Things Not to Say to Someone Who Is Grieving
And things you can
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Today is the 6th year anniversary of my mom’s death. She was 65.
Having lost four loved ones (plus my beloved furbaby dog) in the past five and a half years (three of those people in the past two-ish years since the pandemic began, and two of those since January 2021), I think I know a little bit about grief.
One thing I’m not going to say is:
I know how you feel or I know what you’re going through.
Because even if you have experienced loss yourself, you can’t know exactly what someone is going through because everyone is different and, therefore, everyone’s experience of loss and grief for a loved one is different. My experience of loss and grief about my mom was and is far different from my brother’s. And that’s okay. I didn’t say to my brother, “It’s okay, I know what you’re going through,” even though we both lost the same person a handful of years ago.
One thing that I think is really important is to let people know: it’s okay to feel whatever they feel (and for however long they need to feel it because there is no timeline…
