The Daily Q: Tread Lightly

Good Manners and Perspective are significant reasons why loss and grief come with social symptoms, and especially social withdrawal. The good manners part likely also explains why more people are not slugged by the bereaved.

People who are grieving typically don’t have emotional space to feel anything remotely sympathetic for everyday disappointments and inconveniences. In fact, listening to people bitch and moan about anything less tragic and permanent than death may well fill with the bereaved with searing rage and/or sorrow that they have discovered yet another so-called friend to cross off their list.

That social withdrawing may, in fact, simply be the result of Friend List pruning. After all, who wants or needs a friend who doesn’t have the good sense to avoid talking about her hangnail to someone whose partner just died?!

It is tricky.

The Perspective of the bereaved has radically shifted. Anything less than death now feels like an amazing gift.

Roof caved in? It can be fixed.

Dog events cancelled? Meh.

You burned the eggplant and set the kitchen on fire? R.I.P. eggplant?? What the problem?!

You get the idea.

This is why it is important to check yourself when you talk to a bereaved person. If they have the space or desire to hear your news, they will ask. And when they do, proceed cautiously — it likely was not an invitation to back up your Dump Truck of Disappointments and Inconveniences and unload on someone drowning in a Real Problem.

Raging Perspective is part of Grief. Tread Lightly on that shattered heart.

The Daily Q: A How-to List When Covid-19 Shatters a Life (Updated)

10,943 human beings in the USA have had their lives ended by Covid-19; by the time you read this, the number will be higher.

Clark Osojnicki — the husband of one of my closest and longest friends — lost the rest of his wonderful lifetime to Covid-19 yesterday.

Did you hear the shattering as he was transformed from a beloved member of a family and community to a pandemic statistic?

Did a shard from my friend’s stunned and broken soul land on you?

Oh, how I wish I had the Magic Wand.

But I don’t.

All I have is words.

Inadequate words.

But maybe words that can help all of us as we navigate helping Kris as she discovers — over and over and over — that her nightmare is real.

She is not asleep. He is gone. Really gone. And not coming back.

What she has left is us.

And yes — we are also inadequate. Imperfect. Scared. Heartbroken.

But we are what she has, and so let’s do this awful thing — together.

My expertise — if any of us can really be experts in anything — is grief and loss. Therefore — and because I know he would want her wrapped in our love and support — I offer these ideas for what to do when you hear the news.

And may I just add that I cannot believe I am writing these words?

Caring for Her Shattered Heart: An Informed How-to List

1. Send things — meals, gift cards, memories, photos, gifts, sympathy cards, messages, and so on. If something tangible — do it anonymously to spare her the burden of thank-you-note-guilt, or clearly communicate, “no acknowledgement wanted — this is about you.”

2. Your grief matters — hers matters more. Let’s keep the focus where he would want: On helping her.

3. Don’t ask her those nosy questions. It doesn’t matter.

4. Be very careful not to need anything from the one who has nothing left to give. It is not your turn to need answers, reassurances, comfort, or support.

5. NO PLATITUDES. If your sentence is going to start with, “At least…” — just stop.

6. Related — there is not a silver lining. None. Don’t leave her to go off looking for one. This is just awful. Stay with her in the Dark Place.

7. She will need ongoing support — do not forget her shattered heart in a few weeks because that is actually when shit will get real and she will need us more.

8. It is not fair to ask a bereaved person how you can help or tell her to let you know if she needs anything. Bereaved people can barely think straight. They cannot be expected to marshal their own grief support. Instead — just do something.

9. Sufficient unto the day. Help her stay in this current moment. Don’t ask her to speculate or plan or make any decisions that can wait. And trust me — almost everything can (and should) wait.

10. “I don’t want to live without him.” “Why did this happen?” “I should have done more, been more.” Understand these kinds of things as expressions of pain and sorrow — not a request for answers or action. Respond to the pain. Stay with the pain. You do not have her answers.

11. Show up. Listen. Care. Know there are no perfect words. Say how sorry you are. Go ahead and bumble it. Your love and support will shine through.

For more information and guidance about grief, please visit www.helpwithgrief.org

Stay safe, kind, well — and supportively distant.

And reach out to me if I can be helpful to you: sontag.bowman@gmail.com

Guest Content

Recording a podcast series about teenage suicide and shattered hearts is all the rough stuff you might imagine it would be. We keep adding recording sessions because there is so much to say.

Grief Hangovers are a thing, FYI.

I wanted to share this from my recording partner — with permission, of course.

“I’ve had a few things on my heart the past two weeks — insert Harrison’s side snarky glare because in reality nothing is on my heart {insert Mom sassy face as I look back} — I’m sure that these feels sitting on my heart are partly because of my project with Mary-Ann Sontag Bowman talking about mine and Harrison’s story and partly these feels come from a mind that never stops analyzing EVERYTHING.

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining ☁️🙅🏻‍♀️

Source Unknown

I’m not sure the history of this☝🏻 or when it came into widespread use, but like almost all platitudes I loathe it— so much so that it has been sitting on, squashing, my heart.

Because it is hurtful and bossy and unrealistic and takes action away from people AND it makes people feel GUILTY for their normal natural feelings when faced with a situation that they didn’t want/didn’t ask for.

There is NOT a silver lining to Harrison taking his own life, NONE or my Mom’s death NONE or my sister’s death NONE.

So maybe it works in non-death scenarios? BUT don’t think that people don’t use this platitude in grief situations… I heard about one this week and was flabbergasted.

Hey, your dog has cancer, but your parents took you to get an ice-cream ❌

Hey, you worked really hard to get honor roll and barely missed, but at least you aren’t failing❌

Hey, you are going through a divorce, but at least you get to keep your house❌

Are we trying to negate feelings of disappointment and loss? Who are we to take away normal, vital, healthy feelings? Are we uncomfortable with other’s pain and try to “fix” it? Are all platitudes veiled in a selfish need to “fix” others?

Another possibility popped into my mind… do we buy into it because we are challenged by disappointment/loss running alongside laughter, joy, and possibility. Example: my Mom died from an auto accident when I was young, my Dad remarried, and I was gifted with siblings. So, if I am feeling broken and raw about my Mom’s death then I am somehow saying that I don’t want my siblings… because her death started a chain of events that ended with my gift siblings.

I am devastated and broken over the death of my son AND I am grateful to be involved in a project with @sontagbowman that lets me share mine and Harrison’s story. I can feel devastation and gratitude at the same-time.

Complex human emotions deserve more than flat Hallmark musings.”