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Helping Each Other Grieve Creatively
By Hardy Clemons Everyone is in need of consolation. Everyone drags behind them the silent and invisible bags of past failures, loved ones lost, and the deep secrets of insecurity, fear, and anxiety. Often times when approaching the grieved we attempt to talk them back to freedom, as if our words can blanket the despair. Troy Organ once wrote that “grief is a helplessness that does not cry for help. One cries and hopes that help will come unbidden.” Hardy Clemons, in Saying Hello to Your Life After Grief, offers a few suggestions for relating in a helpful manner to those who have recently experienced a major loss. Go Lying, thinking People say, “I want to go, but I don’t know what to say.” My response to that is, “Good. That’s better! Say nothing. Just go. If you must speak, say ‘I’m sorry, I care,’ and nothing else. Your presence will say everything that needs to be said.” Most people say too much to grieving people anyway. People in grief are in such shock that they hear or remember basically nothing anybody says. Just go. If for some reason you cannot go, phone or write. Say “I’m sorry, I care, I love you. I’m here to help if I may.” Remember that it is not necessary or even important to say anything. Indeed, it is crucial not to say too much at such a time. Listen Listen particularly for feelings. Accept these feelings without judgment. Feelings are not moral or immoral, good or bad—they’re just feelings! I have been there many times as a pastor and have seen the scenario as people come to give the gift of their presence. I have heard the typical story: “John has not been feeling well lately, but when he came in tonight he said he was feeling better. He ate such a good supper. His appetite seemed to be back. After supper he went in to listen to the news. I was puttering around the kitchen, finishing things. When I went in to join him, he seemed to be asleep in his chair. I tried not to disturb him, but then he seemed not to be moving at all. I spoke to him, then went over and touched him, and…he was gone!” Then the phone or the doorbell rings, and she tells the story all over again: “John hasn’t been feeling well lately. But tonight he came in and had such a good supper. Then he went in to hear the news.…” As caring people visit and call, she tells one of the most important stories of her life over and over again. Each time she repeats the story, the reality she is loathe to face sinks into her being a bit more. People who go and care and be a good enough friend to listen are crucially important. Ask Questions Troy Organ observed, “Friends poured in all afternoon. There were never less than a dozen people with me during the rest of the day. As each arrived, there was a brief expression of sorrow. Then conversation turned to the weather, politics, campus gossip. I wanted to talk about Lorena, but everyone else seemed to find this an embarrassing topic.” No Preaching Touch Offer Specific Help People want to talk about their losses. They want us to listen to what they feel. We give them a priceless gift when we patiently listen to whatever they want to say. We neither judge nor argue. We forego telling “war stories” about our own losses and victories. We avoid telling people what to feel or how to face a loss. We don’t explore why the tragedy happened. We listen. My dear friends and fellow church members lost their teenage daughter and sister, Blair Smoak, in a tragic accident in 1992. In facing and seeking to work through their grief, they circulated an anonymous poem that invited people to speak with them about their darling Blair: The time of concern is over. —From Saying Hello to Your Life After Grief by Hardy Clemons |
