To Support Someone in Grief You Need to be Comfortable With Death

By Lisa Pahl, LCSW

There are many practical ways to support a friend that is grieving; grocery shopping, dropping off a meal, watching their children.

These helpful tasks are appreciated and needed. 

In addition to the practical, your grieving friend needs someone to sit with them, to listen as they share stories of their person, to hold their hand as they sob, to sit in silence and just be there.

It can be hard to be with someone who is hurting so badly. 

It’s even harder if you’re not comfortable with death. 

We created The Death Deck to help people get more comfortable talking about death. With a dose of humor and multiple choice questions, The Death Deck gently starts opening up these conversations. 

Talking about difficult topics like death and grief is a skill that can be developed with practice. Our fears and concerns about saying the wrong thing or not being able to emotionally handle the conversation lessens the more we engage in the topic.

By having these conversations, we are better equipped to support our friends that are grieving, are experiencing serious illness, or are caregiving.