As COVID continues its devastating spread, the amount of social media posts announcing the loss of a loved one is rising just as rapidly as the case numbers. Logging onto Instagram this morning, in just a few scrolls, I saw three people post tributes to family members who had recently died from the virus.
Their pain was laid bare for the whole Internet to see and I wanted to help but I was helpless.
What do you say to a friend who has suffered a bereavement? Should you message them your condolences? What do you write in a sympathy card? It can feel confusing and awkward when you’re that friend - the one who desperately wants to help but is terrified of saying the wrong thing and making it worse.
It’s hard enough during ‘normal’ times but with current lockdown restrictions meaning most of us are communicating via WhatsApp, Zoom and DMs, it can feel even more difficult right now to comfort a friend in need.
I’m not a doctor. Bar the odd episode of Holby City and a First Aid course in Year 9, I have absolutely zero medical qualifications. This article is not, therefore, able to contribute anything to stop the heartbreak that millions of families around the globe are experiencing right now.
What I am, however, is a writer. More specifically, I am a writer with a little too much personal experience of grief. My ‘bereavement bonanza’ started when I was 14. I was in my mid-teens when my Dad died of pancreatic cancer just six weeks after he was diagnosed. By the time I reached my mid-20s I had also lost my Mum, three grandparents and a good friend.
And so I want to offer up my advice on how you can be there for a friend who is grieving.
1. Accept your words - however beautiful - won’t fix anything
Often in life, when faced with a problem, we are taught to immediately reach for the solution. Car breaks down? Call the AA. Hate your job? Upload your CV to Indeed and find a new one.
It’s tempting to take the same ‘Fix It’ approach when someone close to us is grieving. You instinctively rush through a mental checklist of suggestions to cheer them up - from reassuring them it was God’s Plan, to suggesting a night out to take their mind off it, or lovingly telling them ‘don’t cry, they’re in a better place now’.
While you may mean well, it often makes you feel worse when you’re in those first suffocating throes of grief. Don’t try to ‘fix’ your friend’s pain. Instead, be open about the fact that you know words alone will never be able to fix their pain but that they’re all you have for now. Something like:
‘I know there are no words that I - or anyone else - will be able to say to magically make things better. If there were, I would say them in an instant.’
2. Put yourself in their shoes and think how you would feel
‘Thinking of you’. ‘Sending love’. ‘My condolences’. These standard phrases can feel like a safe option for acknowledging what your friend is going through. But, for me, the messages that helped the most were the ones where I could tell the person had actually stopped to think about how they would be feeling if they were in my situation. Those were the ones that made me feel seen, made me feel heard and made me feel supported. The ones that said things like:
‘This isn’t fair at all and I am so truly sorry that you have to go through this. My heart breaks for you and I am desperately searching for the words to mend your broken heart but I have none. All I can do is promise to be here by your side as you work through your pain.’
3. Now is not the time to find meaning
Over the course of many years, I have slowly been able to find some positives from the overwhelmingly negative catastrophe of losing both my parents by my mid-20s. This does not, I repeat this DOES NOT mean you should ever suggest to a recently bereaved friend that there is meaning to what they are going through.
Chances are they do not want to hear that ‘God needed another angel’, that ‘it was their time to go’, or that ‘everything happens for a reason’. In time, they may well come to that conclusion themselves, but for now, just meet them where they are in their journey. No trying to force them to the end for the happily ever after. Instead, say something like:
‘Healing is for another day. For now, cry your tears, scream your rage and feel your pain. Do not hide from your heartbreak because it is proof of the love that you shared. You are strong enough to get through this and I will be here for you to lean on whenever you need.’
4. Give reassurance that their feelings are normal
If I ask you to think about ‘grief’, chances are you’ll picture something involving tears and being sad. A death-related depression if you will. But in my experience, grief is a super-sized Pick’n’Mix of every possible emotion going. Anger, rage, resentment, blame, sorrow, appreciation, love, hope, jealousy, fear. All of them. All at once.
It caught me by surprise when I lost my parents. I was totally unprepared for the exhaustion that came from riding a seamlessly never-ending rollercoaster of emotions. Climbing and crashing multiple times per day and my brain and body tried to recalibrate after being knocked sideways by my unthinkable loss. I feared I wasn’t coping ‘properly’ and began Googling to see if maybe I had an undiagnosed mental health condition.
I wish I had known that everything I was thinking and feeling was normal. And that reassurance could be just what your friend needs to. A message from you saying something like:
‘What you are going through is an abnormal situation. You can’t expect yourself to be or feel normal in an abnormal situation. Take off all pressure and expectations. Feel what you’re feeling and trust that your body knows what it’s doing as it goes through the motions. If you feel like things are getting out of control then let me know and we can find professional help but don’t rush yourself to get back to normal. What has happened is huge. You’re not in a race to ‘finish grieving’.
5. If you can’t find the words, use the words of others
What words do you say to someone whose heart feels as if it has just been dragged clean out of their chest? Saying the right thing in these circumstances is difficult for the most eloquent among us. But it’s infinitely more difficult when you’re someone who struggles with words, is embarrassed about your spelling, or you find expressing your emotions difficult at the best of times.
If that sounds like you but you still want to send a message to a grieving friend, consider Googling to find old quotes, letters, articles or songs that you think could offer some comfort. Set aside some time to find something(s) you think would resonate with them, their personality and their beliefs. Then send it along with a brief line or two. Something like:
‘I’ve tried to find the words to say everything that I want to, but I’m coming up short. So instead, here is a poem that I hope gives you some comfort, written by someone who clearly paid more attention in school English lessons than I did …’
That’s exactly what my uncle did. Not long after my dad died, he sent a card with a printed excerpt of a letter written by Henry James to Grace Norton in 1883 and it’s something I’ve never forgotten. You can find the full letter at Letters of Note, but the part he sent me said:
“Don’t think, don’t feel, any more than you can help, don’t conclude or decide—don’t do anything but wait. Everything will pass, and serenity and accepted mysteries and disillusionments, and the tenderness of a few good people, and new opportunities and ever so much of life, in a word, will remain. You will do all sorts of things yet, and I will help you … You are marked out for success, and you must not fail. You have my tenderest affection and all my confidence.”
Whatever words you choose, I strongly encourage you to say them. There’s no way to accurately express the life-altering, world-shattering, cataclysmic effect of a loved one’s death. And there’s no way to make it through without the love, support and kindness of those around you so please, send that message, or write that card.