Please Do, and Please Don't
Apart from the outreach of the church, there are many ways individuals can encourage widows on their journey. But it's often hard to know what to say, for fear of making things worse. So let me offer some "Please do" as well as some "Please do not" suggestions.
1. Please do stay connected. Do not assume we need "space" to grieve. There is already a huge hole in our universe.
2. Please do say you are sorry for our loss. Do not tell us you understand, unless you do from personally experiencing the loss of a spouse. We would rather you tell us you do not know what to say than tell us the story of losing your friend or even close relative. We may be able to listen to your story later, but not now.
3. Please call and ask specific questions, such as "Can we go for a walk together? May I run errands for you? Meet you for coffee?" Do not say, "Call me if you need anything."
4. Please refer to our husband's acts and words, both serious and humorous. We are so comforted by knowing our husband has not been forgotten.
5. Please invite us to anything. We may decline but will appreciate being asked. Do not assume we no longer want to participate in couples events.
6. Please accept that we are where we are. Marriages are brief, long, healthy, dysfunctional, intense, remote. Death comes suddenly or in tiny increments over years. Again, our experiences are so different, as are we. So are our journeys through grief. Do not assume we go through the grief process "by the book."
7. Do say, "I've been thinking of you" rather than make a conversation-only offer, such as "We'll call you, and we'll go out to dinner"unless you can follow up. We'd love that, too.
Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
This accompanied Miriam Neff's article on "The Widow's Might".
Rob Moll wrote about taking care of widows in Liveblog.
Other articles on dealing with death are in our special section.
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Anonymous
i am young but i think those words help a lot, thank you, i need more advices like these. God Bless you
Linda Hudaggins
THis is excellent. You need some one to stand with you and walk with though your grief. You don't need there voice but the arm around you. I click on all the star's but they didn't lite up
Tommye McNeely
Thank you for putting into words some of what we are feeling. Tom "went to heaven" 6 mos. ago on 7/25/07 and my, how my whole world has changed! We, widows, become very different people in many ways. We are the same person that we were before just doing and learning many different things. I have become more compassionate in many ways of others. It is truly that you have to walk in another's shoes to know in part what it is like. Everyone in one way or another is going through a valley of some kind. My prayer is that I will become "better, not bitter"; that God will use the "suffering and it not be wasted"!!! He is my creator and my new Husband!!!