Linda Johnson (Support Through Grief)
Linda is a certified executive coach, management trainer, and diversity trainer with certifications as a master business coach and organisational development coach. In this convers...
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How can you effectively communicate and respect the grieving person's needs?
When you're communicating with a person who's suffered a loss, they may or may not be able to or willing to speak to you by phone or in person. They might say, you know what? Just call. Just text. Talk to me through someone else. Just email. Find out their communication preference. Allow people to grieve the way they need to respect their family or religious grieving procedures and find out what they are. If it's something that you need to know so that you can be of help if it's feasible, and if you're able and willing attend their memorial celebrations. Just seeing somebody, and even if they're not able to remember that you were there looking in the attendance book and seeing that you were there or just you reminding them, it just goes a very long way In terms of comfort. Pay attention to your own secondary trauma. We have secondary trauma when we're watching someone else we care about go through pain, so you might have a reaction. Sometimes the best thing you can do for them is to stay away so that they don't end up having to comfort you.
What practical ways can you support someone immediately following a loss?
Here are some suggestions for what to do immediately following a loss. You can help them with something as simple as bringing food for them or for their family. You might coordinate people's bringing food and set up a schedule for them of other people. If you're able to do that, or you might just do it yourself. If you're able, you can volunteer to help them during the preparations, the funeral preparations, all of that can be overwhelming, or you can just write the thank you notes afterwards. You can be their communications coordinator. They might say, I cannot take all these phone calls and all these text messages. You can take over that for them. You can return the phone calls. You can send out the emails to let people know all of the information that they need, and you can also relay condolences from other people to the individual. Financial donations are almost always welcome. You can donate even a modest amount yourself, send cards, and you can also come to other people and help funnel some assistance for the funeral or other arrangements they have to make. There are really practical things you can do in addition for the immediate aftermath, such as helping them compile a collage of their loved one. These are things that people might think of or might not even think of or think of, but not be able to do. You can be in charge of the sign-in book at the memorial ceremony. You can offer childcare help. You might organise the deceased one's belongings. That is a tremendous help. They might want to keep them, or they may want to have them donated, but not have the emotional wherewithal to do it at the time. You can come in and even bring a crew of people to help them clean their house or apartments. The easiest thing to do is just keep them company stay in touch, continue to listen when they need to. Don't set an expectation of how long they are going to have to grieve or when they should be over it. Go back to including them as you normally would in your social activities, in your family gatherings. One of the things that happens that's very uncomfortable is people are treated like they have some kind of a disease or a defect because they're grieving. Check in with them. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, but make sure that you do that, and if you feel that somebody needs mental health intervention, see if you can locate the resources or somebody who has the resources. Of course, encourage other people to also stay in touch with the person going through the bereavement in large or small ways. Any little bit that you do helps you are such a key to everyone's recovery during this time, and they'll be there for you when you need it as well.