When Words Fail — Caring for the Grieving
An inevitable point in life every one of us will go through and can never escape is grief. At times, you’ll grieve, other times you’ll be a caring companion guiding a loved one through their necessary grief passage.
Walking with someone in the travails of grief isn’t for the faint of spirit. The task is daunting and will bring many inconveniences and challenge you emotionally.
However, if you enter into it with selflessness, a willingness to be silent, patient, forgiving, empathetic, graceful, and above all loving, it is doable and highly rewarding.
Grief is a normal human response caused by what is perceived as a traumatic loss of someone or something. The most profound grief stems from the death of someone or something held close to our hearts, with which a deeply intimate bond existed.
No two persons grieve the same, so there are no silver bullets or magic ‘right words’ to fix every person or situation. There are however some basic stages of grief you should recognize.
The Stages of Grief
Psychologists identify 5 basic stages of the grieving process, but grief isn’t a merciful, linear journey moving your healing forward.
Grief is more like a relentless, spiraling free-fall. Its overlapping loops trip you up, knocking you back three steps after having just spent all your strength to move forward, one short step.
With that said to help the grieving it is best to know and recognize the stages of grief:
Denial
The shock of a loved one being ripped from your life isn’t readily accepted. Expecting them to walk through a door any minute, or to be in the house next time you return is not unusual.
Neither is not believing what you can see My second son stood beside his brother’s casket saying, “Wake up, bro, I know you’re just sleeping.”
Anger
It’s common to look for someone to blame or feel someone must pay for your suffering. It can be anyone, friends, family, or God; in your stunned mind, someone has to pay for the pain you’re in.
If you or another around you is the root of a grieving person’s anger, be graceful, don’t engage in an argument, and know that it’s grief talking, not their real feelings.
Bargaining
If God just gives them back you’ll do… Now is not the time for major decisions.
Learn to accept that they’re not coming back, but you will continue living. Whether you live and heal or linger in perpetual sorrow is a choice.
Depression
Tiredness, crankiness, loss of appetite, and anxiety attacks are all signs of depression. A caretaker should monitor any depression to determine if intervention is needed.
Speaking from experience, there is no shame in needing medication or counseling to move through, this stage.
Acceptance
Understanding that your life is forever changed and that the absence of your loved one, though anything but normal to you, is now the new reality.
This is the other side of grief and the place the grieving begin to rebuild their lives.
So, these are the stages of grief. No, they don’t always occur in order. It’s not uncommon for a chance word, smell, or photo to trigger a memory knocking a person back a stage or two.
That’s okay one step forward and two steps back is still progress. Keep looking forward.
Grief Affects the Body Physically
A caregiver or companion to the grieving person needs to be aware of the myriad of physical effects grief can have on the body. some symptoms include,
- A racing heart and or palpitations.
- Dizziness
- Nausea
- Increased inflammation in the body
- Weakened immune system
Physical complications of grief do occur and can pose a real threat if untreated. Caregivers need to keep in mind, that the grieving aren’t crazy, broken, weak, or lazy, they’re grieving.
However painful it is to watch or pass through, if you don’t face grief head-on, healing may never come.
After the death of my son at seven years old. Anxiety attacks were common, some bad enough to feign heart attack or stroke symptoms.
Flashbacks to finding him dead in bed left me disoriented at times. Sleep became a memory, irritability with anger was a constant struggle and the depression was dark.
Rosaria, my wife, was my rock and carried me through my grief, along with several other friends who sat with me when she was at work.
With Jesus’ help, the caring attention of my wife and friends, doctors, meds, and counseling, I survived. I owe them all a debt I can never pay and will never forget the sacrifices they made while caring for me.
Being there is Enough
From the beginning, it’s best if you accept that no matter how bad it hurts you to see how they’re suffering, you can’t fix them; nor can you grieve for them. Each person must grieve in their way to move on and heal.
What you can do is empathize with and comfort them as you walk with them through their grief.
If like my wife, you’re also grieving the same loss, be sure to have your supporters ready to step in and see to your needs.
As a caregiver or companion to the grieving, it’s easy to feel powerless and want to do something to make it all go away, but you can’t.
Just showing up is more than many others have done. Friends sat with me many nights in silence when my son died. We talked very little, but the comfort and security they brought can’t be measured. C.S. Lewis expressed this sentiment in A Grief Observed after his wife died,
At other times it feels like being mildly drunk or concussed. There is a sort
of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in
what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so
uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments
when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to
me. C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed.
The Bibles book of Job underscores how being there is enough,
Three of Job’s friends heard of all the trouble that had fallen on him… and went together to Job to keep him company and comfort him. …Then they sat with him on the ground. Seven days and nights they sat there without saying a word. They could see how rotten he felt, and how deeply he was suffering. Job 2:11–13
Silence is golden, but your presence is priceless!
Pretty Lies
Caring for a grieving person is beyond challenging. They don’t understand their own tangled web of emotions, how can you? This can leave you feeling uncomfortable and powerless to help.
As a result, you may find yourself wanting to tell pretty lies that let you feel you’ve helped. Remember, you’re. presence is enough.
Avoid common and cliche pretty lies that might seem comforting to you, but they won’t always have the desired outcome. Some of the more common Pretty Lies follow,
- You can say the right thing. — There are no right words. They don’t know how they feel. How can you? As a caregiver, don’t rack your brain looking for the right thing to say. Simply be available and listen quietly if you’re unsure if they want your input, ask.
- You Have Other Children — True I still have three children that I love dearly, does that mean I’ve stopped loving Elisha because he died? I also have two legs, but I’d rather not lose one.
- Time Heals all Wounds — Anyone who believes this has never truly been broken. Amputees have ghost sensations of the severed limb even years later. In much the same way, I’ve learned to live, laugh, and even dream without Elisha, but the wound remains.
Angry with God
There’s an ugly lie the grieving may fall prey to and that is that God is punishing them for some sin they have committed. Anger with God is often the outcome resulting in their running from God at times they need Him more than ever.
I experienced this early in my grief passage Even though I had been walking with Jesus for years. As I raged at God, I heard a gentle voice within whispering, “Child, run to me, not from me” I heard this voice often over the next two years and it became my only light out of the darkness.
Whoever you are, whatever you believe, without exception Jesus is the answer to Grief or any other problem! Run to Him, not from Him.
The Other Side of Grief
Regardless of how bad it hurts, the grieving process isn’t an inconvenience that can be skipped. A person who doesn’t go through the full grieving process denies themself the chance to heal and move past their paralyzing pain.
No two people grieve the same, there is no set time frame for passing through the stages of grief. As their caretaker, you need to discern when to gently push them and be careful not to enable their avoiding facing their pain.
Be a patient, gentle, and caring companion. Don’t be afraid to seek professional help for either the grieving or advice in caring for them. If you are grieving the same loss as well, be sure to have your support system in place.
Keep moving forward at your own pace and know that happiness, hope, and joy are possible. And although these things may seem out of reach at times, remember every once in a while you have to work through the rough days in life to see the better ones.
