115 - Please don't tell grieving people how they ought to feel.

Two sisters and the power of an invitation to reflect

Welcome back! (or welcome!)

I know I said I wasn’t going to write every week this summer. But I wanted you to meet some people I met recently.

On invitations and answers.

There were five of us in the room.

The quietest person in the room had stopped breathing thirty minutes before I walked in. On a sofa, by the window was a wife of five decades, a widow of thirty minutes. Between the bed and the sofa sat two family members, sisters of each other, relatives of the man in the bed. I’ll call them Platitude and Presence.

I had just walked in, offering support and a form to sign to have his body released to the funeral home.

After listening for a bit, I asked, “How long have you been together?”

She told me.

In the next few minutes, the two family members offered two statements.

Platitude said, “You can be grateful for so many years.”

It was the kind of statement no one knows how to respond to. Since at that moment the primary feeling was, “But I’d love more.”

In a bit, Presence said, “How did you meet?”

And we immediately moved into a delightful story. With connections back to the family members and to people they didn’t know.

Presence eventually asked where people had lived then in relation to where people lived now. It was an invitation to explore the geography of relationship.

Platitude spoke a couple more times while I was in the room, offering answers befitting her name.

Presence was inviting the woman into reminiscence therapy rather than answers. She was offering a listening space rather than creating obligations for how to feel.

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A couple years ago, I told you about a friend who wanted to know what being present might look like.

“To start,” I said to my friend, “rather than managing their grief, be with them in their grief.” He stopped to write that down. And I quickly repeated it to myself so that I’d remember it later. It’s possible that I’m quoting someone else. Wherever it came from, I like the idea a lot.

Platitude was helpful in other ways. She was checking on the sandwiches that had been ordered. She had spent a couple nights at the hospital so that the woman could go home, get some air, get some rest. She kept moving. It’s possible that she thinks she did more than her sister Presence.

I don’t know. I can’t keep track of helping.

I do know that in those first minutes Presence was attuned to the woman. It was humbling to be present. And when she looked at me, thanking me for stopping by, I felt her presence, too.

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See you next time.

Jon