Beesley's Knees

Tips for How to Support Someone Who Is Grieving

On one of the blogs I follow, the author gave birth to a stillborn baby around the time my mother died.  She has been very open with her grief and her questioning of what it means to be a childless mother.  It’s been refreshing to read about someone else’s grief, which is so raw.  I’m glad she’s been vocal.  I think the grief-laden are often quiet about their grief because in our culture 1) so many people are uncomfortable with emotions in general and 2) so many people are uncomfortable with death.  So, even if the grieving are living with death in each moment, they must do so, for the most part, by themselves.

I think a lot of people don’t know how to approach those who have experienced the loss of someone close.  So, I wanted to offer a few tips to those of you dealing with someone who is grieving:

1. If you haven’t acknowledged their loss in some way, do so now.  Even if it seems really late.  They’ll appreciate it.  They’re still dealing with the loss—they always will be—so, it’s never too late.  If it’s too difficult for you to bring up in person, send a card.  It can be a Hallmark card where you simply sign your name—just let them know you care.  If you can do it in person, a simple, “I wanted you to know I’m sorry for your loss” or “I wanted you to know that my thoughts are still with you” is all you need to say.  While we can both interact with each other like it didn’t happen, and that you don’t need to say something about it happening, let’s not, okay?
2. It’s okay to ask them how they’re doing.  You may be the only one who has done so in awhile.  If they don’t want to talk about it, they will give you a platitude, and you can both move on in the conversation.  If they do want to talk, this gives them permission.
3. Laugh at their macabre jokes about death.  Do it.  You don’t get to make any jokes, though, unless you’re in The Club*.
4. Don’t offer advice on how to grieve unless you’re asked for it—even if you’re in The Club.
5. Be around more, not less.  Don't justify your queasiness about death with an "I'm giving them their space."  Keep asking them out to do things, and be okay when they say no thanks.  Keep calling them, and be okay when they don’t answer the phone.  One day they will say yes, and one day they will answer.  Until then, they will still feel valued.
6. Remember them around the holidays and on their birthday.  They will need extra support.

*The Club's membership consists of anyone who has lost someone close to them--it has subdivisions like "Children without Mothers" and "My Baby is Dead."  (See #3).

I am thankful for my own excellent support system.  I've surrounded myself with excellent people who treat me excellently.  Still, these are rules I will now live by when those I love, inevitably, find themselves grieving.

And, naturally, all people grieve in their own way, so while I do think these rules are pretty generalizeable, the main takeaway is to respect the wishes of the person who is grieving.

Link Roundup: Starfish, Bathrooms and Bald Rockers, Oh My!

Oh, I have so many posts in the works!  But, for now, some things that have caught my attention lately:

 

• Did you know that starfish have eyes in the tips of each arm?

• B and I, as per the American Dream, have hopes of owning a house one day.  Not a lot is concrete about this future plan, but I have decided this bathroom tile would be amaze-balls.  If you find yourself incredibly bored, you can check out my Pinterest Board for our future Home on the Range.

• Also, Sharon Jones rocks bald. 

• I've used the first of these beautiful Pierre Le-Tan calendar images as my desktop background.

 

Your love's comin' down like

We used to both really like the song Rain by Madonna.  My mom told me, and now I can't verify it, that Madonna wrote it for her mother, who passed away when she was five.  Apparently she might have actually written it for Karen Carpenter, another of my mom's favorite singers.

When we buried her, we wanted it to be raining, and it was so hot on my niece's fair cheeks, I thought "she shouldn't be here," before reminding myself.

Today, one month later, the rain swallowed up my boots on the way to work.

 

What Can Last

The way I want to honor my mom is to keep the lessons she taught me alive in my life.  I want to remember my mother at her best, in her strength, before her illness--I want to remember and praise her for who she was at her core:

My mom thought that she could do anything that anyone else could do, especially regardless of gender--and she was usually right.

My mom believed in unconditional love for her chosen few--and those of us that she chose knew we were chosen because of her unrelenting spirit of service to us.

My mom really knew how to help someone work through their problems.  She knew when the best time to distract a person was--she would distract us with stories of others.  When we needed a path forward, she knew how to break it into small doable steps.  When we needed an ally or defender, she knew how to cut down our foes with the most accurate (and unflattering) adjectives.

My mom was sensitive and so she understood sensitivity in others and didn't consider it a weakness so much as a trait.

My mom had an insatiable appetite for ideas and stories.

She liked to imagine how to rearrange rooms in her head before she went to sleep at night--because she was a planner, because she had vision, because she was creative.

She responded to the nature of cats--their aloofness and dignity and silliness and sense of adventure--all traits she shared with them.

I learned a very personal definition of loyalty and dependability from her.

I will keep trying to live everything she taught me.

Beauty

I always enjoy reading The Best American Essays series because it's a curated collection of some of the most compelling essays of the year.  Say what you will about David Brooks, but his collection of essays (of which I've only read the first six or so) for the 2012 edition has been a doozy.  I've been reading one or two at lunch this week and I come back to my desk feeling all ephiphanied. 

While some of the other essays have led to more personal, and more personally profound, epiphanies over the last few days, the one I read today entitled A Beauty helped me find the words to express an idea I've had for some time. I hesitate to bring it up, because no doubt it's an elementary idea to many, especially those who study art.  Still, my idea is simply that there's a difference between the art that I would put on my walls at home and the art that I would enjoy in a museum. I appreciate a lot of art that I would not invite into my home--and the difference is beauty.  In my home I want the aesthetically pleasing.  In a way, I don't want to have to think about it.  I want it to catch my eye, make me smile, and let me move on.  Apparently in the art world this is considered superficial, and I'm not actually sure that I disagree.  I think I'm okay with the walls of my home being only superficially lovely.

Similarly, my blog is about creating and seeking beautiful moments, and that is (often) also superficial, and also fine with me.  My walls and my blog do not encompass the whole of me.  I fall firmly in the realm of seeking beauty for its own sake, but not seeking it only.