People get uncomfortable when it comes to grief. We want to console people in a way that lets us not look directly at it.
I have a number of people, both clients and non-clients, who ask me what the best thing is to say to someone in pain. There is hope for a formula. I so get that. To my clients: you have no idea how much I wish I could say the perfect thing that would anesthisize your pain.
That perfect response doesn’t exist. No one’s words, no matter the training or the wisdom behind them, can fill the gaping hole of grief. However, I believe we can offer to occupy that space with them. We can look directly at another's experience without squirming our way out of it with prewritten responses.
Sometimes the candid or possibly nonverbal response will touch that pain in a way which that person so badly needs. From my experience working with people in grief, it seems like many people are just tired. They need permission to feel whatever they feel without worrying you are uncomfortable.
It is natural to want to be polite or to fix the pain. Often we do this by not saying anything until they bring it up or by offering positive/profound sentiments (I’m looking at you, “at least he/she is in a better place now”). But grief is not a time to be polite. Niceties no longer exist for people in the state of bereavement. They have been given a new set of eyes to look at the world through.
As one writer put it,
“The experience of grief is much like it would be if suddenly and without warning, all society’s niceties were ripped away and you were forced to see other’s going about their business naked...At the same time, you quietly and almost in a panic, realize that you are the only one who sees people like this. The rest of people around you cannot see through your lens. To them, everyone is still clothed, private, polite. There is no way for them to understand how everything has changed. ”
This past year I visited the 9/11 Memorial. There was one particular corner that had a graphic warning. It was the corner dedicated to those who had been on the top floors of the WTC and with no escape option, jumped.
I read up on the development of the memorial museum later and wasn’t terribly shocked to find out there had been controversy around whether or not that part of the exhibition should be allowed. I cannot claim to know if it was OK or not OK—I can only speak to my experience in that room which was this:
When I entered and saw the images, a surge of conflict rose up inside me. Part of me felt compelled to keep looking and another part of me felt horrified. Was my compulsion to look voyeuristic? Was the desire to look away a need to avoid pain? What right do I have to avoid witnessing a pain that was unavoidable to them? (By the way, welcome to the brain of a therapist.) Then I looked down and saw this quote inscribed on a plaque:
The hairs stood up on my arms and for the umpteenth time that day, I was humbled by the amount of courage the people present that day had. Here was someone trying to exert the last bit of a control they had to exit this world in a less sufferable way, and another, looking directly at it.
I saw the controversy around this exhibit as a symbol of our reaction to grief. We must remember that the choice of what to publicly display is still just that, a choice. Not everyone had one. The individuals who perished, their loved ones, and the bystanders did not and will never get to look away.
When tragedy affects us directly by hitting our community and we have no choice to escape it, it elicits courageous responses. It shines a light on our shared humanity.
But what about the every day personal tragedies we witness? Your co-worker who lost their spouse to cancer? Your family member who suffered a miscarriage? The friend who is spending their first holiday season without a parent?
We have it in us to practice similar courage. The people around us living in the shadow of grief are not getting a choice. We have the choice to try harder to not look away. Offer them comfort simply by letting them know they don't have to keep pretending this world still makes sense. Their pain will not disappear but it may be more bearable if it sits in the company of acknowledgement and connection.