097 - A story or two about stories and helping grieving people
The big idea? Listen to stories.
Welcome back (or welcome)!
I’m acutely aware that I’m approaching 100 issues of this newsletter.
Don’t expect some big new announcement. Because I’m also preparing for a funeral this week, preparing to talk about grief to a men’s breakfast next week, preparing to teach a couple courses in a month, and dreaming a little about an institute for grief literacy research.
I don’t have time for big announcements. I do, of course have time for coffee. (And in case you missed it, here’s a story about nudges and how your support helps.)
And I’ll just keep telling you stories. And hoping they add up to the rest of the things on the list.1
The importance of telling stories.
Recently, I sat with a family planning a service. A parent had died after illness. It was a far quicker than desired, though not sudden, death.
There were a bunch of us in a circle. We talked about the flow of the service, about what they wanted to be sure was included. We talked about the tone of the service. The sense of the conversation was, simply, “Let’s do this, because..”, with the because always rooted in the way the parent lived and talked and loved. People were talking to me, sort of, but they were talking amongst themselves.
And then, somehow, the conversation moved to the parent’s last hours and minutes. The spouse and children were present, the grandchildren had been in and out.
They talked about the way the day happened. They talked about what they each had seen and done and felt.
And I just listened.
Eventually, they moved back to the service and I took my leave.
And I saw once again the value of storytelling for grieving people.
+++
A couple years ago, I asked people what had been most helpful and what they wished had happened in the days, weeks, and months after a death. Two of the themes that emerged were what I called validation, the acknowledgement given from one person to another that their experience counts, that their loss is real.2
And they wanted space for stories: one person telling a story about the person or the event, and the other person simply receiving the story, without interrupting, explaining, defending, or responding with their own story.3
There are at least three story spaces people wanted:
They wanted someone to ask them for stories about their loved one.
They wanted someone to tell them stories about their loved one.
They wanted someone to ask them about what happened. And then listen without offering commentary.
Since my own small survey, a couple of national surveys, one in Canada and one in the UK, have pointed to the ideas of validation and listening for stories.
For example, in the National Public Consultation on Grief, Canadians were asked what would be helpful. 83% said that being asked about their loss is helpful. Half of the people who responded to the survey indicated that they didn't feel adequately supported in their grief. More than half felt their grief wasn't recognized. A quarter of people didn't seek support, including people who felt like they should deal with it on their own, felt uncomfortable sharing, or assumed their grief wouldn't be understood.4
+++
When the family and I met together, I didn’t give them an agenda. Far from it. Usually when I go to talk about planning a service, there are only a couple people in the room. Here was a much larger group.
When we sat together, I talked a little about grief, giving them permission to be different, to take time, to have a hard time thinking, to talk. Giving them validation.
And I worried less about getting to a service outline and more about letting them talk things through. Though they’d been together at the death, this was their first time to sit together and think. Death on Saturday, funeral home on Sunday, back to work on Monday doesn’t give much space to breath. So now, sitting together on Tuesday and having an interested outsider in the room gave them a context for figuring out what happened and what would happen. And telling stories.
In that circle that night, we created all three kinds of story spaces. People were telling their shared stories to me. And they were telling stories to each other that the others may not have known. And they were talking about what happened that night.
Though I have lots of stories about deaths from my own chaplain work and life, I didn’t tell many that night. I wasn’t trying to give examples of ways that they will be fine, that they don’t have it so bad. I didn’t start any sentences with “at least.”
In that time, they didn’t need answers or formulas, they needed to talk together and tell stories. The family stories.
Not all of us are planning services. But each of us can be aware of the significance of validation of someone’s loss and then listening to their stories without telling our own.
+++
But you aren’t planning a service. You are trying to help your friend or yourself, navigate grief.
1. Acknowledge their loss. “I heard your mom died. That’s really hard.”
2. Avoid incessantly asking, “How are you?” and “Are you okay?” Maybe ask, “Is this a bad day?”
3. When someone starts telling a story, listen. And then thank them for trusting you with that story.
4. Invite stories. I mean sometimes as simply as “tell me about your mom.” Or “how did your friend help you be you?”
5. Tell stories that you know about how that person helped others.
Now. I need to tell you something. Sometimes people write me stories of really hard moments around the death of a loved one. I read them, and I thank them for writing. And I know that the work of writing a difficult story like that is helpful in itself. But then I wonder how much I need to do in ongoing support.
You may wonder that, too. What do we do with the stories people tell us?
I think, though I may be wrong, that stories told are different than requests made. When I tell you about the death of my mom, I’m telling that story. I’m not asking you for anything more than to listen. As I wrote earlier. It’s one person telling a story about the person or the event, and the other person simply receiving the story, without interrupting, explaining, defending, or responding with their own story.
When, on the other hand, someone describes a loss and says, “what should I do?” That’s a request.
And we can decide whether to refer them to someone, to offer resources, to offer counsel, depending on our training and capacity.
+++
See you next week.
Jon
The photo is my friend Jim, who died three years ago next week. And Nancy and our daughter Hope. Jim and I had some chances to tell stories. And he’d always ask, “what are you writing?” This work, Jim. This work.
Read more on this at 001 Helpful in loss: Making space for a story (substack.com)
More on the Canadian Grief Alliance survey at 082 - Thinking about who and what helps. (substack.com)