Condolences

How do you comfort someone when they are mourning? Is there a right way to do so? Because everyone is different and therefore processes grief differently, it often leaves me speechless or with the same old tropes.

"I'm sorry for your loss."
"Condolences."
"Praying for you."

My favorite, if I am close enough to the bereaved, is to ask the most important question you can ask anyone, ever. One of my dearest friends taught me about this though our own relationship.

"What can I do to help?"

As someone who struggles to ask for help, I find that this is my favorite question to ask, but it may not be right for everyone.

I'm thinking about this and writing about it because I don't have answers. I wish this was a self-help blog and I was a grief therapist, it is isn't and I'm not. I mentioned in a previous post that I had lost some important friends this past year. At the time that I write this, 550,000+ Americans are dead from the Coronavirus, so there has been a lot of mourning going on for quite some time. How have humans coped with this cycle of painful since the beginning of their existence? I can hardly take what's been on my plate, and can't imagine what others have been through. 

I didn't mean for today's post to be such a bummer. One of my piano students lost his dad this week and I didn't know what to say. All of those empty phrases just feel like...empty phrases, even as well intentioned as they are, and do they even help? They never really made me feel much better, but I suppose they're better than silence in these trying moments. 

How do you cope with grief? How do you grieve with others? I'm curious to know, if you're okay with sharing. I want to be a more supportive wife, friend, daughter, music teacher, stranger, you name it. 

There may not be a better way, too. That's always a possibility. 

I'll try and be a bit more upbeat tomorrow, but as they say, death and taxes.

Until then, stay well, stay safe, and stay kind.

Much love,
​Cassandra