Communicating Grief

I read once that grief can hit you without warning. It can surprise you because you think it’s done and then, BAM! Maybe that is what happened when I heard the news about the type of deaths that I would term as shocking- a young father who died as a result of a accident with a car moving, a young girl killed when her friend, the driver of the car she was riding in, lost control and crashed. Gone. I didn’t know either of these people but know people connected to them, so it filled me with sadness. I felt like having an ugly cry, but it usually give me a raging headache, so I somewhat composed myself.

I immediately wondered, ” What would my mother do in these instances?” I discovered the answer in the chestnut colored desk drawers. I somehow have accrued boxes of cards for different occasions and found several. My mother frequently wrote others cards on Sunday afternoons. But what do you write that actually conveys true sentiments?

A 2018 CNN news article outlined the reasons that the phrase, ‘Thoughts and Prayers” became a type of joke. These phrase was often used after school shootings. It became a type of joke because it didn’t seem that anything was actually doing done to stop the school shootings. The topic of school shootings, hotly debated, is one that doesn’t seem to go away. The phrase, thoughts and prayers, is one I want to avoid now because I do want to convey my grief in a genuine manner, but how?

The first question is to figure out why thoughts and prayers seems to trigger such a sentiment of distaste. Why is it that people dislike it so much?

The answer is because it feels like a copy/paste, completed checklist item, and “I’m doing this because I’m forced to” kind of reply. When one is grieving, the heartfelt notes mean something. They give a reason to pause in the midst of the grief.

Then what is a good response? I discovered a few.

Memories I know that I appreciated moments when people shared memories of my father volunteering at a thrift store or times when he fixed a home antenna.
Reminders that God is the ultimate comfort– Psalm 23
https://mygriefandloss.org/resources— This website contains a plethora of resources to help.

What helps when facing an ugly cry? Diversions always help. These photos may bring a smile.