It seems there is a lot of different people being shaken by life… Bou has had to deal with cancer in someone she knows… Oddybobo has to deal with cancer and death… Through all of this, I wonder why I am not as compassion it as I should be. Do I listen? yes. Do I offer advice? Sorta. But it made me realize that I have no clue had to be a great friend when someone is dealing with death. I blunder through and hope that what I say is enough… and hope I don’t say too much. Which I usually do say too much and end up realizing I should have stopped the conversation 5 minutes ago. Sigh…
Then I see stuff where people go to Mesothelioma lawyers because it is work related. Add the toughness of dealing with death and then try to deal with the fact it was were they worked and it could have been prevented. I can’t even imagine how to talk to a friend about something like that. I don’t know what to say already. Or what if it was because of a drunk driver. I have no clue.
I look at comments made by others on sites and think Wow. That is awesome. They must be great friends to have when dealing with death. Sigh. I am here for my friends always. Bad times and Good. When we argue and it takes time to get past it… always here. But I wonder how I can be a good friend when dealing with death. Any suggestions? I listen, I call, but I can’t seem to find the right words.
Trust me when I say that when you are grieving, frequently you don’t want the fixer, the smoother-overer, the platitude spouter or the fountain of tears at the drop of a hat.
What you want, in fact, is the good friend who’ll give you a hug or hold your hand and say nothing at all.
Just being is enough.
You do a dandy job of that, and don’t you forget it.
Thank you. Another close friend lost his mother last month. Again, he lives far away. I have been emailing and texting. But I just feel like I should be more of something I’m not. But what you said was true when my dad died… so maybe I’m doing ok after all.
You do just fine, my friend. People need people to listen.
You CANNOT fix problems dealing with death. It happens. It is a fact of life and we hate it, mostly, but we can’t fix it. We can be there, listen, and that’s it.
And the deal is… you’re the person we know we can go to, to bounce things off of. THAT is frickin’ GOLDEN.
It looks like Bou and Omnibus Driver have said it all!