STOP ASKING GRIEVING PEOPLE if there's "anything you can do."
Do this instead.
The Red Lantern / A place I loved, that is no longer // Greenpoint, Brooklyn /// circa 2012
Busy? Low on bandwidth? No time to read the whole piece?
TL,DR: Don’t ask. OFFER.
Don’t ask. Offer.
Also, Trigger Warning: Brief mention of suicide (non-graphic). It’s not what this piece is about, and no details are given, but it is mentioned in passing.
Street Art (Banksy?) / Somewhere in Brooklyn or Manhattan // Circa 2014
Right off the bat, here’s why: Your grieving person does not need homework.
Don’t be the person who gives them homework. They have enough to be getting on with! Now they’ve got to come up with what they need and try to figure out if it’s something you’d be willing to do and consider if you’re even the right person to ask and run the risk that what they need is too big for you thus making you uncomfortable ergo adding stress sauce onto their already laden plate?!
What if you’re not willing?
What if you’re not willing but do it anyway, and then on top of everything else they have to cope with, now they feel a way because they can sense you’re only doing the thing out of obligation, since you asked if there was anything they could do but You weren’t specific about it and they told you what they needed and you don’t actually want to do it but now you’re in for a penny in for a pound and EVERYBODY FEELS MORE BAD. Bottom line: more bad feels.
Let’s not have anybody feel any more bad, okay?
Grief sucks enough as it is.
So don’t ask a grieving person “What can I do?” Stop saying “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” or any other variation on the theme of Tell-Me-How-To-Help-You, like “How can I help?” “What do you need?” “What do you want?” “But what can I doooo for you?”
Stop making it about you. It’s not about you. If it’s about you right now, leave them be, go somewhere else and have it be about you there.
While we’re having this nice chat, I want to take the opportunity to have a little convo about some other phrases you may be using with your grieving person. Listen, they are probably in one state of shock or another. Which, I think, is kind of like being partially asleep or on a potpourri of drugs or in some liminal sleepwalky state in which the words might seep in through their skin rather than getting processed through their ears. And there are some words that I wish people wouldn’t continue osmosing at times like these.
I know it’s challenging to think of something to say, and you want to say the “right” thing, and then you can’t think of the right thing so you just say the things you’ve seen in the movies. But when we do this, we come off like parrots that can’t read social cues. How can our grieving person trust us when we do that?
So before we move on to what you can do instead of asking what you can do…
(tiny drumroll on tiny drum, please)
What else NOT to say:
When someone’s home burns down, do not say, “At least you are alive.” Yes, this is categorically true. And yes, life is categorically more important than stuff. But it is simply not helpful right now. It’s got that toxic positivity. A whiff of remonstrance. As though deep down you might find them a tid bit silly for mourning ‘just things’ when they ‘should be grateful they made it out alive.’
They are not silly for mourning the loss of their things.
Do not say, “It’s just stuff.” Things are the things we make a life with. We cohabitate with them just as surely as we do a parent, or a spouse, or pet, or a child. They are even more constant than beings. Don’t forget that. Disparage not the love people have for their things.
Don’t tell other people about your friends who lost their home by saying, “They lost everything.” This is a misuse of language. It makes the bad experience badder. If they want to say they lost everything, that is their right. They can say anything they need to as they grapple with the bigness of loss. But don’t you say it too. Don’t you reinforce that. Be accurate. Call a spade a spade. They lost most of their belongings. They lost their house.
They did not lose EVERYTHING.
What else else not to say:
Please, please stop saying “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
It sounds hollow and tinny and hollow again. Like an empty can rattling around in the bottom of your blue bin that will probably never get recycled, no matter how earnest you are about rinsing it out.
This sentence emphasizes two words:
SORRY
&
LOSS
Sorry & Loss. Sorry & Loss. Savings & Loan. Slither & Gloss. Sibbit & Moss.
Imagine how many people have said I’msosorryforyourloss to them in the aftermath. Imagine how it’s echoing over and over in their psyche, feathering under the skin like an old prison tattoo: Sorry loss sorry sorry loss loss sorry sorry sorry loss sorry loss loss Sorry.
I Speak Human / DTLA // Los Angeles, CA /// November 2023
Here’s what the Trigger Warning was for. In 2012, my sweet ex, Patrick Kelly, died by suicide.
