Pretty much all of us would like to think of ourselves as a good friend, and yet it’s often not until the people we care about are suffering that this is really tested. Experiencing the loss of someone close, thankfully, doesn’t happen to many of us until later in life, but if you have a friend who does go through a bereavement in their 20s this can make it hard to know how to support them.
‘Because it’s something their peers haven’t experienced, people who lose someone at a younger age sometimes feel a real sense of isolation’, Jessica Mitchell, Helpline Manager at Cruse Bereavement Care – a charity set up to help people suffering from loss – tells me. ‘It’s like being in some strange bubble where suddenly they’re outside of this world. Everyone else might be thinking about partying, dating or getting on with their career, but the person who has had the loss has been given insight into some horrible flipside of the world’.
I was 24 when my Mother died. During the time I spent with her in hospital I felt a constant, visceral sensation within my chest, as if my heart could burst at any minute. I had always talked to her about everything – from global politics, to whether or not I should buy a pair of shoes. She was my constant advocate and a huge amount of my strength comes from her.
On the early train back to London the morning of her death I was bewildered as the commuters carried on their daily route to work as if nothing had happened. I once read that when very small children cover their faces with their hands, they think that because they can’t see you, you can’t see them either. I couldn’t understand why my reality was no longer everyone else’s reality; that the earth was still spinning, while my little world was collapsing in on itself. And at the same time, I began to understand the ‘flipside’ that Jessica describes; to recognise that this was a pain felt by billions of people across the world too.
That day I hurriedly sent a group text to friends to let them know what had happened – I couldn’t bear the thought of having to explain it myself when I saw them. I had a flurry of messages in response. A few people expressed surprise – when I’d initially said my Mum had made it through the first phase of the operation that we had hoped might save her life, they had assumed everything was OK.
In the coming weeks and months the messages continued for the most part and many people were incredibly kind and thoughtful. But there were also a few who stopped asking how I was doing – perhaps unsure of what to say, or fearful of the response – and some who never asked at all. This hurt. So when a friend recently lost a close parent I was sad but not entirely shocked when she told me that she felt let down by many of her friends.
I reminded her, though, that it’s not easy to be a ‘good friend’ in this situation. Having dedicated her professional life to working with the bereaved, Jessica’s advice is ‘not to be afraid to broach the subject’. She recommends saying something like ‘I don’t know if you want to talk, but I’ve just been thinking of you and all you’re going through.’ We shouldn’t always put the responsibility onto the person who has experienced the loss to open the conversation, she tells me.
Rosie, who lost her Dad two years ago when she was 25, agrees: ‘The hardest thing is when people look at you blankly, try and change the subject and feel awkward – or are afraid to bring it up for fear of making you cry. You’re not the reason they’re crying. Obviously don’t force it, but seeing how someone is just in case they want to talk is extremely important.’
‘We shouldn’t make people feel like they have to be polite’, Jessica says. ‘Emotions can be high. Try not to be too sensitive if a friend gets cross or says something like “what do you know anyway?”’ 26-year-old Abi, who lost her Mum last year, agrees: ‘it may feel uncomfortable, but nothing is as uncomfortable as what the grieving person is feeling’.
Jessica and I also discuss how you’re unlikely to make someone feel worse when ‘the worst has already happened’. I vividly remember a close friend breaking down the day after my Mother died, and apologising. ‘I’m so sorry’, she said, ‘I’m trying really hard to be strong, but the thing is I loved your Mum too’. I started crying as well, but what she said meant an awful lot to me.
‘The most helpful people I had around me’, Rosie tells me, ‘were just checking in on me all the time by phone, coming to see me, taking me out to distract me, letting me know they were thinking of me. It made a world of difference. One friend I hadn’t seen in a good ten years wrote a note remembering my Dad from when he used to look after us as kids which was incredibly touching and thoughtful’. Abi agrees: ‘being in contact and not expecting anything in return can make a big difference, even if you’ve not spoken in a while’, she says. ‘The person may never reach back out to you and say thank you, but in that moment it will mean the world, and you will have helped. You might not think it’s your place but grief is a big leveller’.
One thing to avoid, though, is broadcasting someone’s grief without their permission. ‘Don’t go on Facebook and post publicly about my loss if I’ve not initiated it’, Abi says. It’s also good to have ‘an awareness that it will take some time before a grieving person can fully sympathise with the smaller things that are bugging you in your life’, Abi adds.
Grief is a very personal experience, and we should avoid making generalisations. Instead, we should support people to do what they feel will get them through each moment. ‘It’s not always a natural instinct for us to listen to ourselves’, Abi tells me, ‘but supporting a grieving person to do just that can be very helpful’. Different people have different ways of dealing with their grief; ‘one person might want to do lots of talking and sharing, whereas someone else might be leaping into organising and doing really practical things’, Jessica says. ‘Sometimes friends and family of the bereaved say to me “I can’t talk to this person – I don’t understand – it doesn’t seem like they’re sad at all” – it’s important to recognise that different people have different needs when they are hurting and respect that’. Abi agrees; ‘Just because I haven’t shown my grief to you doesn’t mean it’s not there’.
Jessica recommends listening empathically, not judgmentally. ‘If someone’s a close friend, just be with them and use words that allow them to express how they feel without throwing too much of yourself at the situation’. Comparisons can be unhelpful if they make it about you, as Abi confirms: ‘Unfortunately, people can sometimes come and offload to you, like they’re co-opting the situation. I’ll never forget seeing a friend for the first time after losing my Mum. He talked and talked about his own experiences – such as losing his grandmother – and didn’t even ask me how I was doing or how I felt’. People try to normalise loss by giving their own version, Jessica tells me. ‘I think we live in such a problem-solving culture – self help, doing better, overcoming things – that people can start applying that to grieving as well’.
But death is not a problem to be solved through a 60 second video or an inspirational meme. It’s not something we can ‘get over’, even after the passing of time. ‘I think it’s important not to forget’, Rosie says. ‘Once the funeral is over everyone sort of goes back to normal, but you shouldn’t assume that someone who has experienced bereavement is fine six months later, or even six years later. Loss is always something that’s close by even when you’re out laughing and enjoying yourself’. One way of providing a friend with on-going support, Jessica suggests, is to recognise this and to understand that significant times – such as birthdays or Christmas – can be particularly difficult for bereaved people. So just letting them know that you’re thinking of them and expressing a bit of love and warmth at this time can really help.
In writing this piece, I messaged my best friend to let her know how much her support had meant to me. ‘I tried, but there were so many ways that I could have been better and things I wish I’d done differently looking back’, she replied, adding ‘and that isn’t supposed to make you say “no you were great!”’ But she was great. The thing is, as Jessica says, ‘You don’t have to be an expert to comfort a friend. It’s not about coming out with something super clever that you think is going to solve things – it’s just about being a good listener’. That’s something we can all do, if we try.
*If you’ve experienced loss and would like to speak to someone you can call the Cruse Bereavement Care Freephone national helpline on 0808 808 1677, or for more ways to get help go to http://www.cruse.org.uk/bereavement-services/get-help. *
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.