How to Help a Friend Through the Grieving Process

Death is a strange bird. It makes us all tongue-tied and uncomfortable. We stand before our obviously grief consumed friend and have no idea what to say, how to help, what to do. We just want out of the situation. We want out of there. We don't know how to deal with it, so we retreat. Then we're embarrassed because we retreated, so we retreat further and leave our friend to deal with it themselves.

I have been on both ends of that scenario. I have been the griever and I have been the retreater. I wish I would never again have to be the griever ( a fruitless wish), but because I have been the griever, I will never again have to be the retreater.

There are no pat and formulated answers for how to help a friend through the grieving process.

It's a scary situation, especially if you, yourself, have never had a loved one die. You have no idea how your friend is feeling. When someone is your friend, it is usually because you have walked in each other shoes. You have a past history of similar situations you have both dealt with which might have been what made you friends in the first place. But now, your friend is going through something that you have no knowledge of and your friend can't help you help him/her.

In normal friendship situations, friends have no problem helping each other. Your friend needs something to wear to a party... you help decide what it should be. Your friend tells you his wife is a bitch... you commiserate. In any friendship there are thousands of situations where you know that your help is needed and you have no problem giving it.

But death is different. Death makes us feel helpless. We feel that we can't help our friend because we don't know how. We can help our friend replace a motor or deal with a nosy mother-in-law, but we don't know what to do about death. What advice should we give? How can we possibly help them get over this?

Having been the griever, I can tell you that there are only two things you need to do to help your friend through the grieving process.

BE THERE and LISTEN