Ways of Helping the Bereaved

A Story

Still in shock, I stumbled around the house finding suitcases and deciding what to pack. Earlier that evening I received a call from my father in Calgary telling me that my brother, sister-in-law, and children had been killed in a car wreck. “Your mother is really falling apart over this as you can imagine and it would be good if you get here as soon as possible!” He said.

And that’s what I wanted to do - leave right away to be with my parents and siblings. But my husband, Frank and I were in the midst of moving to Vancouver. Our house was in a shambles, packed and unpacked boxes strewn all over the place. Some of the clothes that Frank and I and our two twin boys, Gabriel and Zachary would need were already taped up in cartons. Which ones I hadn’t a clue. Confused and overwhelmed by my own sense of grief, I couldn’t remember. The place looked like a disaster area. Undone laundry was piled up on one side of the room waiting to be sorted. Supper dishes still sat on the kitchen table. The boy’s toys were strewn everywhere.

As Frank made plane reservations for the following morning, I wandered about the house aimlessly picking things up and putting things down again. I would start one project, only to leave halfway through and start another project. I had great difficulty focusing.

Again and again my father’s words ran through my mind, “Bob is gone, Mary too and both the kids, Jenni and Josh.”

It was as though the message had muffled my brain. Whenever Frank would speak, he sounded far away. It was like hearing someone talking to you while you are underwater. I seemed to be in a slow motion movie. I kept running into things, tripping over toys.

Frank made arrangements for us to leave by 8:00a.m.the next morning. Then he phoned a few neighbors and friends to tell them what happened. Occasionally someone would ask to speak to me. Usually they would end our conversation with, “If there is anything I can do, please let me know.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much,” I reply, not having a clue what I’d ever ask for. I was too confused to know what I needed. I mostly sat in the kitchen staring out at the full moon. I was glad for Frank making all the arrangements. Someone had to have a clear head!

While I sat there, Zachary darted by clutching a ball - Gabriel in close pursuit!

They should be in bed by now I thought. I followed them into the living room. My body felt like lead. My feet moved as if in cement. I sank down on the couch, sitting in a stupor my eyes closed, my head ached. Just then the door bell rang. I rose slowly and crept across the room. I opened the door to see Mark, our next door neighbor standing on the porch. “I’ve come to clean your shoes!” He said.

I wasn’t sure I heard him right, “You’ve come to clean our shoes?”

“I’ve come to clean your shoes. Lana had to stay with the baby,” he said “but we wanted to help you. I remember when my mother died, it took me hours to clean and shine the children’s shoes for the funeral. So that’s what I’ve come to do for you. I want to do all your shoes - not just your good ones.”

I hadn’t even thought about shoes until Mark mentioned it. But, come to think of it, Gabriel had left the sidewalk to wade through the mud with his good shoes on after church last Sunday. Not to be outdone by his brother, Zachary followed right behind Gabe into the mud. When we’d gotten home, I’d tossed the shoes into the laundry room, intending to clean them later but I’d forgotten.

Mark’s request gave me some focus - it gave me something to do. While he spread newspapers on the kitchen floor, I gathered up everyone’s shoes and brought them to the kitchen. Mark found a pan that he filled with soapy water. He had brought all the necessary cleaning materials, a variety of shoe polish, and even towels. Mark settled himself on the floor and began to work. Watching him focus on one task helped me to pull my own thoughts in order. “Okay” I told myself, “first the laundry.”

I remember watching Mark silently work in the corner while Frank and I cleared and washed the supper dishes. Little by little the jobs fell into place. A couple of hours later after giving the boys a bath, reading them a story and putting them to bed, I went to the laundry room to take a load of laundry out of the dryer. I noticed Mark was gone, but all the shoes were lining one wall, cleaned and polished.

I got to bed late that night, just after midnight and rose early the next morning. All the jobs managed to get done, suitcases packed, the boys readied, and soon we were in the air heading for Calgary.

Learning From the Story

Today, when I hear of a friend or an acquaintance who has lost a loved one, I no longer call with a vague offer of, “If there’s anything I can do, just call.” Instead I try to think of one specific task that suits that person - mowing the lawn, making a dinner, or house sitting during the funeral. And if the person responds, “How did you know that I needed that?” I reply, “There was a man once by the name of Mark who cleaned my shoes.”

I love this story and use it each year in the loss and grief class I teach at the College of New Caledonia. It illustrates the point quite well that you don’t have to have a degree with a bunch of letters behind your name to help someone in the midst of grief.

In our society we tend to pathologize grief. Grief is a natural response to loss. Yet if we cry too much (however that is measured?) or become too angry or depressed, we immediately think the person is “losing it” and is in need of professional help.

The vast majority of people in grief do not need professional help! What people need most is friends and family, and a support system to help them through their journey of grief.

We are the first generations in recorded history where it is quite common that people haven’t experienced the loss of a family member until they are in their 30s or 40s. Coming into the 20th Century the average lifespan was under 50 years-of-age. The average family had eight children and you could count on three of them dying before the age of five.

Today, with life spans reaching close to eight decades and with improved health care, death and loss have become far removed from the average Canadian’s day to day experience. When a sudden and tragic loss does occur, we become that much more immobilized in our grief. We are not sure of how to reach out and help those in so much pain so instead we offer vague requests like “If there is anything I can do ....” Seldom if ever, do people call back and take you up on such an offer.

