I have to be completely honest, even if people don’t like it. And with what I want to talk about, I’m betting people won’t. This year will be 6 years since my miscarriages. 6 years since I was overtaken by horrible grief. 6 years of fighting with myself, fighting with my husband and fighting with God. 6 years of struggling with my depression and not knowing how to move past it. 6 years of feeling the strain, and taking it out on those around me. 6 years of hiding in the shell of my former self. The entire time, I kept telling myself what we always tell ourselves, it’s okay to grieve in my own way.
Something that’s been frustrating me lately, are all of these lists of “what not to say.” Now, I’m guilty of writing one, and I think the initial thought is in the right place, but the execution of what we write is where we go wrong. Some people can say some nasty things to you when you’ve lost a child, but most people are just trying to help. Unfortunately, many of these lists qualify both kinds of people into the same category, when they are vastly different. On one hand, you have the nasty people who say things like: “You need to stop talking about because it makes me uncomfortable.” On the other hand are the people saying something cliché, because they don’t know what else to do. The “maybe it happened for a reason,” or the “God just needed another angel” crowd. They are searching their hearts trying to say something comforting, and attempting to make you feel better. Those are the people who do not deserve to be on a list. They care about you enough to make an effort, to try and say something, and we chew their head off.
As members of this community we need to encourage each other and others new to this life to be more understanding of people trying to help. No one wants to see someone they care about in so much pain, and no one deserves to be criticized when they are just trying to help. We won’t get any understanding by telling people what not to say, we’ll get any understanding by giving out ourselves. Once we gain the ability to accept their small gaffs, it will allow them to accept ours with grace.
However, it’s hard to pull yourself out of your funk enough to look out for other people. When you’re stuck in your head all day, it’s hard to even see other people. That’s why I think it’s so important to make yourself look. Look at your loved ones and see how the loss is affecting them. Let yourself see them and help them heal, because in the process, so will you. Like everything in life, grieving over such a loss is a balancing act, and in this case, an incredibly difficult one. But if you keep some balance and perspective, you’ll start to see the sun again even sooner.
So I say, enough with the “what not to say” lists, and let’s get to the taking care of each other lists. Let’s share ways in which we helped out our husbands or parent. Let’s share how we heard a platitude from someone that doesn’t know what to say, and had a discussion with them about how it can seem insensitive. Let’s not use our grief as an excuse to lash out at someone trying to help. Let’s instead use our words to be a welcoming community, and not one of anger or fury. We have enough anger in our hearts, enough pain within; we don’t need to reciprocate it throughout.
{Your Thoughts}