When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. – Henri Nouwen

Recently, I was faced with a moment in my life where another person made a decision that affected the timing of my grief. I was thinking about how to handle something that was difficult for me, a milestone in my life without Stephen. Then, without my knowledge, a well meaning person took care of it for me.

I was devastated, crushed, and felt that my control had been once again taken away from me. I had no control over when he died, and now……well, you get the picture. My control was snatched away once again, and it derailed me. I was hurt, and I felt more than a little violated, almost as if someone had marched in my house and sent all of his clothes to Goodwill.

It was nothing as overt as that, but emotionally, it felt that way. As the days passed, anger began to bubble up within me, like I had never experienced before. I was seething, and it was the first time I understood what the word seething really meant. I finally did let go of it, but it was only when I was looking up at the sky with tear-filled eyes, asking and begging God to once again keep the bitterness away. I felt like I was falling off the edge of something so deep and so dark, that unless I grabbed hold, I would never find myself again.

Sounds pretty serious, doesn’t it? It felt serious. It was right around Stephen’s birthday, and the emotion of the month of May combined with this smacked me like a slapshot in the playoffs. (I had to use a hockey reference.)

The particulars of the situation are irrelevant. And truly, if I was to separate myself from the hurt, I can tell you that the action was taken by this person with the best of intentions. The intent was to support and love me, to protect me. I know that. The person who stepped over the line? I doubt they would even know they did something wrong.

So, it got me to thinking. What are the boundaries when it comes to supporting the bereaved? What qualifies as support and what feels like overstepping your bounds?

Here are a few tips based on my own experience:

1. Understand that this is not your journey. Even if you are really close to it, even if you loved the person who died as well, ultimately this is an individual journey that each person who has lost must take alone. The feelings they have are their own. That is okay. Accept it. Nothing fits into a neat little package, or matches to anything else with grief. There is no cookie cutter approach that fits for everyone. This is a journey that will heal a person, but that can only happen if they deal with the emotions in their own way and in their own time.

2. Respect the time lines that an individual sets for their journey. You may wonder and look from a distance, thinking, “When are they going to take care of that? It’s time to move on…” But it is only time to move on in your mind, in your life. You will never understand the timing I require for grieving Stephen. Just as I can never understand how long it may take you to grieve your mother, sister, dog or goldfish. The intensity of grief is dependent on the intensity of love; there is no calendar that times this the same way for every person. If I seem stuck in a place of grief, it could be that I am working through some of my deepest emotions.

3. Love the person through it. You may not understand why a person is not willing to move forward at a certain point in their grief. You may look at the situation and be confused as to why they are not ready to do something. You may feel compelled to step in and help, to push a little, as if to start the ball rolling with forward movement. You may feel you need to fix this situation. But, the best thing you can do is simply love the person. Love them even if you don’t understand completely, love them even if it is taking them longer than you think is “normal,” whatever normal even is.

4. Never assume you have the right to step in and do something without first talking to the immediate family. If someone had asked me about this situation before acting, I would have politely told them that I really wanted to take care of it myself. It was personal for me, much like it was when I cleaned out Stephen’s room. I needed to do it on my terms, with my decided timing.

Losing someone quickly reminds us of how fleeting life is. It can change in an instant. I’ve often described it as someone pulling the rug out from beneath my life. I was tapping my toe around madly trying to find solid ground, only to find out that Life had removed the floor too. Groundless.

If you are comforting someone, remember the word groundless. Remember that when all else has been stripped away, sometimes the only thing a person may feel in control of is how they choose to grieve. Don’t take that away from a person.

Tags: grief, hope