So what might you do?

Over the years as a grief therapist and instructor, I have compiled the following list of things you can do to walk with someone through their grief:

1. Invite them to talk about the deceased ... to remember.
   Cancer, God, or a drunk driver can take away a loved one, but no one can take away your memories. You honor your loved one’s life by remembering them. We have this common, misguided notion in our society that we shouldn’t bring up the dead person’s name because it will make people uncomfortable. I have found the exact opposite to be true. Often that’s all people want is to feel they have permission to talk about their lost loved one. But instead, because of our discomfort they are confronted with a conspiracy of silence. Often the lost loved one becomes the “elephant in the living room” - everybody sees it but no one talks about it.
2. Everyone in a family will grieve differently.
   Where families get into trouble is when the spoken or unspoken expectation is that everyone grieves the same way. They don’t and it’s unrealistic to expect otherwise. Each person in the family has a unique relationship with the lost family member. Everyone may have lost mother, but since each family member had a separate and unique relationship with her, each person’s journey of grief will be different.
3. Kids grieve differently than adults.
   Until about the age of 10, kids see loss as temporary and reversible. They experience loss in the moment, one minute they will be sad and the next moment they will be playing with friends in the backyard. They will grow up with the loss so you will need to revisit the loss and explain the details over and over in different ways that match their developmental stage.
4. Avoid Clichés.
   We’ve all heard them before and most of us have used them:
   “We’ll meet her in heaven someday.”
   “Life is hard.”
   “It was God’s will.”
   “She’s in a better place now.”
   Remember how you felt on the receiving end of a cliché? You didn’t receive much comfort from them though it makes the person sending the cliché more comfortable, since they don’t know what else to say and do. Clichés tend to keep us at a distance - less vulnerable with one another. Quite often they are said during uncomfortable moments or long silences. The words feel hollow and usually don't mean much to the recipient.
5. No loss is like any other.
   I have overheard at funerals people say, if someone has lost a child, “I know what its like to lose a child.” That may be true, your child may have even been the same age and gender too. But your child wasn’t that parent’s child, that this particular parent has lost, in this time, during this particular circumstance. Your grief may be similar to their grief but it will never be the same.
6. Grief is a process, not a state.
   The person’s grief isn’t over after an hour, a week, or after the funeral. Different things may trigger off the person’s grief three months or three years later. A song on the radio, old love letters, some other child’s drawing, a similar smell, or a flashback to the past. The latest research shows we never “get over our grief,” instead we learn to live with it.
7. Don’t try and fix the pain.
   Grief isn’t a problem to be resolved or an equation to figure out. We tend to act much more like “human-doings” than “human-beings.” Too frequently, if we can’t be doing something or fixing something, we feel useless. With grief, your presence is your gift, your presence to the one in grief. Years from now they are not going to remember any profound words you said. What will be remembered is that you were there as a consistent presence in their pain. Helping someone in their grief isn't so much about doing but rather involves being.
8. The funeral is the easiest part.
   Our society is losing rituals all the time (i.e.people not getting married, foregoing graduation ceremonies). The funeral is one of the few rituals we have left (though we are losing this as well) in the area of loss and grief. It can be the easiest part of one’s grief because it gives mourners prescribed roles and duties how to act and participate in the process. I have found where people’ss grief is toughest is three months or a year later, when the waves of grief come crashing all around you when you least expect it and no one is there. Or worse yet, people expect you to be over it by now. We are good at rallying around people at a funeral, but what’s really important is to check in on folks three months and nine months from now when the crowd is gone and they are much more alone in their grief.
9. Discourage major decisions.
   Grief is like a storm that can sweep you off your feet leaving the person lonely, confused, and dazed. In this state of vulnerability this is not a time to be making major decisions that you may regret later. Try to avoid making major decisions at least for the first year after the loss.
10. Accept and encourage expressions of grief.
    When you lose someone you love dearly the feelings can be quite intense around this loss, especially when it is sudden and unexpected. What I have found is that feelings expressed are not as overwhelming as unexpressed feelings. Grief that is allowed to be experienced will dissipate. The only grief that does not get better is grief that isn't faced.

Hopefully these ten points will be helpful to you not only in facing your own grief but in trying to assist others through their own grief process. The paradox of grief is that the only way out of it is to walk into it; the only way past it is to walk through it. Grief will never leave you where it finds you. Grief faced will always be transformative.

So the next time someone close to you loses a loved one, instead of calling and hearing yourself say, “Call me if there’s anything I can do ...,” remember the man who polished all the shoes!

“ ... anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Written by: Tom Reis
Walmsley & Associates

1512 Queensway
Prince George, BC
Telephone: 250-564-1000 / 1-800-481-5511
Fax: 250-562-1812
E-mail: reception@walmsley.ca, or garth@walmsley.ca
Web: www.walmsley.ca

This article is written by Tom Reis for this web site (WALMSLEY & ASSOCIATES) . Tom is an instructor at the local college. Along with various counselling courses, he is well known for his knowledge in the area of grief and loss and is often invited to lecture, or conduct workshops on the subject. Tom has a Masters of Science Degree in Family Therapy, and a Masters of Social Work Degree.

This article may be freely copied and distributed provided that the references and author contact information are included, and provided that no charge is made for copying or distribution.

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