Being (a) Present for a Grieving Friend

Bay Area Park, Fall 2016

Those who care for grieving people know the feeling.  Helplessness, frustration, confusion, and even anger can bubble up when we feel there is nothing we can do to help someone lost in the emptiness of full-blown grief.  We cannot change the course of their grief.  Too often we resort to the tried and true, “Call me if you need anything!”  Often, these words do more to ease our conscience than console the grieving person.

Being a friend to the deeply grieved is a long, hard road.   But it will happen to most people at one time or another.  Grief is a natural part of the human experience and if we have close friends and family, we will find ourselves staring into the face of deep grief.  When you find yourself in this position, I offer the following to you.

Be a friend who…

…shows up.

Our natural reaction when we feel uncomfortable or inadequate is to step back, withdraw, or not show up in the first place.  A friend shows up when trouble arrives.  This does not mean that we have to sit “front and center”, demanding that we take care of them. A friend offers and provides their presence in whatever measure is most comforting to the grieving person.    For some it may mean moving in.  For others it may mean checking in from time to time in person, by text or phone.  What a friend does not do is avoid them.

…sets aside their needs.

In caring for our grieving friend, we keep our issues to ourselves.  We can acknowledge our grief over the loss, but from that point it is all about what our friend needs.  I have seen too many “friends” who use a conversation with a grieving person to work out their own grief issues.  Leave your “stuff” in a bag outside the front door when you visit your friend. 

…responds to the expressed needs of the other.

Listen carefully and respond to the felt needs of your grieving friend.  Do not try and anticipate their needs.  Allow them to experience their grief and respond to their needs as THEY become aware of them.

…listens without judgment.

Set aside your own opinions about grief or any “Shoulds” about grieving.   Let their grief be real and genuine to themselves.  Grief is deeply personal and for anyone to find their way through it they must follow their own trail.  If they try and follow someone else’s trail, they will get lost!

…responds without telling their story.

We will often try and comfort another by telling the grieving person about our own experience of grief.  We may do so under the false impression that they will learn from our experiences by copying our “successes” and avoiding “our mistakes.”  We may believe that in doing so we are demonstrating empathy and understanding.  Though well-intentioned, these will not work because everyone’s grief is unique to them in that moment.  They may also serve to help us work through our own grief which may be important but not with someone who is the midst of deep grief.

…offers to share the space created by the emptiness of grief.

Grief creates an empty space around the deeply grieving.  I have heard it described as an impenetrable darkness, a black hole, a vast desert, and a void.   If we can accept the reality of this void and “hang in there” with the person who is experiencing it we can share it with them.  We do not to fill it up, shine a light, plant a flower, or anything else that attempts to dispel it.  By recognizing and offering to share that space you can be a real comfort.  It may be empty but they will not alone!

…provides the gift of presence.

In short, being a companion to a friend or family member means that we need to be present to and with them in their grief.  Presence offers companionship, respect, a listening soul, a responsive heart, and a sacred presence in the midst of a deep and life changing moment.  It will not “solve” their grief.  It will not put a smile on their grief.  It will not make their grief easy.  But it will help them cope with their sorrow. 

Do not sit back and wait for the grieving person to call you and tell you what they need.  Be a friend!  Be present to them!  Be present with them!  Be a present to them!  Be a presence with them!

Blessings,

Bob

The Long Silences in Grief

Lake Livingston

We had been talking off and on for several months.  She lost her husband of 40 years to a fast growing cancer.  It was only 6 months from diagnosis to his death.  At first, she was lost in a world of bewildering feelings and circumstances.  She had spent 5 of those six months believing that he would pull through.  She only had a few weeks to prepare for life without him.

She had coped very well.  She was able to lean on her family and friends.  She worked through all of the details surrounding the death.  Probate was almost complete and she was beginning to find her way as a widow in her new life.  There was just this one thing that continued to trouble her, the long silences in her life.

She enjoyed the commotion that came with raising a family.  She, her husband , and the kids enjoyed solving their own and the world’s problems over breakfast.  Their house was usually filled with the sounds of an active family living their lives.  When the nest became empty, the sounds changed and she learned to enjoy the moments the two of them shared.  Sometimes they talked and sometimes they simply lived in the quiet of two people who loved each other very much.  But in these last few months the silence in her house has become unbearable.

“The silence in my life is consuming more and more of my day.   I eat my meals in silence.  I do my house work in silence.  I sit in silence.  But the worst silence comes at the end of the day when I lay in a bed we shared for 40 years.  I miss his shifting and turning, stealing the covers, and settling in to sleep.  I miss his breathing and the gentle snoring that reminded me that he was there.  Those long silences every night wake up the grief inside.  I can’t take those long, lonely silences.”

Silence can become life shattering in our grief.  It is an unwelcome part of the new normal that demands accommodation.  Some can cover up the silence with the TV or radio.  But for many, the silence is “too loud”.  The reality of silence in grief is that it does not surround us, it rises from within us.  The silence comes from a mind and soul that has lost the person they most want to hear.  It is not the quiet that they fear, it is the silence from within that that overwhelms us, especially during the periods of stillness in our daily lives.

This silence is created in the void of loneliness, a natural response to involuntary isolation.  Loneliness has little to do with the presence of people around us.  We can be intensely lonely in the midst of the largest crowd.  When quiet naturally settles in on our lives in grief and we feel particularly isolated from the one we have loved, the silence grows in intensity.  These long silences grow when quietness and loneliness meet in our lives.

Quiet is a necessary part of our lives.  It allows space in our mind and soul to let go of the stuff that demands our constant attention.  It creates room for us to simply be who we are without the need to do and become.  Quiet allows us a stillness of presence that gives life to a soul that is tired and needs rest.

Unfortunately, grief can quickly fill in the space created by quiet.  We become lonely and the quiet deepens into a long, unwelcome silence.    It saps our energy.  We become lost, frightened, and even more lonely.  Escape comes only when we fall into a fitful, emotionally exhausting, and empty sleep.

How can we deal with these long, lonely silences in our grief?  The widow found a way that worked for her.  She decided that she still needed space in her daily life offered by her quiet times.  For her, the key was in the loneliness that hijacked her quiet time.  She needed to find a way to keep the relationship alive with her husband.  She placed a picture of him on the dinner table and would talk about her day, solve the world’s problems, or simply enjoy looking at his face and remembering the good times they shared.  At night, we would write a letter to him about her day, her hopes and dreams, and, at times, talk about how much she missed him.  As she said, “It reminded me that I was not alone.  He was still there with me in the most important ways, just as he always had been.”  And then she added, “Just as he always will be!”

The widow dealt with the long silence by transforming the loneliness into aloneness.  She did so by allowing the quiet to become a companion, not an adversary.  She chose to take advantage of the quiet by focusing her heart and mind on the relationship she still shared with her life’s companion.  She listened to all that she had learned about herself and her world while sharing her life with him.  She listened for his voice as it whispered in her ear or appeared on the pages of her journal.  She experienced the continuing connection that binds them together.

In time, these letters and meals with the picture will cease.  She will work out her own accommodation with the new normal of her grief.  There will still be periods of sadness but the loneliness will no longer invade every moment of silence.  I hope that, in time, she will be able to reclaim the quiet in her life.  In so doing she will enjoy being who she is.  She will sit with herself as a person who has been, is, and will be much loved.

Peace,

Bob