Posted on by Belinda O

I Don’t Know What to Say

Today at my writer’s group I finally had a chance to share something with one of the women there. She lost her husband about a year ago to a bad fall. A few months after he died, I was idly listening to NPR during their fundraising week when one story caught my attention. They told about a donation from a group of men who had raised money in memory of a buddy. It wasn’t a large group, I found out later, maybe eight or nine men, but together they gathered more than a thousand dollars in memory of Bob, my writer friend’s husband.

I was moved to tears. I’d never met Bob, but I knew his wife from our shared love of writing. I wanted to tell her how I felt when I learned of this donation, but the time was never right. Today we critiqued a piece she’d written about him, sharing what a fun-loving man he was as well as the horror of his fall. The time, I decided, was now.

It’s hard to know what to say and when to say it when someone you don’t see often or don’t know well suffers a serious loss. A woman I had worked with for only a few weeks lost her mom to Covid in the middle of the pandemic. My co-worker returned to the job two days after her mom died, taking one day off a week later for the funeral. When I expressed my sympathy, she snapped and said, “don’t worry about it.”

I wasn’t sure about the layered meaning of her retort and her quick return to work, and I didn’t know who to ask. Later she opened up more and said she felt guilty about her mom’s death, thinking she should have done more to protect her. I understood that.

As humans, we experience the death of those we are close to. Even having gone through the death of a loved one, we’re often at a loss with what to say to others experiencing the same thing. A card is good, we know, but what happens when we see them again? Will they break down crying if we say something, and what do we do then? 

I have no answers for this. I remember when my stepdad died, a friend warned me that some people were going to say really tacky things and to be prepared. He was right. It made me wonder if I’d been guilty of the same thing in the past, and even now I wonder if I have been thoughtless in some way I’m not aware of.

We can only pray and hope for increased sensitivity and maturity. Life is a journey we take together.

Image Credit: © Butch–stock.adobe.com

12 Replies to “I Don’t Know What to Say”

    1. I think that’s the fear I have–that a lot of people have–of saying something that hurts or offends. Of course in that situation I found out later what was going on with her, but we don’t always and don’t know whether or not to accept any blame.

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  3. You’re right about this. None of us knows how to interact, because we rarely have grief training, as many people don’t like to engage.
    A friend of mine lost her firefighter fiancee when he jumped onto a live wire. He was 37 and they were supposed to marry in two months. As a result, we had many conversations about what you’ve written here. In the end, she said that she preferred if people would simply say, “Is there anything I can do for you?” I thought this was a good approach and have started saying it to people who experience loss and also to people who seem to be just struggling.
    Thanks for sharing this Belinda. It’s something relatable that many don’t seem to know how to navigate.

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    1. I so appreciate your input and practical suggestion. Your friend’s story breaks my heart, and I’m glad she was able to share her pain with you.

      I had an experience today where I feel like I said all the wrong things, but I know the friend I was speaking to will forgive me if I did. Thank God.

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