Content warning
This page discusses suicide and self-harm. If you are struggling right now, support is available at any hour.
The fear is always the same: that you will say something clumsy, or remind them. You cannot remind someone of a death they are thinking about every hour. The risk you are actually running is the opposite one.
Silence is not neutral
When people go quiet, the bereaved person does not read it as tact. They read it as not caring, or as the death being something shameful that cannot be named. Plenty of bereaved people describe losing friendships in the year after a death, not because anyone fell out but because nobody knew how to start.
A clumsy sentence said warmly does far less damage than an absence.
Say the name
Use the dead person’s name. Most bereaved people are frightened that the person will be erased, and hearing the name spoken by someone else is a small, real relief. If you have a memory of them, tell it. Bereaved people almost never tire of hearing new stories about someone they will not get any more of.
Things worth avoiding
- Anything that begins “at least”. At least they did not suffer. At least you had them for so long. Every one of these is an instruction to feel better, and it lands as an argument against their grief.
- Timetables. “It has been a while now” and “you seem to be doing so well” both tell the person that visible grief is becoming inconvenient.
- Comparisons to your own losses, at least early on. It moves the conversation to you.
- “Let me know if you need anything.” Well meant, and almost never used, because it hands a decision to someone who has no capacity to make decisions.
Offer one specific thing
Instead of asking what they need, name something and do it. I am bringing dinner on Thursday. I am taking the kids on Saturday morning. I am coming to sit with you, I do not need you to talk. Specific offers are easy to accept and easy to decline, which is exactly what is wanted.
The part most people miss
Keep going after the first month. The support almost always arrives in a rush and then stops, right at the point where the funeral is over, the relatives have flown home, and the loss becomes the whole of ordinary life. Put the death anniversary and the birthday in your calendar now and send something on both. Being remembered by someone a year later is worth more than anything you can say in the first week.
When to suggest more
If months are passing and their life is not widening at all, or if they are drinking heavily, not eating, or talking about not wanting to be here, that is the point to say something direct and stay with them while they make a call. Several Singapore bereavement services are open to the public and free, and they are listed on the grief page. If someone is in immediate danger, call 995. Samaritans of Singapore is on 1767 and national mindline is on 1771, both 24 hours.