You know how in the movies and on television, when a writer is trying to write and nothing is working and they’re using a for real typewriter, they rip the paper out of the carriage, wad it up into a crumpled ball, and toss it into a wastebasket that’s already overflowing with wadded up crumpled balls of typing paper?  Well, if I was using a for real typewriter, my wastebasket would already have been emptied twice and would need it again.  That’s how many times I’ve started this and then pushed the delete button and just held it down, watching as the cursor ate my efforts.

There’s a reason for that, a very good reason actually.  Sometimes, when Death makes his presence known too violently or too abruptly or too much—or all of the above—you just go numb.  It’s the mind’s defense against the pain and the anguish, against the emotional and mental chaos that is lurking around the corner, waiting to jump out and engulf you.  And numbness does not lend itself to expression.

As I compose this little epistle, it is only Tuesday but this week already feels as though it has lasted far too long.  It began last Friday with the sudden and completely unexpected death of a friend—which was followed by a senseless act of horrific violence that took the lives of 26 innocent people, a third of whom were children, in a town I’ve never even heard of but which I know is suffering terribly and will never be the same.  And then I have watched and listened as another friend struggles with the approaching season and the anniversary of something that never should have happened.  But it did.  And her world is still upside down.

What do you say to the people left behind?  What kind of comfort can you possibly offer when someone is hurting beyond what anyone should be required to bear?  There are no magic words that will make it all better.  A mother’s kiss won’t stop the pain like it once did when we were young.  A really powerful magic wand might be helpful, but those seem to be in short supply these days.  But you can listen.  And you can hold them when they cry.  You can tell them how deeply sorry you are for their pain and you can offer to be there whenever they might need an ear . . . or a shoulder . . . or both.  But you better mean it when you say it.

Please don’t tell them it will be all right.  It won’t.  Please don’t tell them their loved one is in a better place.  It doesn’t matter.  They aren’t here.  Please don’t tell them it will get easier with time.  Even if it proves true for them, that doesn’t help now.  And please, please, please , don’t tell them God needed another angel.  How selfish does that make Him?

And whatever you do, please don’t forget them when the funeral ends and everyone else goes away.  For them there will be an avalanche of firsts to face: the first birthday of the one they lost, their first birthday without them, the first Thanksgiving and Christmas—and the first anniversary of their death.  Every one of those firsts and so many more will be gut-wrenching.  Every one of those firsts can easily send them back into the depths of grief and depression.  Without patient, understanding people who will help pull them back up, they can easily lose themselves as well as the one they loved.

This is a hard time of year for a lot of folks, and Life certainly isn’t trying to make the path any easier.  Please be aware of those around you and their struggles.  Even if we choose not to help, we at least shouldn’t make it any harder than it already is.

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