Caring Well for the Grieving and Dying

Jesus shows up through his people. Always, and especially in hard places. Anyone who has truly met him should automatically want to care for those in need. Which is beautiful. I’ve experienced that over and over in my life, especially in the years walking through the dying of my first wife. But caring poorly can also cause damage, or at the least add to the burden. And I’ve had a few of those experiences too.

Recently, as another friend is walking through the valley of the shadow of death, I was asked to write up some thoughts on the do’s and don’ts of care. I thought I’d post them here.

Before anything else, the most important principle is that caring, even imperfectly, is better than not caring at all. Showing up is always better than disappearing. I’m going to say some critical things in what follows. But I don’t want that to lead to paralysis; don’t be so afraid of saying or doing the wrong things that you fail to do the right ones.

That said, here are a few principles to care as effectively as possible for those facing sickness, death, grief, and similar tragedies.

1. Don’t Burden Them With Your Grief

When tragedy strikes, there are concentric circles of pain spreading outward. Those closest are hurting the most, but that doesn’t mean others are okay. Extended family, friends, and even acquaintances and strangers will be sucked into the whirlpool, whether specifically grieving the person suffering or because it unsettles them in their own mortality or reminds them of their own scars.

Everyone needs care in such situations. The problem comes when they start, explicitly or implicitly, looking for that care from those closer to the tragedy itself.

Perhaps especially because I was a pastor, I often had conversations during my wife’s cancer where it became clear the person was wanting me to help them feel better. They wanted me to comfort them, rather than being a source of comfort for me. At times, I just couldn’t do it. At others I did, but it took an added toll on my own emotions.

I think this is why people often say dumb stuff to the grieving. Death, sin and pain are not okay. They are evil, God hates them, and the whole story of Scripture is about how He is ultimately defeating them. Many of the false platitudes people offer are actually denials of this fact—“It’ll all work out for the best.” “At least they’ll be in a better place.” “All things for good.” There are versions of all of these statements that are true, at least sort of. But the way they are said is often really a way of saying, “I can’t handle your pain, so instead of entering it with you, I’m going to try to sweep it under a prooftext-printed rug.” Don’t be like Jeremiah’s false priests who heal wounds lightly and say “peace” when there is none. (Jeremiah 6:14)

If you don’t know what to say, just go with things like, “I’m so sorry.” “This sucks.” “I see you.” “I’m here.” And then sit with them and listen or in silent presence. If you have suffered significantly yourself, you might be able to say a little more. But even as someone who can speak with credibility about grief, I’ve learned it’s usually best to just shut up.

2. Don’t Burden Them With Your Care

In a similar vein, it is a good thing to show care, especially in concrete and practical ways. Scripture commands it; if we say we care in our hearts but aren’t willing to do the things needful for the body, it is useless. (James 2:15-16) However, if we aren’t careful, that care can become a burden for the ones it is meant to help.

One way this happens is when care becomes more about us than about the person who needs it. We can cook meals or give gifts to make ourselves feel better rather than to do good. Usually, the person receiving them knows it, even if they are gracious enough to not point it out.

The more common problem is when the burden of coordinating that care falls on the one receiving it. I’ve been in that situation myself—juggling texts and scheduling meals and sometimes even having people get frustrated with me because I couldn’t get back to them fast enough about what I needed. Which was an exhaustion on top of my other exhaustions, even though I appreciated the desire to help.

There are two practical ways to help avoid this burden of compassion. One is to have one or two friends step in and coordinate care. These should be people who are close enough to the grieving to know what is needed while not themselves being debilitated. They should also be people with the gifts and experience to make judgment calls, not needing to check every decision. They can create a buffer between those with the need and those wanting to meet it. Let those mediators figure out the practical stuff. Let them deal with the complicated people. Listen to them and do what they ask.

And second: just give people money, or the equivalent. Certainly, some of the most beautiful care I remember receiving went beyond that, like the women who cleaned our house for us weekly for years. But out of a desire to do something special, we can end up being less helpful. If your issue is that you don’t feel caring enough just writing a check, add a zero and see if that makes you feel better. Pay their bills. Find out their favorite restaurants and drown them in enough gift cards they’ll get sick of them. Offer to pay for trips or other experiences in the time they have left. Those women who cleaned blessed me deeply, but so did the family that paid for us to take our kids to Disney.

3. Do Bless Them With Your Presence

Not everyone is like me, but I’ll speak personally: pain easily isolates. Relationships are both a source of energy and take a lot of it, especially when we have to carry part of the load of making them happen. People don’t need you to do for them as much as they need you to be with them.

Absolutely, be sensitive. There are times people just need to be alone. But for me, there were plenty of nights I wished someone was just there to sit with me but I didn’t have the strength to ask.

So be present. And do it without an agenda. Read the room and be whoever they need you to be. Maybe they want to process their feelings. Maybe they want to reminisce. Maybe they want to just talk about other stuff and be distracted. Maybe you should just play with their kids, or do the dishes, and not talk to them at all. But you being there is Jesus being there.

4. Do Keep Showing Up For The Long Term

The test of true care is not what you do tomorrow; it’s whether you’re still up for doing it a year from now. I was and am so blessed to say that people didn’t disappear in my journey. But I know too many friends for whom that was their experience. They had amazing support at first, but as time went on people moved on to the next thing.

This is especially sad because the point where pain is greatest is rarely the point where it begins. For many, getting a terminal diagnosis or ending treatment or starting hospice comes months or even years before the really hard part. Sometimes it actually makes things easier for a while, at least practically. 

Instead, there are two points where support is most crucial. The first is in the weeks before and after the dying itself. Watching someone disappear, waiting through the void of days between when they stop speaking and when they rasp out their final breaths—that is an emotional brutality. Depending on decisions about care, it can also be a physical brutality. And immediately after they pass—one of the cruelest things in life is that we ask people to watch their loved ones die and then to immediately make decisions about funerals, burials, visitations and finances.

Anything you can do to carry the weight in that season, do it. Again, don’t burden them with care. But watch their kids. Fill their freezers. Offer to learn how to administer morphine and stay up all night to do it for them so they can get some sleep. Go with them to plan the funeral, if you’ve done it before. Protect them at the visitation. Offer to do paperwork.

The second point to be mindful of support is anniversaries. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and especially the yearly marking of the end. Sometimes those days pass almost unnoticed. On others, they are devastating. I so appreciate the people who still text on those days, years later. And the people who stayed engaged in care.

So that’s my best shot at advice. To close, I want to say two things about all of it.

One is that, for all the care you can offer—you can’t make the bad thing better. You can’t make it not hurt. If you try, you will do harm. We should weep with the weeping, not try to fix their sorrow.

But while that is true, your care can be a blinding light of beauty that runs alongside the black river of tears. I still see the faces of those who showed up in the spaces of my deepest pain. There are tears of joy in my eyes just thinking about them. I will be forever grateful to those people. I’d do almost anything for them. Because through them I was reminded that, while He wasn’t taking away my pain, Jesus was there with me in it.