How to help a grieving friend?

PackMom
Fri, 04 Aug 2006 19:29:33 +0000

When my mother passed away 3 years ago, a co-worker (that I was not especially close to) asked me everyday for like a month…“how are you doing?”
The answer was terrible, shocked, numb, sad but I know she didn’t really want to know all that. She was trying to show concern but asking the same thing over and over didn’t help.

Your friend may or may not want to talk about her feelings right away. The feelings may be too raw to bring out in the open just yet. The best thing you can do is just keep being her friend like always. Be empathetic but don’t treat her differently because of her loss. She will really be wanting to just feel normal again so just help her to be herself by doing all the things you normally do together. My best friend and I go shopping together a lot. After I came back from my Mother’s funeral, my friend took me out to lunch and shopping. It felt really good to get out of grief mode for awhile.