Sharing Grief

I’ve been retired from my paid work with the bereaved for about three years now. I still read information about grief, loss, and mourning because daily living seems to pull me toward such situations. I don’t seek the work, but throughout my career and retirement, the situations seem to follow me. I ‘ll share some examples:

• I was in a grocery store when the wife of a former employee of mine approached me. When I asked her how she was, she said tearfully that her father had just died suddenly. She clearly needed a listening ear. 
• I was traveling for work during bad weather and my flight was rerouted to a different airport. I was given a first-class ticket for the flight to my destination – yeah! Shortly after finding this wonderful seat, a man in tropical attire sat next to me. Within five minutes he shared with me that his father had died and he was traveling to a celebration of life event. He seemed pretty broken.
• During a vacation, my wife and I had a Berlin excursion in which I was seated in the middle seat in a bus next to a woman who happened to mention that was her first vacation since her husband died. I listened. She asked me what kind of work I did and, after I told her, she continued sharing.

I believe that every person has God-given gifts. As silly as it sounds, I don’t think each of these situations I described were accidental or people looking for free counseling.  I continue to study the bereavement field for my next encounter.

I am not a licensed counselor, but I do believe that I am a good listener. Being a listener requires patience and a compassionate spirit which provides comfort, even if it is one-time sharing during a plane or bus ride or five minutes in a grocery store. 

Compassion is a type of self-giving, but giving too much can be problematic. I remember empathy described once as helping someone who had fallen in a pit. We should not jump down in the pit, but we can certainly throw them a rope or sturdy tree branch to help them climb out themselves.Today, we are in the midst of tragic disasters after tragic disaster…pandemic deaths, the Ukraine stories, mass shootings in our country, and the inevitable local deaths like the child death from being left in an overheated  car.  We share these extreme losses with others. I heard someone say recently, “It’s okay not to be okay.” Agreed, but if you are up to it, a listening ear, donating to a relief effort, or even donating blood might actually feel as if you are giving something to help the greater good and allow a hurting person to be At Peace. And that is okay.