Patrick Kelly, a love of my life / sometime before 2012
That is a story for another time and a more robust trigger warning. What I want to tell you here is that in the wake of his suicide, I met another ex of his, Stephany, and we became so close that she lived in my apartment for a little while. While she was staying with me, we accidentally wrote a play.
We had begun, without even noticing, slipping into these old lady characters. Mine was Gertrude, and hers was Estelle.
Gertrude and Estelle are from New York. Gertrude and Estelle could talk about Patrick easily. Gertrude and Estelle started making appearances every day, flowing in and out of the conversations of daily living about taking jackets with you and when you’ll be home and if we, in fact, need more bananas.
Gertrude & Estelle soon became our secret language of grief. They made us laugh. They had very strong accents. We improvised in their voices constantly. In our play, they became the Guardian Crones of a woman on earth who was having a hard time dating after the death of her boyfriend. Her name was Myra.
We almost did a 29-hour Equity reading of our play but it was cancelled by the Artistic Director, or maybe the owner, which is an artistic heartbreak that happens all the time and yet from which I’ve never fully recovered. I didn’t even read the play again for over 10 years. At any rate, Gertrude says to Estelle…
Gertrude
You know what someone said to me right after he died?
She said: “He’s dead. And if you were meant to be together, he wouldn’t be.”
Estelle
Well that might be true. But she’s an asshole for saying it.
Gertrude
I think people say weird, and stupid, and ridiculous, and, just, weird things around death.
Or they say nothing. Which is sometimes worse.
Estelle
My very closest friend said: “If anyone could have saved him, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN YOU”. And the the guilt is like a GIANT ELEPHANT, just hovering over me, here, and every once in a while her trunk comes down and hits me in the head.
Gertrude
They say inappropriate things because there is Nothing. Appropriate. To Say. They can’t come up with anything new.
I’msosorryforyourloss I’msosorryforyourloss I’m so sorry for my condolences I’m so sorry for your loss.
Myra
It’s so good to see you I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances...
Gertrude
All I ever say is: I love you. Because I can’t even address the Loss. The word. Loss. Loss. Sounds like floss, so thin.
Street Art / Nolita // August 2021
What else else not to say:
Don’t say “This must be so hard for you.” Don’t tell them how hard it is for them! Are you kidding me?! THEY KNOW. (h/t Shannon) You saying so is not gonna do them any good.
Okay.
Here’s a biggie. You ready?
Don’t say “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.” “Oh I just CAN’T IMAGINE what you’re going through I can’t IMAGINE.”
Bitch yes you can!
Yes, you can. You’re doing it right now! That’s why you mention it! You don’t want to, because compassion aches and empathy hurts and what they went through is terrible. For more on that, including an infusion of hope and resolve, read my brilliant friend Samia’s piece on the L.A. fires and life being so lifey right now.
Link here:
As Lauren so evocatively put it after she read my sadness article, “It can be hell in the hallway.”
Don’t say you can’t imagine what they’re going through.
I know you’re trying to say “I’m not pretending I’ve been through the exact same thing.” Nobody is asking you to pretend that.
But if you cannot imagine what it feels like, what it must be like, to be your beloved in this moment, you either haven’t had enough experience to really Become or you have little business trying to comfort them.
(Cue Velveteen Rabbit quote, you can’t be real until you become and by then your buttons are busted and your eyes are pulled up but then you cannot be ugly except to people who don’t understand why do I cry every time I hear it.)
But you can imagine. Your brain is made for imagining. It’s what your dreams, fantasies, and worries are made of. And I know you can do those. So.
Go ahead and imagine so you can feel into them.
Also, go ahead and imagine because, unless you die too young to know life, grief, surprise, and tragedy will not spare you.
You may as well practice with your imagination (although hopefully not to the point of paranoia and anxiety).
Sympathize (feel for them) and/or empathize (feel with them), but please don’t insult your grieving person with your alleged lack of imagination. Because if that were the case, that you cannot imagine, what do they have to do now, repeat the story, relive their trauma, paint you a picture so you can imagine it?!?!
First imagine.
And then, do something useful for them.
If you’re going to reach out to a grieving person,
Do something.
Offer what you like to do and/or what you are good at.
