The Supporting Role Goes To...

When individuals in your inner circle are going through the long-drawn-out impending death of someone they love, or possibly the devastating shock of an untimely death, and you’re part of that inner circle, there is an opportunity for you to help carry some of this burden. This can be a unique skillset for some, for in that this support is coming from someone who has not experienced firsthand a primary death of their own. Perhaps not so unique as you are an experienced griever and have your very own personal relationship with loss. The opportunity for you is that you are in that person’s life at a time where they’re going to experience something so life altering and difficult, and you are on the sidelines, the bench, but you’re in the game. You’re watching everything unfold; however, the finality of this death will not affect you in a primary way, you will be a secondary griever. The death of this someone will impact you in some way personally, it may leave a huge gaping hole for you (if you’re the spouse or partner of someone whose parent is dying for example), depending on your relationship to the person who is dying and most important, your relationship to the primary (griever) person who will be impacted first by the death. You could very well be in the right place at the right time, use this opportunity wisely.

I can look back now and see how there was a very small number of people outside of my immediate family that were trying to walk alongside me to help carry the load of my grief. Those brave individuals who are supporting the “grief stricken” are the “grief adjacent”. I heard that from Nora McInerny on a TED talk. The grief adjacent has a real delicate charge as they try to meander through the landmines of the grief stricken. It truly takes special individuals to take on this role, it’s like being a counsellor, that you have no schooling for, a trainer because whether it’s a looming death, and then transitioning into the finality of death, it is a marathon; a pastor to link faith for supernatural comfort, because you could be supporting someone through a tragic shocking death, and so many other hats that may be used at this time. The grief adjacent can truly be the MVP of the grief stricken.

I feel a huge sense of responsibility to help educate and prepare the MVP’s of the grief season who haven’t experienced a death personally. I think that responsibility stems from my lack of support. This isn’t me pointing fingers or blaming people for not supporting me during my dad’s terminal illness and finally his death, it was simply the circle of friends I had at the time, and their personal experience with death was nil. Out of many close friends I would have been the first to have had a parent die. Not that I didn’t have friends that experienced tragic loss, but most still had 2 parents. Death makes people uncomfortable, and when a topic makes us uncomfortable, we tend to steer far away from it and from the people it may affect.

To offer support, one must persevere with the griever. Literally be a shoulder to cry on, check in, don’t have any expectations of the griever, don’t expect immediate responses to texts that you send. Be thoughtful, and intentional in all your interactions, be present, be available, pray for them, make sure they’re eating, the tiniest of details that you may think are inconsequential are the very things that the bereaved will need. For me personally it was like my brain wasn’t working properly, almost like an out of body experience. Things that I would routinely do, I forgot to do, or they didn’t seem important. For my husband to give me a hug and then say, “Can I run a nice hot shower for you?”, was his gentle way of saying, you kind of smell and you haven’t showered for a few days because you’re drowning in your grief…THAT IS AN MVP. When someone close to you, someone you love, whether platonic or romantic, is embarking on their personal grief journey, I challenge you to step up and learn to be uncomfortable to make the one you love as comfortable as they can be during this time.