The Good Friend’s Guide to Grief:
how to avoid making things worse.

Losing someone you love, whether it is a parent, a partner, a sibling, a child or a friend, is traumatic. While nothing can make the grief less painful, friends and colleagues can do a lot to help – if only they knew where to start.

Unfortunately, most of us have absolutely no idea what to do and we end up inflicting additional pain on someone who is already feeling overwhelmed.

Tamara Clark’s experienced is indicative of what can happen: “People we both knew used to cross the street rather than talk to me”, she says of the time after her husband died. “They think you don’t notice, but you do, and it was so hurtful. It felt like I was being punished twice.”

For most of us, death is an abstract concept. We all know about “media death”. We see it all the time in films and on television. Thankfully, bombs and earthquakes and hurricanes are things that happen to other people. We can shudder, and then look away.

Cocooned by low infant mortality rates and increased life spans, people in their twenties, thirties and even forties rarely encounter death in their day-to-day lives. Dealing with death has become a skill which has passed out of the private sphere and into the hands of professionals. On a day-to-day basis, friends and colleagues may have little persdonal experience to draw on when it comes to supporting someone who is grieving. As a result, once the first wave of sympathy and condolences has washed over them, the bereaved can feel incredibly isolated.

As in Tamara’s case, our fear of death and awkwardness in dealing with those who are left behind can lead friends and acquaintances to do appalling things. We can’t believe we would do something that dreadful, but it happens all the time – and not just to adults.

Caroline Smith’s mother died when she was a young child. At a time when, as children, they were struggling to make sense of what had happened to them, people were actively avoiding them. “It was bad enough that we’d lost our mother,” she recalls, “but on top of that, the way people behaved made us feel as if we’d done something wrong.”

Part of the reason for such unfeeling behaviour is that peope are worried that the grieving person will cry or behave “inappropriately”. From their point of view, the safest strategy appears to be to say nothing: to carry on as if everything was normal. From the perspective of the bereaved person, this is incredibly hurtful.

“People don’t want to upset you or remind you,” says Sara Bellamy, whose partner died earlier this year, “But do they really think you can forget? It’s like having an elephant in the room with you and everyone is pretending it’s not there. I wanted to shout at people: ‘it’s an elephant for God’s sake!’ We all knew Martin was dead. It was insulting to him and to me to pretend it hadn’t happened.”

“It’s not what people have said that has been painful for me,” she continues, “It’s when they haven’t said anything. Just not saying ‘I was sorry to hear about Martin’, adds to the grief.”

There are three simple things to remember if you want to help someone who is grieving, says Annie Kiff-Wood, of the charity Cruse Bereavement Care:

• the first is to listen
• the second is to allow them to cry without letting your own embarrassment get in the way
• the third is to offer practical support.

You aren’t helping your friend to cope with their loss by pretending that nothing has happened, says Kiff-Wood. Someone who is grieving needs to talk about it. It is an important part of getting to grips with what has happened to them. And if they need to cry about it, let them.

Sara Bellamy agrees wholeheartedly. “Just because someone’s eyes fill with tears every time the person’s name is mentioned is not a reason to stop speaking about them. I want to talk about him. I’m not going to cry every time his name comes up. . . . but I might. . .”

“When people are grieving,” Kiff-Wood points out, “they are going through one of the most stressful experiences they have ever had and they are likely to be exhausted by it.” If you don’t feel able to sit and listen, she says, then try to think about the practicalities: mow the lawn; offer to help with the children; cook a meal; do some ironing . . . Having said that, she cautions that you must not expect the grieving person to take up every offer of help or every invitation to talk: they might want to be on their own. What’s important is for them to know that you are there if they need you.

This advice holds true for the longer term as well as for the first few weeks. “Don’t stop calling after the first week or so to make sure that the person is alright,” she urges. “Keep doing it – especially if that person lives on their own.” This is particularly important for the first year after the death.

Kiff-Wood suggests that another important service that friends can provide is to remember important dates: the birthday of the survivor and the person who died; wedding anniversaries; the anniversary of the death itself, and to let the bereaved person know that you are thinking of them at these times.

Death is so final. We’re a society that believes that everything is available – you just have to be willing (or able) to pay the price. But death is binary: this person was alive: now they are dead. It is so frightening because we know that one day, we are going to have to face death ourselves. It would be nice to feel that our loved ones will be well looked after by their friends and family when the time comes.

Useful website: http://www.crusebereavementcare.org.uk/