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Let me mention again how much I love the Cool Mint Listerine Oral Care Strips. The person who invented them is my friend, without question.
Woke up in my own bed for the first time in a week and a half this morning. I felt almost as though I�d forgotten how to get ready for work from my apartment. It just didn�t seem right. Of course, I don�t think anything will feel right at the moment, no matter where I am or what I�m trying to do. At least, that�s what I told myself as I was waiting for the bus.
I�ve watched a lot of people over the past few days, and have come to some conclusions about how we should behave around someone who is grieving.
The phrase, �If there�s anything I can do to help, just let me know,� often times translates into, �If there�s anything you can give me to do that makes me feel less helpless, please let me do it.�
There are a few people in my life that know they are part of my inner circle support system. They�re the people that I would ask for help in �normal� times. If I need something right now, they�re the ones I�m going to ask. Barbara, who works in my office and with whom I have exactly one conversation each week during which she tells me how many hours she worked the week before, is not someone I�m going to turn to if I should find I need something.
I don�t mean to sound cold. I know that all the people who expressed a desire to help truly meant what they said (at least at the moment in which they said it), and that if I asked anything of them, they would do what I needed and not begrudge the asking.
I know that.
But the truth is, most likely there isn�t anything you can do to make this better. Can you bring David back? No? Well, then. Thanks for asking.
Death makes people feel very, very helpless, and that becomes a thousand times truer when the death is like this one. David was too young and too healthy to die, with too many things to live with. We all had Plans. It�s too awful to think on for too long. If it happened to David, it could happen to any one of us, at any time, with no warning whatsoever.
Remember, though, that the person you want to help, the one who is grappling with finding a way to rearrange their reality around the fact that the person they love isn�t going to be there any more�it�s not that person�s responsibility to find something for you to do that will make you feel more comfortable with the reality of death. They shouldn�t have to comfort you.
What you can do, generally, is express your sympathy. Don�t try to find the �right words� because there are no �right words.� I wish there were. I wish that I could say that someone, somewhere along the line this week, said something to me that made it better, but that didn�t happen.
What does help is knowing that I have a support system out there. What you CAN do for me is hug me. Tell me that you�re sorry. Be there with me. That�s the best thing you can offer.
And remember that two weeks from now, when the flowers that arrived over last week have wilted and been thrown away, when the last of the sympathy food has been eaten, when your life has returned to the way it was before, the person you want to help is still going to be looking around at their life-as-it-is-now, trying to find a way to make it feel less awful.
That�s the time to send flowers, bring a casserole, make plans to see a movie, call the house to say hello�whatever your urge to do RIGHT when tragedy strikes is, hold onto that thought and follow through when the person isn�t so numb they don�t taste the food or notice the flowers or stumble through the conversation.
Because let me tell you, there are going to be an awful lot of hard, hard nights in my mom�s next few months, and she�s going to need all those things much more then than she did this weekend.
And I truly don�t mean to sound awful. I have received incredible support from those around me, and I am incredibly grateful for that. I�m amazingly lucky.
I�m just overwhelmed. And probably a little cranky.
Is it time to go home yet?
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