I Don’t Know What To Say - Part 1

When someone we love is hurt it is natural for us to want to ease some of the pain.  We offer ice packs and Band Aids and maybe a kiss for scrapes and bruises.  More serious injuries are left to the professionals, but perhaps we lend out a used pair of crutches or recommend our physical therapist.  There are wishes of “Get Well Soon”, as we expect that a combination of modern medicine and the body’s ability to heal itself will make our broken friend whole in due time.  Of course, even if someone seems intact after recovering from bodily harm, there is usually a remnant of the damage, maybe just a scar but occasionally something more debilitating, like a permanent loss of range of motion or the ability to move through the world pain-free.

We similarly try to ease the pain of those enduring emotional injury.  Soon after a death, we drop off food, or send foliage and flowers.  We mail cards that relate messages of sympathy and remembrance.  We show up at visitations and memorials and say that we are sorry.  After that, we struggle for the language to soothe those who mourn and in our loss for words, we frequently revert to platitudes.  I understand that the effort to mitigate the anguish of those we care about comes from a place of love and concern, but I am finding that frequently those clichés aren’t necessarily comforting.  I’m unsure whether many of us who say these things even believe they are true, but maybe we hope that the bereaved will believe them, at least for a few moments, because even short-lived relief is worthwhile.  But in my current state, some of these words have actually added to my pain instead of diminishing it.

So this is the first in a series on things that we say to the grieving, that based on my own experience, I will never say again.

“Time heals all wounds.”  The wound of grief may not be immediately visible, but it can be just as stressful to our bodies as a physical injury.  Sometimes guilt or shame or regret makes the wound fester.  Sometimes we avoid any exertion because the gash is so deep it reopens too easily.  Sometimes a callous forms, providing protection from further injury but also creating discomfort and hardness where there once was ease.  Sometimes there is constant pain, an ache that we can ignore while we are active, but that throbs in times of idleness.

My skin is peppered with myriad blotches and blemishes whose origins have long been forgotten.  I do carry one significant scar from an unforgettable event: the incision from the C-section when my sons were born.  The cut has healed, although it left me with an asymmetrical belly sporting a permanent sneer.  Likewise, some emotional injuries heal in time.  We can and do recover from broken relationships and missed opportunities and many of the disappointments of life.  But there are some things that impact us so deeply that we are never the same again.

I lost a very good friend in a car accident just after I turned 16.  In fact, the three teenagers who died that brilliant summer evening were the only three people I had celebrated my birthday with exactly two weeks prior.  The young woman and I had been best friends since sixth grade, but had started to grow apart as we followed different paths in high school.  Even so, we shared over four years of adolescent secrets and adventures and heartaches and dreams for a solid quarter of a very young life.  On the thirty year anniversary of the accident, the family of one of the boys who perished with her published a short commemorative blurb in the obituary section of our local newspaper.  As I read it that morning and recognized the connection, suddenly I was 16 again, receiving the 3 am phone call that left me unmoored for years later.  And even after the three decades of living that had transpired since that awful day: of new and deeper friendships, of falling in love and getting married, of having a sixteen year old child of my own at that time: the air caught in my throat as the sadness came bubbling out of a deep well in my psyche.    

At that point, I hadn’t actively grieved Melissa for a while.  In fact, I had stopped thinking of her on the anniversary of her death and even on her birthday some years.  Does that mean that the wound had healed?  Is getting accustomed to something the same thing as healing?  I don’t think so.  Even though there is no visible scar, I am undoubtably a much different person now from having endured this profound trauma.  Grief should transition eventually from an acute to a chronic albeit more manageable condition, but I’m not sure I consider that healing.            

Even if time does heal all wounds, and I do “get well” eventually, I sure don’t feel well now.  So promises of a better future aren’t all that soothing:  the fact that it is probable that I will find joy again at some point isn’t comforting to me in the present.  And why shouldn’t I be sad right now?  Pain is the body’s way of telling us something is wrong and something is wrong: my husband is dead!  As miserable as the experience is, I need to go through it.   

Please don’t let the uncertainty of knowing what to say prevent you from contacting those that are grieving.  Since nothing can make our losses smaller, there is no need to pressure yourself to be the wise sage who can fix someone’s pain with a magic phrase.  Remember that actions speak louder than words, and the gesture of reaching out will mean much more than anything you can say.  If you bear witness to my grief, then maybe you don’t need to say anything, your presence alone has told me everything I need to hear.  Try starting with “hello, you’ve been on my mind” or even just “hey” and together we’ll try to muddle through.