Please stop trying.
I’ve written two parts for this one. There is the ‘widow version’ to offer up help and thoughts to my widowed friends. There is also a ‘friend version’. Quite often friends have no idea what to say or do with grief so say nothing. It is better to say “I don’t know what to say than say nothing at all.”
Widow version
Coping with grief. Three words that really do not go together. I mean, let’s be honest, how do you cope with something like grief, something that’s determined to knock you down every time you try to get up? Something that comes from the depths of your soul and fills you with an incredible sadness at the loss you’ve suffered. Please bear with me as I try and guide you through this.
- Remember, everyone is different.
- There are no right and wrong answers.
- There is no grief manual that you have to follow.
- It’s about what’s right for you.
The first thing to realise is that grief is the worst feeling in the world. You can’t get away from it, hard as you might try. You’ve lost a husband or a wife and if you are anything like me, you feel that you’ve lost half your identity too. You don’t know whether you’re coming or you’re going, and your life has changed forever. The other half of you is missing. The waves of grief are draining you mentally and physically, let alone emotionally. What you have to do now, is find your coping mechanisms, what works for you. Those ways of coping are individual. What works for you will not necessarily work for the next person.
Here are some recommended ideas for coping:
- Realise you’re only human. That’s the biggie. If you can accept that one straight away, that’s half the battle.
- Don’t try to be a hero doing everything. Grief doesn’t allow that. Widow-brain doesn’t allow that.
- Ask for help. Some people can do this easily. Some can’t. I fall into the latter, but that’s just me!
- Seek face to face counselling if you need to.
- There will be many formal things you need to focus on through your grief. Make lists. They will be invaluable.
- Remember you don’t have to ‘be strong” with your loss. Showing your feelings helps your family and you to be on the same page and support each other.
- Remember there is no timescale for grief.
- When grief hits, let it. If that means, you don’t get out of bed that day, so be it. If it means you lay in bed at night yelling at the room how unfair it is (I did that), then so be it.
- If coping with grief means that you clear out your loved one’s clothes that first week after they passed, then do it. It has to be what’s right for you.
- If getting up every morning and going straight back to work is your coping mechanism, then you have to do what’s right.
Grief is an emotion that never announces its arrival or how long it’s going to stay. It hits like an ocean wave and knocks you down again and again. How you cope, is down to you, your family and support network as well as remembering this. You are only human.
Friend version
Supporting my friend.
When someone grieves it manifests very differently. Some people will be quiet. Some will shut down and not answer the phone/messages. Some will be loud and exuberant. Some will be angry. Some will cry. Every one of them is a valid grief response. But the million-dollar question is, how do you support a friend in grief?
That’s a question that I can’t answer. You didn’t want to hear that did you! Okay, let me put it another way. It’s a question where the answer is different for everyone. Now, let’s see what information I can give you that might go some way to helping your grieving friend.
- Accept that you will be uncomfortable with what’s happening. It’s natural.
- Accept that you cannot fix a “sad/grieving” friend and don’t try to. Grief is unfixable. It’s there for life. It’s a grief not only of the person who has died, but also the life lost of the person remaining. The life they would have had with that person.
- I cannot stress this one enough. Don’t disappear on your grieving friend. Never assume they need ‘time alone’ as it is rarely true. They will need you but just don’t quite know how to tell you. Sometimes they just need to know that you are in the house with them. It can be that simple.
- Never tell them to call you when they want you. Speaking from experience, a widow barely remembers that they get out of bed, let alone making calls.
- Be aware that your friend will have a wide range of emotions, some of which may be the complete opposite to their normalcy. Accept that. Again, don’t try and fix this.
- Support your grieving friends with the paperwork side of death – there is a lot and it’s very hard to comprehend everything you’re told.
- Offer to drive them to the lawyers and the bank. There are lots of things to do after a death.
- Observe your friend discreetly for physical signs of increased emotional fragility. Signs such as fatigue, nausea, weight changes, insomnia, aches and pains that were not there before.
- Put together a care package for your friend. Tissues, takeout menus, photo of their loved one, blanket to snuggle up with, movie subscription. Little things that tell them you’re thinking of them.
- Never tell them that ‘I know how you feel’. With all the respect in the world, unless you have experienced spousal loss yourself…. you have no idea. Spousal loss is something else. Every loss is different.
- Talk about the person who has died. Just because they died, don’t forget the life they had with your friend. Laugh at the funny moments. Share tears when needed and just talk.
- Offer to help around the house, but never be offended if they say no. They may want to do these jobs themselves in order to keep their mind occupied.
When my husband passed away, I remember being invited to a friend’s house for dinner. Little did I know that there was a houseful of people there. People I didn’t know. People who didn’t know me and who had no idea what to say to me, given the loss. I had people I’d considered friends step away and never return to the friendship.
Widowhood is a traumatic experience, one that can end up lonely if friends step away. Be the person that your grieving friend doesn’t know they need. Be there for them – always.
