What can we say to someone who has lost a loved one and is in the depths of grief?  So many of us flounder with this.  “I’m sorry for your loss” seems to be a common go-to phrase which, although usually sincere, lacks the ability to provide any real comfort to the bereaved…and we know it. 

From my own experience, I believe there are no words that console…nothing that reaches the depths of the heart to make a difference.  Yet we want to somehow express our sorrow and support for the survivors.  For this reason, I found the following excerpt from a book by Reverend Robert V. Thompson to be helpful, as well as spiritual.

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A 25-year-old man who had been in an accident lay in a hospital bed in a coma. His young wife sat weeping next to the bed. I sat beside her. I didn’t know what to say. I had thought that as an ordained minister with a Master of Divinity degree I would know what to do. But I didn’t. I just sat there beside them.

I kept showing up, day after day, feeling utterly incompetent. I held his limp hand, held her frightened hand and occasionally said a prayer.

Of course, I hadn’t learned any prayers in seminary for such an occasion so I would say something like, “God, we don’t know what to say. But please comfort Vicki and work with the doctors as instruments of your healing for Gary.” I prayed this prayer every time I visited. As soon as the words left my lips, I felt hollow, ridiculous. What could I possibly say in the presence of this tragedy?

Two weeks after my first visit, Gary died.

The day of the funeral, I stood with the widow by the casket. When she talked about the darkness in her, I felt like I was in it too. When she said she was falling into an abyss, I embraced her. I felt completely helpless.

But it was there, standing beside a casket with a grieving widow, that I learned a priceless lesson, one untaught and unavailable in seminary. I learned that the power of being present is the greatest power we human beings possess.

What matters most is not what we say. It is not what we believe or think we know. It is not speaking the right words or offering blessed assurance. What matters most is our capacity to be present with what is, and our simple entering and sharing the mysterious and ambiguous silence.

When everything is at stake, when life itself hangs in the balance, and when we are facing the truth of what it is, words become mere background noise. In life’s defining moments, what gets through to us is the caring and compassionate presence of others. The Quakers say, “if you can’t improve on the silence, then don’t speak.”

Listening in the Silence Brings God to the Moment

This practice of silence is central to the spiritual life.

The universal God is always present and there is nothing more comforting than recognizing the presence of God during our time with the grief-stricken. Divine Presence is encountered when the soul rests in silence. Just as the body requires rest to restore its energy, so the soul requires silence to awaken to its own truth. If we don’t empty ourselves of noise then our lives become the noise. Silence gives the soul the Sabbath. Silence gives us rest.

In silence we begin to hear the still small voice. The practice of silence teaches us how to be quiet within even when the world is bustling without. Learning to sit in silence, either alone or with others, practicing meditation or contemplative prayer, and learning to feel comfortable with awkward silences in our everyday conversation are all skills that require practice.

Under the influence of the still small voice, we find ourselves in the presence of the Divine Beloved. Captivated by Divine presence, everything looks different.

Living with the Loss

We all have our attachments. We all have our expectations and ideas of how life is supposed to be. We are attached to how we want things to work out. But the still small voice whispers to us that what we have today will be gone tomorrow. It tells us softly to let it go. Let it all go.

Speaking out of the still small voice, Quaker Etta May wrote,

The still small voice says, “you are my beloved. This is all you need and all you need to know. You can get along without everything else.”

Be quiet and let go.

Nikos Kazantzakis put it like this: “I have one longing only… To discover behind the visible and unceasing stream of the world an invisible and immutable presence is hiding… And what is my duty?… To let the mind fall silent that I may hear the Invisible calling.”

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For the grieving, we hope for their eventual return to a fulfilled life despite the continued hole left by the loved one’s absence.   Our even more transcendent prayer for them is that their life grows in the ways so beautifully expressed by Nicholas Wolterstorff in his book Lament for a Son.

“I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I will see things that dry eyed I could not see. If sympathy for the world’s wounds is not enlarged by our anguish, if love for those around us is not expanded, if a gratitude for what is good does not surface, if insight is not deepened, if commitment to what is important is not strengthened, if aching for a new day is not intensified, if hope is weakened and faith diminished, if from the experience of death comes nothing good, then, death has won. Then death is proud.”

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Relevant Scripture

So with you: now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. (John 16:22)

Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. (Luke 6:21)

Reference

A Voluptuous God by Robert V. Thompson