For so many of us, our lives skim the surface. We’re busy with the day to day, caught up in the rhythms of normalcy and (depressives, philosophers and poets excluded) we don’t ponder what lies beneath.
And then, without warning, the world cracks open and we or someone we know slips into the chasm of what cannot be, what should not be, but is.
Before June 27, 2010 I lived in a world where no one could burn my house down, where my house couldn’t burn, period.
In my world you could get cancer as a child, someone could embezzle all your family’s money and you might need to quit school to help out, a parent could take his own life, another could die far too young after a long, excruciating illness and, despite a million prayers for health and wholeness, you could have a child with a multiplicity of challenges and needs. All of these things have happened to Paul and to me.
There is a tension in suffering. There is a stress in its very existence, even if it’s not my own cup of sorrow. When something terrible happens to someone I know, for a moment, this terrible thing becomes possible in my world too. And that’s scary. For a time the veil is rent and we see the fragility of life, we face our mortality and – worse yet – the vulnerability of our loved ones.
When something terrible happens, perhaps it’s more like part of a continent breaks away and those affected are bobbing on a little island of tragedy In suffering it can be so easy to feel adrift in your circumstances.
The things we say and what we do for those in need should be a bridge to keep them connected, but too often we say things, to cover our own discomfort and to distance ourselves from the pain and then it’s only about us and not the person in need.
I haven’t lost my home to fire, but I lost just about everything I had except for most of my clothes to a nasty divorce from an abusive husband. I’ve lost a baby to stillbirth and have a special needs child. I’ve fought cancer in my own body, have had several major surgeries to try to save my life. Through all of those things I can only remember a few times when something someone said or wrote in a note to me was actually encouraging – that was when my baby died. I got a long letter from my favorite aunt who had been childless as long as I had known her, I thought by choice. In her letter she explained how her first child had died shortly after birth and how she and her husband decided they would rather remain childless than to go through that grief again. She said she knew what I was going through and that with time it would get better even though it didn’t feel like it would. Those are words that the so-called experts tell us NOT to say to someone who is grieving, but they really helped me to know that someone I loved knew exactly how I felt and that someday I would not be so devastatingly sad. Even so, I follow the experts advice and don’t use those words “I know how you feel and it will get better”. Instead I stay silent for fear of saying the wrong thing. I would like to know what is the “right” thing to say???
I’m sorry for the loss of your baby, PamB. Thanks for taking the time to write.
I agree with the experts, but there is something that is distinct in the situation with your aunt. You said that she was your favorite. There was already intimacy there, so you were open to what she had to say.
Your aunt was able to empathize with your loss and what she gave you was hope that you were going to make it through this terrible sorrow.
In general I think it’s wise for us to avoid telling others, “I know exactly how you feel” but there are times when we can say, “I’ve been there. You’re going to make it back.” It always comes back to intimacy and intention. Your aunt wasn’t trying to highlight her own loss. Her intention was to encourage you, and she did.
If we follow her example we aren’t going to get hung up trying to say the right thing, but focus on being with our loved one in her suffering and offer a hand to help pull her through.
Thanks again for commenting. I’m going to keep talking about this and hope you’ll stay in the conversation.
Thank you, Alison! I look forward to getting some input on how best to address expressing sympathy/empathy when faced with the grief/loss/tribulations of someone that is not relationally close enough for that foundational intimacy.
When my dear friend’s husband of thirty years left her for a bottle and a woman at the bar, I got a lot of experience with walking through the process of grief with a friend. There was a period of several months that I found a way to see her or at least speak to her on the phone every day. Most days I managed to see her. Once the visits to the attorneys and the accountant and the courthouse were finished, there wasn’t much I could do, other than sit with her and let her grieve. I tried to keep my words to a minimum, for fear that I would say something stupid. When I did speak, I tried to keep it to things like, “This must be so hard for you,” “I’m so sorry that you have to go through this,” “I wish I could take away some of your pain,” “You have every right to feel this way,” and “This is perfectly reasonable response.” Other than that, I did her dishes a lot and occasionally cleaned her bathrooms when she wasn’t looking. She tells me now that I handled it so well, that she is so grateful for my presence during those first few terrible months, in particular, but also in the four years since.
But this was with an intimate friend, one that I knew inside and out. When a friend is not so close, it’s harder, I think. I don’t always feel like I have the right to be the one to sit and ask how she is feeling and stay for an extended visit. With a casual friend, it’s awkward. Grieving is so deep, so personal. I will admit it is easier to avoid contact rather than risk saying the wrong thing. What is the right thing, for a casual friend, for an acquaintance. “I’m so sorry” just seems terribly superficial.