“You will never, ever get over it.” Seven words meant to be reassuring can actually sting like a sentence. For so many mourning people, such statements albeit given with kindness land like a judgment: you are irrevocably broken. The hurt comes not from the words themselves, but from the way they position the bereaved as stuck in damage, and not in possible growth or evolution.
During the weeks and months following a loss, the urge to discuss the deceased can be overpowering. And, as so many learn, discussions regarding grief more often say more about the person doing the talking than the mourner’s requirements. A colleague may confidently state, “It’ll take two years before you feel normal again,” not because they are an expert on grief, but because it took them. A friend may equate your loss to theirs, looking for similarity, when what you most require is room to tell your own tale.
Carl Magruder, a Hospice and Palliative Care Chaplain, recommends, “Transcend your desire to make it better. The spiritual paradox of creating a space for grief is to utterly transcend your own desire to make it better, ‘fix’ anything or change the way the grieving person is feeling.” His teaching reorients care as presence rather than prescription. Rather than grabbing for solutions, he encourages you to ask soft, open-ended questions such as, “What did they love?” or “What do you wish you had said to them?” These invitations can bring memories and emotions that must arise to the surface. This is consistent with what researchers found in digital storytelling workshops with grieving family members. Those who wrote, read aloud, and talked about their stories reported feeling more in control of their minds and closer to their memories.”.
One of them said, “Just putting it down and hearing your own voice encapsulating the story helps you realize this is what you think about… It does help you realize, ‘Okay, this is the story. This is how I see my story.” The process wasn’t about wiping away grief it was about sorting it into something they could grasp, study, and tell. Storytelling also creates a shared space for healing. In these workshops, individuals were comforted by hearing about others’ experiences despite the fact that the losses varied. “It gave me permission to talk about grief… to be honest about it because it’s icky. It’s not always happy,” one attendee related.
This reflects the lived experience of many grieving individuals: even awkward or awkward talk can be a lifeline, a temporary gulp of air when loss feels crushing and suffocating. Nevertheless, not all attempts at connection succeed. Observations about comparing one mode of death with another, or suggesting that some losses are less difficult, can come across as disrespectful.
The reality, as one bereaved daughter succinctly phrased it, is that “it doesn’t matter that much how you have your grief served… You’re still losing someone you love. No amount of warning is time enough to say goodbye.” Acknowledging this can allow friends and loved ones to avoid comparing grief and instead try to listen without judgment.
For those offering support to the grieving, small, tailored gestures say more than words. Brining over dinner, assistance with errands, or even just sitting quietly together can convey care more than any trite expression. And since grieving more often than not has no tidy schedule, regular check-ins particularly around anniversaries, holidays, or other milestones are a reminder to the grieving that they’re not forgotten when the first wave of condolences dissolves. For those who are working through their own loss, making means to share the story through talk, through writing in a journal, through art or other creative endeavors can dissipate the emotional tension. One workshop participant described finishing her story as creating “a certain feeling of closure… It was good to air it.” Closure may not be the intention, but telling can render the grief less of an endless tide and more of a wave that ebbs and flows.
Grief transforms an individual, yet it doesn’t have to mark them as irreparably broken. Our words, the space we create, and the stories we welcome can either enforce the burden of loss or assist in easing it, moment by moment. In the vulnerable landscape of grief, permission to hurt while still leaving space for connection can be the very most healing thing of all.
