There is no right thing to say to someone who is grieving. “I learned that no matter what someone says, it is the wrong thing.” My wise friend Laura told me this shortly after her lover, then her mother, died last year.
When Dan, my best friend since I was fifteen, died this Fall, and then my dad died seven weeks later, I often thought of Laura’s warning.
“Remember, no matter what someone says, it is the wrong thing,” I half-jokingly reminded Brad, Dan’s husband, when he would comment that he hadn’t heard from people acknowledging Dan’s death and offering condolences. “Whatever they say, it won’t be right,” I remind him (and myself), “and so we have no right to fault them for not speaking, either.”
As I wrote and officiated three memorial services during those seven weeks, I thought of the pain and anger that can be foisted upon the grieving. The world of the grieving can be intimate and narrow and harmful words can ricochet like bullets, causing repeat wounds. People mean well, but their words can often rob the grieving of peace.
Grief, of course, is personal. Yet, I am dumbstruck by its self-centeredness; surprised by how much I am grieving not only Dan’s death and his family’s loss, but of how much grieving my loss of Dan is about me. Brad summarizes this stark self-consideration by saying, “I feel guilty thinking about me…
