We fear saying the wrong thing to a bereaved person. It’s worse to say nothing at all

You lose a loved one to death and then you lose contact with people who avoid you out of embarrassment. The first time I heard of this phenomenon was a couple of decades ago; the most recent time was this week. Why does this happen?

Not only do people not know what to say to a bereaved person, they also fear saying the wrong thing. And it’s easy to pop into a shop or cross the road to avoid being seen.

Yet all too often the person who is being avoided knows what’s going on. After all, that person may have done the same in the past as you are doing now. We’ve all done it. And we’re right in the sense that trying to think of something comforting to say can, indeed, be a mistake. “At least his suffering is over” doesn’t help the one who is grieving and whose suffering is very much happening right now, for instance.

But the real mistake isn’t to say something ham-fisted. It’s to say nothing at all. “I’m sorry for your loss” or “You are in my thoughts” acknowledges what the bereaved person is going through. That’s the human acknowledgment people need.

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The pandemic made matters worse and many bereaved people must be going around with an extra burden of pain for which they didn’t have an outlet during the lockdowns. There’s a certain comfort in funerals, wakes and the busyness that surrounds a person’s death. It gets those left behind through the early days of the loss and allows them to experience the fellowship of their community. The pandemic took that away from some thousands of people, a good many of whom will still be carrying the wounds of that extra isolation and of the absence of the normal rituals.

It’s still not too late to tell people bereaved during the pandemic that you are sorry for their loss. As the Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF) says on its website, don’t assume people are “over it”. Don’t avoid mentioning the person who has died, the IHF also says.

When my father died I recall the GP saying to my mother to mention his name in the house every day. We did, and I think it helped. Those for whom it is a rule never to mention the dead person again are, I think, imposing a great emotional strain on themselves and on others. These may include family members who really need to talk about the loss.

If you want to offer specific, practical help to a grieving person, the IHF says, “try not to make vague offers of help like ‘call me if you need anything’. Bereaved people may find it hard to reach out and ask for help. Make specific offers of help – cook dinner, cut the grass, go for a walk with them, etc”.

What if the bereaved person is grieving in a situation that makes it even more difficult for others to sympathise? This is sometimes called “disenfranchised grief”. It’s not that long since the unmarried partner of a deceased person might not be acknowledged and might not get the normal community support. The same would go for the surviving partner of a gay person. I hope this happens only rarely now but I wouldn’t be surprised if it still happened sometimes.

Still, people can find it hard to go up to the parent, say, of someone who took their own life and sympathise with them. But that person still needs the death and grief acknowledged. It’s still the case that instead of trying to think of something special to say, a simple “I’m sorry for your loss” or “I was sorry to hear about so-and-so” will do.

The IHF page referred to above is called “Someone I know is grieving”. I also want to mention here a free app for people who are grieving, produced by the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement. It’s called MyGrief and it is available for iPhone and Android.

Padraig O’Morain (Instagram,Twitter: @padraigomorain) is accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His books include Kindfulness: A guide to self compassion; his daily mindfulness reminder is available free by email (pomorain@yahoo.com).