Sharing the Grief

My daughter’s best friend and our adopted daughter just about lost her sister a few weeks ago. She, her brother and her parents were distraught, as were we, but her sister, did, with good medical care, pull through. This experience got me to thinking, how do you go about comforting a friend or a family member who has lost someone close? This is a question that haunts people of any age bracket. But learning to share the grief of a friend is important for us, because it’s going to happen more often.

There is no sense sugar coating it. We are going to have a greater incidence of people our age passing away than people of other age brackets experience. Of course, everybody has the experience of losing a loved one or seeing a close friend or a friend of a friend pass on whether they are young adults, middle-aged, teenagers or even children. But as it is going to be more common simply because of our age. 

So when you hear that a dear friend lost someone close to them, you can empathize with their loss. But when going to your friend and offering comfort, for some, that seems difficult and awkward. So, it’s good to learn the skills of helping your friend work through this time of loss and to share the grief with them in a way that is helpful to him or her.

In the Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament, there is a story called The Book of Job that has a lot to say about grief and loss. In the story, the lead character, Job, sees all of his children killed in a freak accident and he loses his wealth and property as well. Most of the book is about dealing with tragedy. But when Job’s friends come to comfort, it’s interesting that the text tells us they came to him and sat with him for seven days saying nothing.

When you are initially going to visit a friend after the loss, the nagging question is, “What can I say?” There isn’t anything you can say that lessens the loss. What your friend really needs is company. The initial loss (s) he is feeling is that of the loved one. So you don’t really have to say anything. Just physical presence says a lot..

Sometimes it’s just the routine things you would do for your friend can do a lot to help them through a time of grief. Take her/him out to dinner or shopping. A person in grief craves regularity, so being with you to do something routine together is a tremendous help.

The best approach you can come up with for really being with your friend when (s) he needs you the most is to know how handling death works. Most people who want to comfort a grieving friend go to see him/her on the first day or so after the death and you should as well. But that first week will not be the time we need you the most. Your friend will be busy with the funeral and seeing distant family and getting lots of attention. It’s strange to see this, but often the grieving spouse or friend goes through a time of joy during that week simply because it’s a time to see family and friends and to celebrate the life of the dearly departed.

The time when the grief becomes heavy and difficult for the one left behind is after the funeral is over and everybody has gone home and it’s time to face the days and weeks ahead without the one they are missing. This is the time to go to your friend and make yourself available.

Be available, be easily accessible and be accepting of what they are going through so you can be a catalyst for getting back to normalcy. That is the most valuable thing you can offer your friend because it is more than just sharing his or her grief.