[Courses] [Spineful Living, lesson 6: Grief Support]

[Mary Gardiner]

On Fri, May 11, 2007, Carla Schroder wrote:
> Take quiet charge of small chores. Shine shoes, wash the car, mow the
> lawn, cook some meals, feed the livestock, put away food brought by
> other people.  Just do them; no need to pester them with endless
> questions about what to do.

Also helpful is respite for anyone grieving who has dependents (children,
elderly or disabled dependents, pets). At times the need to look after
the dependents can be helpful to them (got to get out of bed today
because the kids can't miss school), other times it adds to the burden.

In the event of a death, if you are fairly close to the surviving kin,
there are a lot of death related chores that you can help with too, if
you have a head for bureaucracies. Just as people's cognitive capacities
are shot through with grief (grief makes you more confused and hurts
your memory and concentration span), they have to deal with a lot of
paperwork.

If you've dealt with death before or are an organised papertrail chaser,
you can help out with: passing on news of the death; dealing with the
undertaker/funeral director, particularly details like payments and
times (the survivor may want to deal with the ceremony itself!); getting
the immense number of death certificate copies usually required (many
institutions like banks will only take originals); calling up banks, tax
officials, utilities and so on and figuring out how to have everything
switched into the next of kin's name; calling up retirement funds and life
insurance policies held in the dead person's name and figuring out how
to release the funds in them; getting the executor of the will in touch
with a lawyer who can help them execute it.

As Carla says, it's better to step in and assume the cognitive load of
deciding to do this stuff rather than saying "is there any paperwork you
need done? just call!" but you'll probably have to ask a few questions
of them about it.

> ======What not to say:
> 
> I know how you feel
> Things happen for a reason
> You need to find closure
> At least she is no longer in pain
> You need to move forward
> Time heals all wounds
> If that happened to me, I’d just die

Be a little bit careful with leading questions trying to get them to
talk too. The question I dread most after deaths of loved ones is "How
was the funeral?" Why? Because I have no idea what the expected answer
is. "Sad"? "OK"? "Catholic"? "Long"? (Also, as a former pallbearer:
don't, for goodness sake, ask questions of the pallbearers about how
heavy the coffin was. If you want to know this, get a person to lie down
on a bit of wood and have a few people help you carry them around. Same
for scientifically minded questions about the deathbed scene asked because
you're curious about what it's really like to watch someone die. Just
don't. That's for them to bring up.)

-Mary