What to Say to Someone Going Through a Loss

It’s tough when something bad happens to someone you know. Not only do you hate seeing this person you care about going through such a difficult time, but it also shines a light on the worst-case scenarios most of us try to avoid even thinking about.

I’ve spent almost four years processing a series of losses. It started in November 2010 with my mom’s cancer diagnosis, which she shared with my brother and me after Thanksgiving dinner. (It was unconfirmed at that point, but her demeanor and my dad’s face belied their fear of the truth.) While the year that followed brought the happy occasions of moving in with then-fiance and our wedding that September, I also dealt with the loss of my independence, my single self. About a year later, in the fall of 2012, a series of events started at work—the first of which was rooted in a decision not my own—that led to me ending my 14-year career at Turner. It was the only workplace I had ever known, which was part of the reason for leaving, but it also made the alienation of unemployment even more acute.

One benefit of having that time off was the flexibility to fly home often to my parents’ house, every six to eight weeks or so. And it was in those months that I slowly, gradually lost my mother. First she needed help recalling words as she talked. Then she needed physical help to walk, to stand, to sit, to eat. She had moments where she’d look right at my dad and say, “Where’s my husband?” One time, watching a news story set in Washington, D.C., she turned to me and said, “I chaperoned my daughter’s 8th grade class there once.” I played it light and said, “Yeah, Mom, that was me.” “No, my other daughter, Christine.” I chuckled to her, “Yeah, I’m Christine.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “Oh, that’s right, you are. I’m turning into Grandma!” We laughed.

It was terrifying and awful.

Honestly, those months and weeks felt worse in many ways—more filled with loss—than the day she actually left us. Because there’s ceremony around death. There are flowers to admire and cards to open and casseroles to warm up. But mostly, there are people. They’re aware of you. They’re thinking about you. They reach out to you. Because they have scripted, established ways of doing so.

It’s outside of these traditions where we struggle. We just don’t know what to say when we run into a coworker who was recently laid off from his job. We feel a sting in our stomach when we see the woman who just lost her daughter. We dread asking our friend about how his mother with cancer is doing, because the answer might not be good.

I say all this as the person who’s been on the non-loss side of the equation. I sympathize with all of these feelings, with those social fears. But now that I’ve been through a good deal of grief myself, I realize what someone going through a loss really needs to hear. So here are my tips on what to say:

1) Something. Anything.

Actually, this is my only tip. Because the truth is, there is no “right” thing to say. Most of the time, people don’t want to say the wrong thing, so they don’t say anything at all. That’s a bad plan. Literally saying “I don’t know what to say” is better than not saying anything. Even a two-second text makes a difference: You’re not alone. It doesn’t even matter if you say something dumb. Awkwardness beats avoidance any day. It’s isolation that breeds despair. Because it’s hard to enough to lose whoever or whatever it is you’re mourning. The grief is compounded when it feels like you’ve also lost your normal relationship with your friends.

For as much as people worry about making a grieving person feel bad, that person will tell you they feel self-conscious about making everyone else uncomfortable. And hey, doesn’t that person have enough to worry about already? Help them out by acknowledging that the situation is uncomfortable, but you are there anyway. Or better yet, keep talking to them like they’re the same person you know, who happens to be going through something bad, and worry less about talking to The Thing That Just Happened.

I remember in the months after my mom was diagnosed, one friend said he hesitated to ask how she was doing, because “I don’t want to be the person who makes you cry.” Understandable, well-intentioned, and I’ve heard other people echo this sentiment. But in a way, that statement can send a different message: Crying is bad. What you’re feeling is something people don’t want to see. You should hide it.

Trying to keep someone artificially cheered up can be a little like trying to save electricity by putting the TV on mute. The sound goes away, but the energy still churns underneath. The fact is, the grieving person already feels bad, already feels like crying. If you’re close enough to that person, offering them the opportunity to cry, to be honest about how they’re feeling, can actually be a tremendously generous gift. You’re letting them be true, and you might be surprised how quickly they actually do cheer up, because they feel so relieved they can stop pretending.

It’s a cliché, but it’s true that everyone grieves in their own way. But I can tell you for certain that everyone who’s grieving needs other people. They might not know themselves exactly how they need them, and they might push you away at first. But trust me: It means the world to them that you’re there, and if you stay put and keep reaching out your hand, they’ll cherish the opportunity to pull you back in.