When my daughter Sophie was six, I fulfilled a long-held dream of mine: I went to see the famously beautiful Isle of Skye in Scotland. We stayed in an old hunting lodge in a tiny village with too many syllables to re-type here. At the edge of the gorgeous grounds was a pig pen and in it, one huge pink sow. Sophie was thrilled to watch this pig, which weighed much more than she did then. I felt nervous because the pig was restrained by only one strong wire around the perimeter of its pen.
I asked the farmhand why the pig didn’t just wander out – or worse, trample my child in a sudden dash for freedom. He laughed and in his thick Scots brogue he said the pig had been there its whole life, it was used to the confines and it would never venture out. “Tis useta thar. Enna gain nowwer.” Not being a farm person, I took his word for it but drew the line at Sophie feeding it like an animal in a petting zoo.
I’ve never forgotten that pig.
When I find myself doing the same things over and over, or when I notice things I believe about life that are keeping me from living a life of freedom, courage, success, happiness or adventure, I think about that pig.The pig had long since given up on freedom. These were the confines of its world until it was made into bacon and ham. It didn’t even know its destiny would only be death, death after a life barely lived.
Lots of bad things happen in people’s lives. We create rules (fences) that tell us “This is as far as I can go in this direction” or “This is just how life is.” We accept the limits of our vision for the limits of the world.
Let’s not be like that pig! Let’s test the boundaries, crawl under, leap over, steal the farmhand’s wire cutters and make a break for it! Just because bad things happened, it doesn’t mean they’ll happen again. Live adventurously!
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When someone we care about is hurting, compassionate people like you want to do or say something to help ease their pain. But sometimes, the most loving thing we can say is nothing at all. Here are some ways you can offer real comfort – and prevent yourself from making the situation any worse.
1.Let it be all about them.
Say simply “I am so sad that you’re hurting.” Or “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.” People often foolishly say, “I understand because I had…” and go on to describe their own painful experience. But it is NOT the same to lose a parent as it is to lose a child; it is NOT the same to lose a pet as to lose a spouse; it is NOT the same even if you also lost the same relation to say, “…because my husband died, too.” Every relationship is different, and every person responds to it differently, and every person’s way of measuring their loss is different. When my children died, a surprisingly large number of people said, “I understand because my pet died, and it was like a child to me.” I wanted to shriek at them! I never left my son home with a bowl of water on the floor! I never went to bed and left my daughter roaming in the yard! Your loss is not the same as anyone else’s. Similarly, when my house burned down, a few well-meaning but incredibly ignorant people said,”Well, at least you survived.” I can’t even verbalize how insensitive that comment is! Just use one of the two suggested phrases and you’ll be safe – and compassionate – and appropriate.
2.Listen. The kindest thing you can do is to not talk.
After you make one of the compassionate statements above, either offer a hug or just sit silently with the person. If they want to talk, they will. If they don’t, let them be. If you feel tears, let them fall. Sit quietly. Don’t ply them with questions or drown them in platitudes, especially not those reflective of your faith. For instance, saying, “It’s OK, he’s with Jesus now” is an incredibly hurtful statement to the other person, who doesn’t WANT him to “be with Jesus”. If the person believes he’s with Jesus, they will feel guilty for feeling grief; if the person used to believe people went to Jesus when they died, and they are now questioning their own faith, it’s possible you will drive them further away by being so insensitive. If you say, “Well, at least she’s out of pain” you are creating guilt again. Just be quiet. Just be present. If the relationship you have with the suffering person includes touching – then hold their hand, hug them while they cry, just be there. You cannot DO anything to make it better! I’ve heard people trying to comfort someone who is dying by saying, “You don’t get more than you can bear.” Shut up already! You have no real idea what that person is going through! Don’t make it worse by imposing your story, your beliefs or your platitudes on anyone else. Listening is the greatest gift you can give.
3.Help.
If it’s a person whose life is now heavily burdened because of a loss, illness, disaster or tragedy, and if it is in your power to help, do it. If there are small kids, offer to take them to the park tomorrow afternoon. It will give your friend some time to grieve or catch up with their life. If you can bring over food, if you can sweep the kitchen floor, or get their car serviced, or help them deal with the insurance adjuster, do it. Walk their dog. Write them a check. Lots of people say, “If there’s anything I can do, call me” and then wait for the suffering person to make the call. They never will! It’s not part of our culture to ask for help.You have to look around, see what needs to be done, and offer to do specifically that. If the person says No, respect their wishes. Maybe a day or two later, offer to do something different. But by offering specific things, you are pointing out that specific things still need to be done – and that’s often more than someone in grief, trauma or pain can do for themselves.
Your desire to be compassionate is a wonderful thing! If you’ve done or said something “wrong” in the past, don’t beat yourself up. You didn’t know. But now that you do, these are a few lessons that will help you be an effective comforter in the future.
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You Have to CHOOSE to Feel Better Or It Won’t Happen
In 1991, I was sitting in my wheelchair in a large conference room with about 60 other bereaved parents. It was my third time to attend this support group. The format was always the same – the director would begin by telling the story of how her child died, then we’d go around the room clockwise, each parent telling their sad story. Two rules: no interruptions and no questions. I was wondering when we were going to get to the part where we start to figure out how to feel better. I was already tired of telling the story of how my children died in a car accident.
