain never really goes away, not completely. That giant sucking cavern in your soul never goes away, at least not completely. But it can get better over time, if you let it. And that can be easier if you allow yourself to get back into what would be your normal life, and participate with your friends and family.
Kind of a “fake it til you make it” sort of thing, but where most everyone realizes that you might be faking it and that’s okay, but that you will recover.
My dad passed away a couple of years ago. As his only living direct relative, I had to be the one to make the call to remove his life support. That decision and process afterwards was made a lot easier for me, thanks in part to my recovery from when my mom passed away.
One day I found out something really bad happened in his family and he wasn't himself.
So what I did was I tried to spend more time with him, invited him to more gatherings with other friends, and basically "dragged" him out of his house.
Over time he felt better because he had people to talk to, and he eventually perked up. Of course there were downtimes, but he was much better eventually.
Oh and this guy I knew loved Japanese porn as his fav site was https://avsanpuru.com (p/s: NSFW). So I just kept recommending popular videos and we bonded a lot more over that too lol.
Funny story but yeah. Glad he's all good now.
Help find them things to do. Especially right now where working from home is the norm, I can often not see anyone for days at a time.
I went through this recently - for me I want to talk about it, over and over again. And I want hugs. And I found it helpful to have people check in on me from time to time to see how I was doing.