Ways to Support a Grieving Parent

PLEASE . . .

• Know that I need your support. I may not ask for help (I may be much too numb), but I need to know you're there.
• Know that I do not expect you to make me feel better or to take away my pain. Right now no one can. I need your support, your acceptance of my need to grieve, and your willingness to live with the helplessness you'll feel.
• If you haven't called because you cannot handle my grief and your helplessness, say so. I can truly understand that and I'll feel better than I would if you used excuses that made me think you didn't care.
• Try to tolerate my anger if you can. It's not really you or others who anger me; it's that I lost what I loved. Please forgive my "unreasonable" outbursts. I hope you'll understand.
• Don't try to stop my tears. My tears may be hard on you, but they are a healthy way for me to release some of my pain. Crying is good for me; please try to sit with me and let me cry.
• Don't try to cheer me up by comparing "worse" losses. Pain is pain, and mine must be acknowledged.
• Understand if I can't bear to be with your new baby or to attend a baby shower. I do wish you joy and I even feel gladness for you, but my grief cannot be suppressed.
• Don't tell me that what happened must have been "God's will." Hearing that brings me no consolation right now and only adds to the spiritual confusion and isolation I feel.
• Don't remind me how lucky I am to have other children or that I can try soon to have another. There is not, nor will there be, a replacement for this child.

PLEASE . . .

• Don't say, "It was better this way."
• Don't say, "I know how you feel." No one knows that. Please ask instead how I am today, how I feel.
• Offer specific help . . . a meal, a laundry done, a free hour. I'm too deeply hurt to think very far ahead.
• Don't tell me to put this behind me, forget and get on with my life. This is my life. I need to grieve. I need to be me and I need not to forget but to find a way to remember in peace.
• Hold me, touch me, tell me that you care, bear with me through this uncharted territory that is my grief.
• Accept me in my grief and I'll always remember the healing love that you offered me.