If you have a friend who has suffered the loss of a loved one, you likely want to know how to help that friend who is experiencing grief. Today, I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Susan Mead, an author, speaker, and chaplain who lost a sister as well as experienced every parent’s worst nightmare in the loss of her teenage son. She knows what helps and what doesn’t help when someone is experiencing grief. Read more for 5 ways to help a grieving friend.
No one anticipates a child dying, but when that happens, we need to know how to help a grieving friend. We need to know what helps and what doesn’t, what we should say and what we shouldn’t. That’s what Susan shares from her own grief experience in episode 3 of Your Hope-Filled Perspective.
Several years ago, my husband and I experienced the devastating loss of a child to miscarriage. Nothing can prepare you for the pain and shock of learning your baby no longer had a heartbeat. The grief-filled experience taught me a few things that I can share to encourage other mothers and parents who are grieving. These 5 encouraging words for mothers who have lost a child will bring comfort.
Excited cannot begin to express how we felt as we entered the doctor’s office that day. It’s always special for a momma to feel her baby move inside her pregnant belly, but it’s a different kind of special for the expecting couple to see their little growing “peanut” on the sonogram screen. We followed the nurse into the exam room, traded my street clothes for the disposable paper gown she offered, and waited for my doctor to enter. When he did, he was all smiles as usual. I liked him. His positive attitude always put me at ease, and made it feel less like a doctor’s visit and more like catching up with a friend.
It was barely noon on Christmas day and I ransacked the house, tearing down the Christmas tree and all the decorations, trying to rid the house and my heart of every visible reminder of Christmas…my first Christmas without my mother; my first Christmas in the unwanted role as matriarch of the family. [more]
