The best support you can give a grieving person is just being there for them. Sounds like a platitude but it is true. Because there is nothing you can actively do to make the pain go away, you can’t go around it, you have to go through it. And if the grief is for something or someone meaningful it will last. Some grief never goes away fully, you’ll just learn to live with it.

In 2018/19 I lost my uncle, my grandpa, my grandma and my dad, all within a couple of months. I still sometimes dream of my grandpa. I still sometimes think ‘oh I got to tell this to dad…oh wait.’. I still celebrate my dad’s birthday, alone with a photo of us and a piece of cake and some tears.

Show them you care, show them they can reach out to you, help them feel loved, help them to not feel alone with the pain. If the relationship was meaningful, help them to also make the good-bye meaningful.

I remember a lot from that period. That one friend who called every evening to just chat about whatever. That one friend who printed a photo of me and my dad they took a couple years back and gave it to me. My stepdad taking charge in clearing my dad’s apartment. My mom crying with me. My sisters and I sharing stories about our dad. That one friend who made a cake for my birthday after I cried about how I will never have grandma’s applepie ever again ‘i can’t imitate your grandma’s birthday pie but here is mine’. I cried so much about that cake, it was such a lovely gesture.

All those loving gestures helped immensely getting through it and I am grateful for every single one of those moments because they showed me I am not alone, I am loved. That’s all you can do. And it can mean the world.

That’s a lot of words already but I have some more to share. The day my dad died, my sister called me in bed ‘dad died’. I was like in a trance, I got up, got dressed, packed a bag, got on the train and drove to my hometown. I was completely numb. During the train ride I scrolled through Reddit and stumbled upon a comment by the user u/gsnow I will never forget. And it broke me, I was ugly crying on the train. And it has helped me so much ever since. I hope it helps you understand grief and how meaningful it can be.

Alright, here goes. I’m old. What that means is that I’ve survived (so far) and a lot of people I’ve known and loved did not. I’ve lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can’t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here’s my two cents. I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter”. I don’t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gorged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see. As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive. In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life. Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out. Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

You have put a lot of thought already into the potential grief your partner will suffer, I’m sure you’ll do alright :)

Feel hugged stranger <3