I was getting to know some of the other parents. The director told me she had three estranged grown daughters and an ex-husband. She’d never been allowed to meet her grandchildren! Yet this woman I thought of as a paragon gave her every waking moment to our support group. It was time to begin the meeting…
She sat down and as usual, she began telling the story of her disturbed adopted son “Little Billy” who, at age nine, put a bag of natural gas over his head and willfully committed suicide! It was heart-rending, to be sure. But this time as she told it, she was sobbing and nearly incoherent. I thought perhaps he’d just died and I’d misunderstood. Or maybe it was his birthday or the anniversary of his death. I could understand that.
But something inside me clicked and I broke the rules.
In the middle of her weeping, head in hands, I interrupted! I had to know. I said, “How long ago did Little Billy die?”
She looked up at me in shock. No one ever broke the rules.
She took a deep breath and wailed, “Twenty-six years agoooooo!”
In that instant, I saw my future if I continued to “wear” the deaths of my children like some sort of sad badge of honor! Twenty-six years?! No way was I going to let myself be in such pain 26 years from now! Right then and there, I wheeled myself out of that meeting and never returned.
Waiting for my husband to come pick me up, I vowed that I would do whatever it took to find a way to survive all that had happened to me. There was NO WAY I was going to let anything ruin the rest of my life, all my important relationships, and my sense of peace forever. Suffering is NOT a favor we do for the dead.
In her own unexpected way, that forlorn support group director gave me the greatest gift, the greatest inspiration, the greatest wisdom: You have to CHOOSE to feel better, move on, let it go…or it just won’t happen.
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The last words I said to my four-year-old son just seconds before he died are etched into my mind.
He had just awoken from a nap in the back seat of our rental car. We’d spent the day touring the Cotswolds, the part of England where they have all the pretty little thatched cottages. We all had jet lag.
Jeremy awoke and said, “Mommy, I’m hungry.”
And I made him a promise I’d never keep. I said, “OK, honey. We’ll be there soon and you can have ‘chips with tomato sauce’.”
He had already learned that’s British for “French fries with ketchup.”
My husband didn’t look both ways. Jeremy was dead a few seconds later.
Lesson One: You never know when the last thing you say to a loved one will be the last thing you EVER say to a loved one. Make sure it’s what you’d like to live with for the rest of your life.
Lessons Two – Three Billion are for another time.
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Are you struggling with a divorce?
My friend “Brian” is going through the crazy time common during a divorce. Driven blindly by guilt, he’s making himself more miserable than he needs to be. He moved out, then guilt over “abandoning” his 18 yr old high school senior drove him to move back in. It took a lot of courage – and a lot of pain – for him to move out in the first place. What will it take to move back out again – if he wants to in the future? In 1994, my therapist told me, “When the pain is bad enough, you’ll leave.”
I did. And it was extremely difficult to end ten years of marriage. Since then, I’ve observed many friends struggling with this awful decision. In retrospect, I see three things that make leaving a bad relationship so incredibly difficult.
1. The End of the Imaginary Future. During happy moments, my husband and I made plans for what we’d do when we were old and had grandkids. How we’d hold hands as we shuffled through parks. If I left my marriage, who would hold hands with me? The fear that my imaginary future would never come to pass made me stay put for a while. Can you relate to that?
2. Enormous, Unfathomable Social and Familial Pressure. Even if divorce is “accepted” in society, each of us knows in our hearts that a divorce is a failure. Doesn’t matter whose fault it was, who files first, it is a failure because it means either a) you chose wrong or b) as a couple, you lacked the skills to overcome whatever went wrong. That’s why the guilt and social stigma keeps people trapped in misery sometimes.
3.Fear of the Unknown/Fear of Change. That whole thing about the Devil you know about the one you don’t. For women with kids, they have to factor in whether or not they believe their husband will help support the kids, and to what extent, and what effect will the loss of that father have on the child(ren). For others, it’s the worry that no one will ever love them again, or put up with X behavior or something.
It’s a hugely difficult decision. Making it is one thing, executing it is another and choosing to stay the course once the going gets rough is VERY much another, as poor Brian has discovered.
I have heard, loved, cried with and comforted so many friends now, and over and over it really does come down to the words of my therapist so long ago: “When it hurts enough, you’ll leave.” I think people who have become accustomed to high levels of pain from their childhood have a worse time making the decision to change thing or get out, for obvious reasons. If you’re wrestling with leaving or being left, may I recommend strongly you get help from objective third parties (people who don’t know either of you) and also read well-balanced information on the topic? My special report for people facing divorce, “When ‘I Do’ Becomes ‘I Don’t!'” is carefully created from the best I’ve learned about the subject in the 18 years since my marriage ended. (You can read a sample by clicking below)
Take good care of yourself. Ask yourself if it’s your high pain tolerance that’s making you endure this OR if getting help or getting out (if things cannot be changed or one party is unwilling to change) would be better for your life, your health and your kids.
Click below for a FREE sample of Wendy’s Special Report on Coping with Divorce
