![\"Vintage](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/\/2014\/03\/mourn1.jpg\")
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Editor\u2019s Note: The following is an excerpt from <\/i>Keys to Happiness, an anthology of articles published in 1954.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cHow to Help Someone in Sorrow\u201d
\n<\/b>By Howard Whitman<\/b><\/p>\n
Most of us want to be helpful when grief strikes a friend, but often we don\u2019t know how. We may end up doing nothing because we don\u2019t know the right — and helpful — things to say and do. Because that was my own experience recently, I resolved to gather pointers which might be useful to others as well as myself.<\/p>\n
Ministers, priests, and rabbis deal with such situations every day. I went to scores of them, of all faiths, in all parts of the country.<\/p>\n
Here are some specific suggestions they made:<\/p>\n
1. Don\u2019t try to \u201cbuck them up.\u201d<\/b> <\/i>This surprised me when the Rev. Arthur E. Wilson of Providence, RI mentioned it. But the others concurred. It only makes your friend feel worse when you say, \u201cCome now, buck up. Don\u2019t take it so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
A man who has lost his wife must take it hard (if he loved her). \u201cBucking him up\u201d sounds as though you are minimizing his loss. But the honest attitude, \u201cYes, it\u2019s tough, and I sure know it is,\u201d makes your friend feel free to express grief and recover from it. The \u201cdon\u2019t take it so hard\u201d approach deprives him of the natural emotion of grief.<\/p>\n
2. Don\u2019t try to divert them.<\/b> <\/i>Rabbi Martin B. Ryback of Norwalk, Conn., pointed out that many people making condolence calls purposely veer away from the subject. They make small talk about football, fishing, the weather — anything but the reason for their visit.<\/p>\n
The rabbi calls this \u201ctrying to camouflage death.\u201d The task of the mourner, difficult as it is, is to face the fact of death, and go on from there. \u201cIt would be far better,\u201d Rabbi Ryback suggested, \u201cto sit silently and say nothing than to make obvious attempts to distract. The sorrowing friend sees through the effort to divert him. When the visitor leaves, reality hits him all the harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Don\u2019t be afraid to talk about the person who has passed away<\/b>. <\/i>Well-intentioned friends often shy away from mentioning the deceased. The implication is that the whole thing is too terrible to mention.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe helpful thing,\u201d advised Rabbi Henry E. Kagan of Mount Vernon, N.Y., \u201cis to talk about the person as you knew him in the fullness of life, to recreate a living picture to replace the picture of death.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once Rabbi Kagan called on a woman who had lost her brother. \u201cI didn\u2019t know your brother too well,\u201d he said. \u201cTell me about him.\u201d The woman started talking and they discussed her brother for an hour. Afterward she said, \u201cI feel relieved now for the first time since he died.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. Don\u2019t be afraid of causing tears.<\/b> When a good friend of mine lost a child I said something which made his eyes fill up. \u201cI put my foot in it,\u201d I said, in relating the incident to the Rev. D. Russell Hetsler of Brazil, Ind. \u201cNo, you didn\u2019t,\u201d he replied. \u201cYou helped your friend to express grief in a normal, healthy way. That is far better than to stifle grief when friends are present, only to have it descend more crushingly when one is all alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fear of causing tears, probably more than anything else, makes people stiff and ineffective. Visiting a friend who has lost his wife, they may be about to mention a ride in the country when they remember the man\u2019s wife used to love rides in the country. They don\u2019t dare speak of peonies because they were her favorite flower. So they freeze up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey really are depriving their friend of probably the greatest help they could give him,\u201d Pastor Hetsler commented. \u201cThat is, to help him experience grief in a normal way and get over it.\u201d Medical and psychological studies back up the pastor\u2019s contention that expressing<\/i> grief is good and repressing <\/i>it is bad. \u201cIf a comment of yours brings tears,\u201d he concluded, \u201cremember — they are healthy tears.\u201d<\/p>\n