Offer things / services / acts of service that might be appreciated. Your task is to unburden them of tasks. Even one will do. Even a portion of one can make a difference. What would you want someone to do for you if you were in their position? That’s a really good start.
A wee list of stuff that has helped me while grieving:
Low THC / CBD beverages
Throat Coat tea
The softest pajamas with the tags cut out
Cats
Cats
Soup
Cats
Phad Thai that my friend made
Speakerphone calls while driving
Watching a show with Adam
Ted Lasso
Cashmere-scented candle (did you even know cashmere had a scent?)
Smooth rock / tactile jewelry / fidget spinner
Crafting (most recently, making Valentine’s like I’m 5!)
Thank you Samia / Door Dash delivery // Wednesday /// January 2025
The most resonant meme I can across recently was this one:
“In times like these, do for one person what you wish you could do for everyone.”
I used to live in an intentional community, and I had a brief dalliance with a human person who lived in a famous intentional community in San Francisco (well famous in certain circles).
They introduced me to the concept of a do-ocracy.
In a bureaucracy, there is red tape. Hierarchy and faxes and things in triplicate.
In a democracy, everybody gets a vote, and usually (*sob*) the majority rules. This method of decision-making is time-consuming, but it (*usually* *sob*) makes people feel heard. We like that part.
In a benevolent dictatorship, one leader attempts to make decisions in the best interests of the community, and fields any complaints, making adjustments as they deem fit.
In community by committee, a small group of invested folks make decisions for the collective, including the decision whether to take a certain decision to a vote by the community at large.
But in a do-ocracy, you see, you simply do the thing.
As long as two conditions are met:
You can undo it.
You are willing to undo it if there is (reasonable) protest.
See a wall that needs painting? Grab a gallon and get amongst it!
Want to organize the bookshelf by color? G’head!
(Who would protest such glory? No one with their wits about them, I say!)
Thus, Allow me to implore you to adopt:
The Multiple Choice Method of Showing Up For Someone™
If your beloved person is in the kind of state in which you, generally compassionate friend, feel the need to ask them what you can do, they are probably too overwhelmed and emotional to tell you what they need. They may not even know what they need, themselves. I said this already, but it bears repeating because some of us need a frying pan over the head and I’m not saying who and I’m not saying I’m not one of us people:
DO NOT GIVE THEM HOMEWORK.
Instead, tell them what you’re willing to offer.
One thing is fine.
Two things is better, either this or that.
Three things is ideal — it’s the right amount of choice and I can almost guarantee you they will feel loved knowing you are willing to do these three things.
Make sure these are three things that you are willing to do.
Nay, make sure these are three things that you are happy to do. That you would love to do for them.
Four things is too many.
Four+ options is when the Paradox of Choice kicks in.
You’ve heard of the paradox of choice, yeah? It means we are happier with our choice of jam when we have three options to pick from, let’s say a) strawberry, b) raspberry, and c) lingonberry (thanks IKEA), rather than the smorgasbord of jams in aisle 17 at Publix.
(Which reminds me of the Borat sketch in the cheese aisle, which consists of something like 29 minutes of Borat asking, “What is this?” And the grocery store employee replying, “Cheese.”)
Remember the Jam.
Now, I know and you know that you are willing to do more than 3 things, but in this case pick your Most Likely to Succeed. When you employ the Multiple Choice Method of Showing Up for Someone™, they know for sure that what you offer them you are willing to do — nay, want to do, for them. And then, I repeat-ish, they are not put in the position of potentially feeling like they are asking for too much or sensing that what is given is not given freely but out of obligation, which I personally loathe and abhor and is a huge trigger for me… and I’m not the only one.
At the Unitarian Universalist Church my mom is a member of (a non-creed, non-denominational, social-justice minded community, including atheists and pagans and believers, and agnostics like me), RevBen says something like this when the plate is passed, “What is freely given is received with great joy.”
Love on a barrier / NYC // October 2022
A few years back, I learned about what I’ll call:
The Nuclear Blast Theory of Horrible Things That Happen
Note: If you know where I heard this theory, whose work it is, please let me know, because those details are gone and I like to give credit where credit is due.
Tragedy is a nuclear blast.
Most people know roughly how far they are from the nucleus of each particular blast (although this can be tricky, too, because sometimes you are fairly far away from it and coreshook just the same — see my good friend Dr. Owen Muir’s post on How to Help Someone Who Had a Loved One Die By Suicide on his excellent healthcare Substack).
