What Grieving People Actually Need You to Say

And why saying something imperfectly is nearly always better than saying nothing at all.

When someone we care about is grieving, we become frightened of words.

We worry about saying the wrong thing.

We worry about upsetting them.

We worry that mentioning the person who died will remind them of something they were momentarily managing to forget.

So sometimes, we say nothing.

But grief doesn’t work like that.

You don’t remind a grieving person that someone they love has died. They already know. Their absence is woven through the ordinary moments of every day.

What they may need to know is that someone else remembers too.

You don’t need to make it better

One of the hardest things about supporting someone through grief is accepting that there are some things we cannot fix.

There isn’t a sentence that makes bereavement easier.

There isn’t a perfect quotation that takes away the pain.

And perhaps that shouldn’t be our aim.

Instead of trying to make someone feel better, we can simply meet them where they are.

This is so hard.

I’m thinking about you.

I remember.

You don’t have to be okay with me.

Sometimes those are the words that matter most.

Say their name

People sometimes become afraid to mention the person who died.

Please don’t be.

If you knew them, share a memory.

Say their name.

Tell the person grieving that you thought about them when you heard a particular song, walked past somewhere familiar or remembered something they once said.

There can be enormous comfort in discovering that the person you love still exists in other people’s memories too.

Remember the ordinary days

Support often arrives in abundance immediately after someone dies.

Then gradually, understandably, everybody returns to their lives.

But the person grieving doesn’t return to theirs.

Their life has changed.

That is why a message weeks or months later can mean so much.

So can remembering the birthday.

The anniversary.

Christmas.

Mother’s Day.

Father’s Day.

Or an entirely ordinary Tuesday when you suddenly think of them.

You don’t need an occasion to tell somebody:

I know you still miss them. I haven’t forgotten.

Don’t disappear because you don’t know what to say

I’ve experienced grief from both sides of a sympathy card.

I know how difficult it can feel to find words big enough for something so enormous.

But I also know this:

The words don’t have to be extraordinary.

They just have to be true.

You can say:

I don’t know what to say, but I’m here.

That is enough.

Because when someone is living through one of the hardest chapters of their life, they probably won’t remember whether you found the perfect words.

But they may remember that you didn’t look away.

That you remembered.

That you showed up.

And sometimes, the simplest words really are the ones we keep.

Di x

Founder of Words Worth Keeping