5. Let them talk.<\/b> \u201cSorrowing people need to talk,\u201d explained the Rev. Vern Swartsfager of San Francisco. \u201cFriends worry about their ability to say <\/i>the right things. They ought to be worrying about their ability to listen<\/i><\/a>.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n If the warmth<\/a> of your presence<\/a> can get your friend to start talking, keep quiet and listen — even though he repeats the same things a dozen times. He is not telling you news but expressing feelings that need repetition. Pastor Swartsfager suggested a measuring stick for the success of your visit: \u201cIf your friend said a hundred words to your one, you\u2019ve helped a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n 6. Reassure — don\u2019t argue<\/b>. <\/i>\u201cEverybody who loses a loved one has guilt feelings — they may not be justified but they\u2019re natural,\u201d Rabbi Joseph R. Narot of Miami pointed out. A husband feels he should have been more considerate of his wife; a parent feels he should have spent more time with his child; a wife feels she should have made fewer demands on her husband. The yearning, \u201cIf only I had not done this, or done that — if only I had a chance to do it now,\u201d is a hallmark of grieving.<\/p>\n These feelings must work their way out. You can give reassurance. Your friend must slowly come to the realization that he or she was, in all probability, a pretty good husband, wife, or parent.<\/p>\n 7. Communicate — don\u2019t isolate.<\/b> <\/i>Too often a person who has lost a loved one is overwhelmed with visitors for a week or so; then the house is empty. Even good friends sometimes stay away, believing that people in sorrow \u201clike to be alone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the \u2018silent treatment,\u2019\u201d remarked Father Thomas Bresnahan of Detroit. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing worse.\u201d Our friend has not only lost his loved one — he has lost us too.<\/p>\n It is in the after-period, when all the letters of sympathy have been read and acknowledged and people have swung back into daily routine, that friends are needed most.<\/p>\n Keep in touch, Father Bresnahan urges. See your friends more often than you did before. See him for any purpose — for lunch, for a drive in the country, for shopping, for an evening visit. He has suffered a deep loss. Your job is to show him, by implication, how much he still has left. Your being with him is a proof to him that he still has resources.<\/p>\n 8. Perform some concrete act.<\/b> <\/i>The Rev. William B. Ayers of Wollaston, MA told me of a sorrowing husband who lost all interest in food until a friend brought over his favorite dish and simply left it there at suppertime. \u201cThat\u2019s a wonderful way to help, by a concrete deed which in itself may be small yet carried the immense implication that you care,\u201d Pastor Ayers declared.<\/p>\n We should make it our business, when a friend is in sorrow, to do at least one practical, tangible act of kindness. Here are some to choose from: run errands with your car, take the children to school, bring in a meal, do the dishes, make necessary phone calls, pick up mail at the office, help acknowledge condolence notes, shop for the groceries.<\/p>\n 9. Swing into action.<\/b> Action is the symbol of going on living.<\/p>\n By swinging into action with your friend, whether at his hobby or his work, you help build a bridge into the future. Perhaps it means painting the garage with him, or hoeing the garden<\/p>\n In St. Paul, Minn., the Rev. J.T. Morrow told me of a man who had lost a son. The man\u2019s hobby had been refinishing furniture. When he called on him, Pastor Morrow said, \u201cCome on, let\u2019s go down to the basement.\u201d They sanded a table together. When Pastor Morrow left, the man said, \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve felt I could go on living.\u201d<\/p>\n Sorrowing people, Pastor Morrow pointed out, tend to drop out of things. They\u2019re a little like the rider who has been thrown from a horse. If they are to ride again, better get them back on the horse quickly.<\/p>\n 10. \u201cGet them out of themselves,\u201d<\/b> <\/i>advised Father James Keller, leader of the Christophers. Once you have your friend doing things for himself, his grief is nearly cured. Once you have him doing things for others, it is <\/i>cured.<\/p>\n Grief runs a natural course. It will pass. But if there is only a vacuum behind it, self-pity will rush to fill it. To help your friend along the normal course of recovery, guide him to a new interest.<\/p>\n Volunteer work for charity, enrollment in a community group to help youngsters, committee work at church or temple are ways of getting people \u201cout of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n If you and I, when sorrow strikes our friends, follow even a few of these pointers, we will be helpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Editor\u2019s Note: The following is an excerpt from Keys to Happiness, an anthology of articles published in 1954. \u201cHow to Help Someone in Sorrow\u201d By Howard Whitman Most of us want to be helpful when grief strikes a friend, but often we don\u2019t know how. We may end up doing nothing because we don\u2019t know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,42378,42285],"tags":[42290],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-38843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-friendship","category-relationships","tag-friendship"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/03\/mourn1-538x280.jpg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/03\/mourn1-372x230.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/03\/mourn1-320x207.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38843"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125884,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38843\/revisions\/125884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38843"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=38843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}