In her book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, Susan Cain describes how American rituals seldom allow us to express our grief in connective, meaningful ways. This, Cain explains, is captured so obviously in America’s condolence cards. Often these cards fume with underlying notes of shallow positivity, overlooking that the bereaved must now endure the absence and devastating impermanence of a loved one (note: Hallmark actually categorizes these as sympathy cards, a label I find infuriating, as folks don’t need sympathy; they need bullshit-free compassion).

I experienced this when, after losing my father at 11, my sixth grade class assembled a book of handwritten condolences.

While nice and well-intentioned, their trite words and empty platitudes scribbled in crayons and markers made me feel more alone and different, especially because the book brimmed with the cliche, cookie-cutter phrase “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Linguistically, this check-box (if not lazy and perfunctory) phrase born out of not knowing what to say drives disconnection. Firstly, you didn’t kill the person, so stop apologizing (and even if you did, such words really bear no meaning at that point).

Secondly, the careless use of the phrase your loss implies the speaker is separate from the listener. It’s not my loss. It’s not our loss. It’s your loss. You are enduring this. I am not. Therefore, I must parrot a scripted statement, acknowledging that I feel bad that you are going through this. End scene. 

The other messages in the book, again while well intended, felt incongruous with my immediate and even my eventual, long term grief. My feelings of devastation, anguish, disbelief, and confusion were met with pithy at best, indifferent at worse supposed axioms that discounted, if not completely rejected, my new reality.

In carefully written cursive, a female classmate penned, “Do not be afraid or sad. Your father’s now resting in the hands of God.”  She even drew two folding hands holding a cross. 

I wanted to scream. My anguish could care less about the celestial location of my father’s spirit, no matter how well intended. 

Others dimly tried the comparison approach, crafting quick lines reading: “I know how you feel, my grandmother died.” 

This too misses the mark. Yes, everyone dies, but no death is the same. Making blanket assumptions of the sameness of two deaths minimizes our need to feel and experience the weight, shape, contours, colors and textures of our own individualized grief.

Now yes, these were innocent messages from six-graders, but I find adults are just as guilty if not worse at driving disconnection for those that grieve. Thus the paradox of why responding to the bereaved in these moments feels so tricky and precarious: everyone will experience gut-wrenching, pulmonary artery eviscerating grief. Yet while our experiences with grief will vary, everyone still needs compassion, connection, and, as the psychologist David Kessler attests, witnesses to our grief. To offer such -as I call it- bullshit-free compassion, we need engaged audience members that are willing to sit alongside us and be present to our stories. 

So what can we say or do in the face of a friend or colleague facing grief, both immediate or long term? Of course it always matters on how close you are to a person and where you’re at in your own capacity to offer compassion. 

Here are some suggested ideas: when crafting phrases to write (whether in a card, text message, etc.) for immediate grief, avoid cliches. Pause. Actually pause. Get meta about the situation and embrace sincere, heavy truths. Don’t feel like you have any power to make it better. Surrender your ego to knowing there’s nothing you can do to make them feel better because nothing will change their new reality. As a friend, neighbor, or relative, your compassion is to remind them that even in this new reality, they’re not alone:

– Words cannot lighten a heavy heart
– This is inexpressibly hard and impossible. I am here for you.  
-As you bear the grief and love for Bob, we will always be here to be a witness to that. We love and will miss Bob. 
– There are never words to describe the magnitude of this loss. So instead I will say I love you. I am here for you. I will be outside your door with arms ready to hold you. 
-May their memory be a blessing. I will always be here to help keep their memory alive. 
-I am here if you need anything.*

Next, after acknowledging that some things can’t be expressed in two inches of space in a condolence card, consider what kinds of actions you can commit to and are comfortable carrying out. Remember that part of extending compassion and connection involves communicating with the person and not turning away from their pain. 

If you said the famous I am here if you need anything* line, try to think about how you can actually support that person and not wait for them to come to you. If the bereaved person has kids, can you offer carpooling or picking them up from school? Do they need help with grocery runs or meal plans? Do they have an impossibly giant lawn that needs mowing? Do their plants need watering?

Especially if they’re American, it’s likely they’ll refuse support because accepting help in the American psyche denotes weakness, so firmly express that you’re able to help. You wouldn’t offer if that weren’t the case. Further, you wouldn’t turn down their help if the roles were reversed.

Lastly, recognize that grief evolves, but never goes away. There’s always the initial phase where folks start adjusting to the ultimate subtraction of their loved one from their life. Then comes the type of compassion needed post-funeral when everyone scatters and the quiet from the person’s absence sets in. This is when conversation and language have healing properties. 

Cultivating space for the bereaved to talk about their loved ones matters. So often in American culture there’s a hesitation for folks to talk about the dead, as death is an awkward and unpleasant circumstance. Demonstrate then that you are comfortable and capable by inviting them to share stories. Show curiosity. Ask kind questions. If you’re worried this will make the bereaved feel sad, check in with yourself to see if that fear is more about your own discomfort with the topic. If not, you can always gently ask the person, “Do you feel comfortable talking about Dina? If so, you’re welcome to share memories about her if that feels good for you.” 

Yes, there are cultures that have at least one day out of the year to commemorate the dead and keep their spirits alive. But grief doesn’t limit itself to one calendar day. Your openness to these conversations all throughout the year keeps a person’s memory alive.

~EPILOGUE~
To those grieving over the moratorium on the phrase “I’m sorry for your loss,” may I sincerely offer my condolences. Let’s meet soon and have a cup of tea, take a walk in a park, or sip on a glass of wine while you share with me all of your best memories of the phrase. I’ll be here. Open and ready to listen.