Member-only story
11 Tips to Help a Grieving Parent
Chances are good that you know or will know a family whose lives have been turned upside-down by loss. Here are some tips for how to become one of those who “get” grief.
This post was originally published in ParentMap on May 14, 2015.
Every time there is news of someone joining the ranks of the grieving, I grieve for them. It is such a difficult road, yet it is an experience we will all have at some time in our lives. If that person is a parent of younger-aged children, then I have a special place in my heart for them.
The sudden and tragic recent death of Sheryl Sandberg’s husband Dave Goldberg at the prime of his life is another such story. A power couple in the tech world, parents of two children, they seemed to have the world at their feet. And now life has gone sideways for them all.
These stories are hard to hear. They are a stark reminder of what we all have to lose. It’s often heard among the widowed set that there are people who “get grief,” and then there is everybody else. Before my husband died, I was definitely in the “everyone else” camp. Had I been confronted with a friend who was grieving, I wouldn’t have had a clue what to say or do. I had no frame of reference. No one close to me had ever died. Chances are good that you know or will know a family whose lives have been turned upside-down by loss. Here are some tips for how to become one of those who “get” grief.
