Grief is hard. It’s a multi-faceted experience that can consume months or years of life, steadily absorbing precious energy and turning once-happy people into hollow, exhausted husks of their former selves. Grief is also different for each person who experiences it. Which means that sweeping statements about how to support grieving loved ones are seldom helpful or universally true.
But here’s one generalization that I believe is quite safe to make across the board: Telling someone in the throws of grief that “Everything happens for a reason” is extremely unlikely to give them solace.
After I had lost my mother to cancer I never dreamt that could be my reality grieving her everyday, the waves of emotions I feel are so deeply personal to me as was the relationship I devoted to her as a loving daughter, best friend, first love and most of all my rock in this life she was magnificent. It’s been two years since I had lost her my family lost her. But I have struggles and the pain of not being able to hear her voice or feel her supportive warmth that is so tough. I can go days or a week feeling grief it never truly leaves we just learn to live with it. Truly apart of me left when she left the spiritual connection will always be there, I know she will always be there for me my first true love.
My journey you can find here – Losing My Mother To Cancer
Different Reasons for grieving
I haven’t just lost my mother and not one loss is the same there are different losses or catastrophic we endure it maybe a friend, extended family member, heaven forbid your own child, pet or you maybe grieving something you have lost inside yourself apart of your personality or your body.. being diagnosed with a disease or condition that will change your life, grief comes in all forms.
We all experience it in one way or another sadly.
And insisting that devastating loss or injury is not only good but necessary for growth is dismissive and impersonal. It makes the grieving person feel like their emotions are frivolous, their loss trivial or insignificant in the grand scheme of things. And it implies that feeling grief is shallow and lazy, a way of ducking responsibility for pain or trauma.
But what else can you say? As a friend or family member, how can you offer support? Words can mean everything how you voice your support.
Ive tried to stay clear of people who just want to suppress my feelings on grief those who say impersonal things for example.
⁃ Its been a year it will get easier (someone actually said this to me before she wasnt even gone a year I felt so horrible and that was heartless and insulting of my mothers memory)
⁃ You will be okay it’ll pass
⁃ Everything happens for a reason
⁃ Shes in a better place now
Some positive things to say would be
⁃ I can’t imagine what you’re going through.
⁃ I’m so sorry for your loss.
⁃ I don’t know what to say, I wish I had the right words to comfort you.
⁃ You, your family and your loved one will be in my thoughts and prayers.
⁃ She was so inspiring, one of my favorite memories of her was…
⁃ Whenever you want to talk, just know I am a phone call away.
⁃ She was so wonderful, she’ll be missed by so many people.
⁃ I’m here for you.
⁃ If you can’t think of anything to say, a hug may be appropriate
⁃ Sometimes just be with the person, you don’t have to say anything.
Remember, grieving the loss of a loved one is the worst pain someone can endure. Be respectful and polite. Don’t discount anyone’s feelings. Even if someone puts on a brave face and looks like he or she is handling it well, don’t assume that person is. Show that you care. Actions often speak louder then words. Offer to take them to the grocery store, watch the children for an afternoon, and help around the house. These gestures mean a lot to a person whose world has just been turned upside down.
Acknowledge the grief, and recognise the person struggling to understand this new, altered life.
I’ve grieved many times in my life, I urge anyone who wants to offer consolation and support to just show up, stand by those who are hurting, and openly acknowledge their pain.
Loss in many shapes in forms
I cant believe I survived some of my loss and grief to this day when these occured I never thought I would snap out of my grief at all.
In my life time death has been inevitable really it happens even when we are at a young tender age to experience death is all overwhelming and scary.
I lost my Nana to Breast Cancer (my mothers mother) it affected me deeply as a young girl I loved her dearly she was there for my sisters and me and my mother in so many ways a loving Nana would be. I always felt safe with my Nana. She was the matriarch of the family (as was my mother) I witness her demise cancer had reduced her to skin and bones it broke me to see her so helpless and frail. Seeing her at her funeral was by far the toughest I have never cried so hard until my own mother’s death.
Losing my close friend at high school was also very confronting she died of a weak heart in the ocean. We used to meet up everyday before school we laughed and talked she was a beautiful friend. I went to her funeral as all the girls did from our school. I walked away grieving my friend again a different type of grief.
Children and grief
I have three healthy boys but it wasn’t easy to become a mother, I have Six Angel Baby’s two losses from younger years and one at 16 weeks gestation I had to give birth and go through labour I got to hold my little boy it was terrifying and so tragic, I grieved for a long time I still do, I also have had another natural miscarriage at 7 weeks gestation and a blighted ovum that went on for nearly three months till they gave me an emergency dnc. The grief of losing my children my baby’s is one of a Mothers Grief the intensity of this type of grieving never goes away for your children.
You can find my blog of pregnancy loss here – My Pregnancy Loss Journey
Surgery and how you also can feel grief
I have had five surgery’s in the past three years as well as many procedures as I live with chronic pelvic pain/nerve damage currently. I had three major surgery’s out of those five.
My First surgery they removed my fallopian tubes (I didn’t expect them to be in such disrepair) they were severely inflamed and in very bad shape. They found Adenomyosis (endometriosis’s evil cousin). It was meant to be a diagnostic Laparoscopic Surgery which ended up being Major Surgery. I grieved my new found inability to have children as a woman it made me so sad and I grieved this part of being a woman it means many things to different woman grief definitely occurred losing my tubes.
Having a hysterectomy was a super difficult decision it meant losing my uterus they did it to remove the Adenomyosis growth/scar tissue causing me so much pain internally after my last baby.
I grieved my lost ability to have children and I grieved the loss of the place I grew my children, apart of me that was apart of my womanhood.
Lastly removal of endometriosis a third major surgery.. I am now permantley stuck with severe nerve damage and have spent years trying to reduce my pain.
I grieve who I was before all of this the fit mum, the strong and able to out plank my hubby “former me”
The woman who wasn’t on medication to subdue pain everyday, the woman who didn’t struggle with identifying with herself, not dealing with painful procedures, terribly misinformed medical professionals denying me the right to a diagnosis, trying to express my feelings about my pain meet with closed doors and disbelief.
I grieve who I was before I truly do it makes me saddened to have had to restart my life again and again on a-lot of levels reshaping how I do things.
You can find my Hystorectomy Journey here – My Laparoscopic Hysterectomy A Real Account
Living with Chronic Pain/Nerve Damage
Like above I grieve my capability’s before I had been diagnosed with the diseases Adenomyosis/Endometriosis and nerve damage its been tough and I still battle this forward three years 2021-2024 its still a rollercoaster I miss living a normal existence. I grieve her (who I was) alot, but I have embraced new ways to live and sit with my body and its flaws its disposition. Im alive and survived alot of different facets of grief as we all do/will.
Grief is not a problem that needs solving
Grief is not a problem that needs solving, or an illness with a cure. It’s not a process that can be helped along with kind words or an issue that can be resolved more quickly through specific actions. It’s vast and changeable and constantly shifting.
Each person will cope with it in a different way and on a different timeline. And respecting that is essential.
So if someone in your life is struggling with grief, give them space to struggle. Listen. Be present. Don’t worry about offering help or saying the perfect thing. Tell them you see that they are suffering, and you are suffering alongside them. And tell them you know that some things in life can only be carried.
Cassie x
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