096 - Indeed, we are different.

A reflection on Dave and Eddie and Ralph

Welcome back! (Or welcome!)

“Finding Words in Hard Times” is a newsletter with stories and tools to help you be more comfortable as you help others in hard times. This week, a story about three guys and some links to stories about research.

And the picture? Those are my friends Brian and Dan. Because chaplains are people, too. And the three guys in the story aren’t us. But maybe could be.

Grieving people are not all the same.

When we read about grief, we often read about everyone’s grief being different.

And then we tell our story, or other’s stories, and we give advice. We talk about how someone “made it through” or is “doing well, considering.” And we imply that the stories we tell and the advice we give will be helpful to everyone.

And then Dave says, “But what about me?”

Dave listens carefully to all the stories and the advice. But the stories and advice, our situations, or our examples, or our experiences, our outcomes aren’t consistent with Dave’s.

Sometimes we think that something must be wrong with how Dave is “doing grief.”

There’s something painful, that’s true. But not because he’s somehow bad or incompetent.

The events in Dave’s story make his life and grief complicated. Several deaths, or traumatic deaths, or fractured relationships, or really bad treatment along the way can leave Dave buried and adrift and alone. And feeling like everyone else has figured it out.

Here’s the thing.

Dave doesn’t need a mass-market handbook, or a large group pep-talk. Dave won’t find inspirational talks helpful. What Dave may find most helpful is a series of conversations with someone who can help him unpack all the pieces of loss.

In the research on grief, about one in ten people finds the most help in their grieving process from someone with professional skills.¹

Dave’s not alone.

For example, with the 3,822 deaths in my county in 2022, and every death affecting up to 9 people, Dave’s one of 3,400 people each year in the county I live in that might benefit from more expert, one-on-one help.

We call that person a therapist or a counselor or sometimes even a psychiatrist or psychologist. And usually someone who is trauma-informed. It’s going to take time and intention. It takes more than a hearty, “you can do this.”

About six in ten people find the most help from friends and family. Eddie is Dave’s neighbor. He’s one of those six people. (Or 20,000 people in my county in 2022) He’s got people around him who understand loss well and understand how to listen, how to show up and how to leave. People who aren’t trying to fix him. Friends like you who have read this newsletter for a couple years. And Eddie found some help in some of the internet resources he found.

Ralph, Dave and Eddie’s neighbor, is one of the remaining three in ten people who find help from conversations with non-professional people experienced in helping people in loss. He realized that it would help to not have to explain how hard this is. He found a group of people who got together every week and talked about their grief, and talked a little about how silly people can be, and had a facilitator who said, “It’s okay to cry.”

Here’s the thing. Dave and Eddie and Ralph live on the same street. They have some of the same friends. And the people they know expect all three of them to respond the same ways to the death of their loved one.

What we need is for Dave and Eddie and Ralph to know what’s available for support. And to support each other in those different ways of helping.

And we need for the rest of the people on the street to allow grief to be different, to allow Dave and Eddie and Ralph to pull out of their driveways on Thursday nights and go to different places.

I’ve talked about grief literacy as “having words, concepts, skills, processes, and resources as a person, family, and community to be helpful to people in time of loss, particularly death.” Talking with you about Dave, Eddie, and Ralph, and their differing needs is a way of building grief literacy.

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What some of the research shows.

I’m spending time behind the scenes thinking and writing about being helpful in loss. A couple of us keep talking about a book project, for example. (And if you have $100,000, we could start a pretty helpful research institute, I think. The Arbor Institute for Grief Literacy sounds good. I have a list of research questions.)

As a refresher, here are some past newsletters that talk about the work I want to do and the work others are doing.

069 - How can we learn to be helpful in loss? (substack.com) Almost every shift at the hospital, I think about this family on the hill walking away after the death of their loved one.

070 - What bereaved people say they would like. (substack.com) The eight principles of change described in this survey from the UK are pretty compelling.

078 - Here's the grief research initiative I'm working on. (substack.com)

082 - Thinking about who and what helps. (substack.com) A Canadian survey found that when asked what would be helpful, 83% said that being asked about their loss is helpful. And 93% said being asked how they could be best supported would be helpful.

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Until later.

Thanks for reading. I’m grateful for your support. I’m even more grateful for the knowledge that you are helping people.

See you next week.

Jon

1. The foundational article in this research is Who Needs Bereavement Support? A Population Based Survey of Bereavement Risk and Support Need - PMC (nih.gov)