Being that you probably have a good idea about how close you are to the TragiBlast™, you’ll likely also have a pretty strong idea of who is closer to it than you and who is further away.
Try your best not to deposit your grief in the lap of people closer to the explosion.
This doesn’t mean you can’t let them know that you are grieving too (it usually helps us to spend time with others who are grieving the same person, or thing), what it means is: don’t emotionally discharge in their presence, if you can help it.
Work hard to regulate your own nervous system when you’re with them. They are working hard to hold their own grief, or disassociate from it, or both. Whichsoever way they probably don’t have many emotional resources to help you hold your own feelings about their tragedy. Don’t put them in a position where they feel like they have to take care of you, now.
The Golden rule is: lean on people further away from the blast than you are.
While you are supporting someone close to the impact zone, make certain you have your own outlet, someone even more removed. A therapist if you can afford it. Reddit if you can’t. (A friend in between.)
Ideally every one of us would be able to reach out to many others for support, spread it around so none of our confidants get totally smeared with it… but so many things are far from ideal these days, aren’t they.
There will be shrapnel.
If you do catch some shrapnel, don’t pretend you didn’t. Sometimes, Owen says, even if you’re far enough away not to have been directly impacted, it can be surprising how affected you may be. To you surprising. Not to Owen (who was the first person I called that night to ask how I can help my friend) because, unfortunately, Owen has been made a suicide expert by life, and by profession.
Street Art / Nashville, TN // August 2021
And if you are that person who’s not as close to the tragedy, if you’re The Helpers, as we all must needs be at some point, here are some specific ways I suggest you help:
If there has been a death:
I have some pictures of {your beloved person}. Would you like me to get them to you?
Or, if you have those photos, just go ahead and make them a photo album.
Footnote that’s not at foot: By the way, do not avoid saying the name of the person who died. SAY THEIR NAME. For Pete’s sake say their name. Pete! PETE! When you avoid saying their name it can seem like you are trying to pretend they didn’t exist. They existed! Don’t erase them from your vocabulary! You know micro-aggressions? This is like a micro-erasure. Your grieving person probably doesn’t want them erased.
If they have lost their home:
Give them money.
Do not ask if you can do this. Just give. They need it. They may not be willing or able to ask for it. If you can, give, right now, immediately, before you forget about it or it becomes another thing on your neverending To Do list. Slip them a wad of cash, donate to their GoFundMe, buy things off their wishlist, get them gift cards for grocery stores and their favorite coffee place and Tarjay. Give them money.
If you can, make some sort of offer like this lovely artist did, to draw your house if you lost it.
Or write them an essay about the loveliness and personality and comfort of the home they created, the times that were had there, the stories that were written between the walls. There is no location so emblematic of one’s personality as Home.
Home is where my clothing rack is / Bushwick // Brooklyn, NY /// Sometime between 2014- 2020
For any sort of grief:
Do their dishes.
Do their laundry.
Clean their place.
Offer them a spring cleaning, literal or metaphorical.
May I make you some [insert delicious food that you make] and bring it by your house at such and such a time?
Where are you right now? May I bring you a coffee / tea / beverage of your choice now-ish?
Do you have enough water? May I send you a pack/case, and if so, what’s your address right now?
Footnote not at foot: Smiling as I swype type this because it reminds me of Georgie’s tirade in Theresa Rebeck’s play Spike Heels about how whenever anybody’s upset, (bougie) people just dive for the liquids. This is also a very British thing to do, I have seen on TV and in London apartments, and America will likely still forever be, Britain’s rebel stepchild. We just dive for the liquids!
May I take care of your pet(s) / child / elderly person / plants / entity you are directly responsible for, for x amount of time?
Will you go for a walk with me / play pickleball / ride bikes / work out / jog / to play underwater hockey together? (That’s a thing! Underwater hockey is a thing!)
Notice I don’t say ‘Do you want to.’ Instead, I say some form of, ‘Are you willing to?’ Because they may not Want to do anything to care for themselves at all… but they might be willing to do one of those good-for-you body moving things, especially, and maybe only, if you’re doing it with them, and that can make all the difference.
Another way to replace ‘Do you want to?’ is “Will you let me? Would you let me?”
