What Not To Say To Grieving People

The worst part of life is death. Not our own death; sometimes, we don’t even see our demise coming. Other times, we have ample time to prepare. But it’s dealing with the deaths of others which is so painful. When it is someone close to us, the agony is so potent, we give it a special name: grief.

Grief is one of the most complex elements of the human psyche. It impacts us in ways psychologists still cannot fully understand. This suffering is difficult to decipher because we all grieve differently. The timing, the intensity, the mixing of complex emotions, all varies. It’s difficult to describe and unpredictable.

I’ve wailed, not just cried, but wailed, one time in my entire life. I had just finished all the paperwork in the nursing facility where my mother died. As I walked down the hall past her old room for the last time, I felt this rage of emotion bubbling deep within me. I sped up my pace, through the lobby, out the door until I was trotting across the parking lot. I made it to my car, shut the door, and wailed. Wailed loud, wailed hard, wailed long.

And the most important thing I learned is that you must grieve. If you don’t properly grieve, it’s as if you swallow a poison pill, and the poison stays within you, inflicting all sorts of pain and creating problems in your life, but you don’t even realize this poison is in you and causing hidden damage. You must grieve to expel the poison out of your soul.

Therefore, grieving hurts terribly but must occur. And we often encounter friends and associates who have suffered a great loss, such as the unexpected death of a spouse or child. We know they are in pain, and we feel the need to comfort them. So, we search for something positive to say in this horribly, terrible time. 

But we are uncomfortable around grieving people. This puts us, and our brains, under an enormous amount of stress. We need to say something. But because of the pressure, we don’t search for the right thing to say, and we blurt out whatever thought pops into to our minds. We want to say something helpful and encouraging, but sometimes we say the wrong things. We don’t mean to, but our comments can actually be hurtful if we are not careful.  

The danger here, is the grieving person is trapped in a fiery circle of distress. They have just lost a spouse, a parent, a child, a best friend, a lover. They are not thinking clearly, they are not responding normally, they are not fully functioning, they are just hurting. Thus, be extremely careful what you say to them when they are in this vulnerable state.

This subject was already on my future blog list when I overheard my friend Theresa discussing this very issue with another friend at an event recently. Theresa lost her daughter several years ago to acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She shared her feelings with me during a lengthy discussion on the topic. She provided me with a few examples of the wrong thing to say  quoted off the top of her head because she has heard them so often:

Here are a few examples about what not to say:

“God doesn’t give you more than you can handle”

In the same vein –

“God must have thought you were strong enough to do this to you”

What’s wrong here:

You might be a person of faith, but right now, this grieving person has some severe issues, questions, and doubts about THE CREATOR. They are not very happy with God right now. The person doesn’t want, nor needs, to hear your pop theology at this moment. You are not a pastor or counselor, so steer clear of this road. Over time, the person will need to work this out, maybe with professional help, as part of the grieving process.

And similar to this, also avoid: Everything happens for a reason. Because in these cases – there is no good reason. So, no.

“She’s in a better place.”

and

“They are always with you.”

 What’s wrong here:

Even if the statements are factual in a sense, they provide little comfort to the person. The departed loved one is not physically here. The grieving person has suffered a loss, resulting in something being gone from their life. There is a vast void. These statements imply that the void doesn’t matter, when it is the most painful part of the ordeal.

“I know how you feel”

and

“Time will ease your pain”

and

“You can move on now”

What’s wrong here: Unless you have suffered something as traumatic as the person, you can’t possibly know how this person feels at that moment. If you have been traumatized this much, you probably already know not to communicate this thought in this way. But even if you have suffered something similar, the person’s grief will still be different, perhaps much more intense, than you experienced. The truth is, you don’t know how they feel. So, no.

The fact that time may ease the pain, and the person will eventually move on, offers no comfort in the present. It’s totally irrelevant to a person currently in intense pain.

The Results

The previous examples are not just random utterances; they are often spoken by well-meaning people. However, they do not provide comfort. Sometimes, they inflict more pain.

Theresa told me, “There were times after hearing the same statement for the umpteenth time, that I felt like punching the person in the face.”

My Purpose In Writing About This

The purpose of this essay is not to chastise you for making these statements. We have all said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. The reason to discuss this deep, heavy stuff is to help you in the future when you encounter someone in severe grief. Please remember to think before you speak, and not say the statements, or anything similar to it, previously discussed.

“But Don, you’ve told us what not to say. I hate articles that tell you what not to do, but don’t tell you what to do instead.” Well, so do I. And in Part 2, we will look at, based on Theresa’s experience, what we need to say to grieving people and what they need from us.