Would you let me help you plan the funeral service?
Will you allow me to give you a massage?
May I drive you to the next thing you have to do and pick you up when you’re done?
What is one sucky task you are procrastinating on? Would you let me help you fill out / take the reins on / do that with you / sit with you while you happen it?
I’d really like to take a task off your plate. I’m good at x, y, z, and the other thing (e.g. making arrangements / drafting emails / logistics / organizing things / making charcuterie platters / babysitting / selling stuff on the interwebs / cleaning / medication management). May I do that for you this week, and if so, when?
The old saying goes, A burden shared is a burden halved.
But I prefer the term “half of forever.”
Let me esplain.
I have a friend I met in a Bushwick coffeeshop because I put a horizontal with lila sticker on the bulletin board and she followed me on the Gram, and then we met IRL one afternoon and spontaneously coworked and then we were plant cafe buddies. I was preparing to give a workshop featuring my Intimacy card game and I wanted to divide the attendees into three groups of around 10 people each (The Game is optimized for between 2-10 people), to play a round.
But I only had one copy of the prototype.
The prototype consists of 240 cards. Each card has a handwritten question or prompt on it. I needed two additional copies of the entire game for my event.
At the coffeeshop, I, overwhelmed as Anne Lamott’s little brother with his bird book report due the next morning, bemoaned, “This is going to take forever!”
And my purple-haired friend, without pausing from the card she was copying said, “Half of forever.”
Cried a little, I.
Half of forever, and my friend’s hands / Lazy Suzie’s // Bushwick, Brooklyn /// September 2023
When you do things with someone who cares about you, tasks that take forever do take half of forever. And tasks that would take never miraculously become possible. My friend Adam has made a lot of tasks that would be never, possible for me. Like getting on the marketplace to get health insurance. I really wouldn’t have done it and who knows what else might have befallen me before I actually took myself to see a doctor. {Thank you Adam. Thank you times one million.}
With my purple friend’s help, I completed two more copies of my game, in time for my event. It was wonderful.
Feets, The Game / Feets are not a requirement of the game // The Villa /// Bushwick, Brooklyn //// September 2023
Here are some questions you could ask instead of “How are you?”
Chances are, someone preoccupied by grief may not be able to tell if your ‘How are you’ is a real question or a mere formality. They also might be concerned about bringing you down, if they tell you the real real, so if you do indeed want the real real, let them know by asking:
How is your heart today?
or
What’s on your heart today?
or
How is the grief today?
You can also simply check in.
Checking in!
Or, no questions, just:
Loving you from here (my couch, Florida, across the seas, underneath the cat, etc.)
Here is a text / email template:
I know things are really hard, so no need to respond to this message if you don’t have the energy. I totally understand, and I’m sending my love and care.
I just wanted you to know that I’d really like to do:
a)
b)
and/ or
c) for you
Another tactic: Make like a Do-ocracy and Don’t ask. Don’t offer. Just send them a care package.
Use your intuition, and if that doesn’t work, guess.
After the L.A. fires burned my friend’s home in Altadena, I asked for the address where he and his family are staying now. Then I spent a delightful afternoon intuitively shopping at Tarjay, this wonderful store you probably don’t know about and which I have just discovered. I was so excited about my care package that I arranged the contents on my bed like an Instagrammer.
Care package contents / January 2025
Two days later, they arrived by Priority Mail to Alhambra, CA (bless us USPS everyone!) and I got this photo in return.
Everyone was so happy / Alhambra, CA // January 2025
I truly cannot recall the last time I felt such pure joy. Not when I published my first article. Not when I gave a speech at BoF VOICES (though that was exhilarating). Not when I initially got Loralei. Not even when I saw myself on TV for the first time (though I really love saying, “I’m not a Nurse, but I played one on TV,” and having that be a true story!)…
No wait I know I know! I just remembered — the last time I felt this way was when I was in Shibari class in Bali and found out that I won a residency in the Clubhouse Creator First program for my live interactive social audio show Positively Sex. It was Unadulterated Good Feeling. The purest of pure hits.
That’s what it feels like to make someone feel loved in the midst of grief.
If you have done one or some or all of these things, congrats, darling!
Now, go take care of you.
Because no-one who has passed out can put an oxygen mask on anybody else. Self-care lessons from your flight attendant.
I love you.