What to Say in the Face of Loss? I Accompany You

There’s a Christian hymn called “Abide With Me,” written by Scottish minister Henry Francis Lyte in 1847, shortly before he died. The title comes from the Bible, from Luke 24:29, when the doubtful disciples encounter the resurrected Jesus, who tells them that all the things he predicted have indeed come to pass. Then Jesus starts to walk away, and the disciples say, “Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.”

You don’t have to be a believer or a Christian to appreciate the plea in this scene: “Stay with me. Don’t go.” It’s what we all wish we could say to the person we love who has died. But more, it’s what we can do for someone who has suffered a loss: We can abide. To abide means to bear patiently, to “endure without yielding, to accept without objection, to remain stable.”

You can abide even without words. The day after my mother died, I walked out my front door and found a small rock, painted pink, with the words “You can do it” painted in bright white letters. I still have no idea who left it there, but it provided a wonderful sense of comfort to me on a day when getting through grief seemed like something I wasn’t sure I could do. (That rock still sits on my desk, where I see it every day.) A few weeks later, a box arrived from Nordstrom with a soft, warm blanket inside and no note. I called the store, thinking it was a mistake. “No, no mistake,” the customer service rep said. “Someone bought it and had it sent to you, but we don’t have a record of who it was.” I still don’t know. But to this day I feel embraced in a loving hug every time I wrap that blanket around myself.

Don’t be the person who doesn’t write a note or say something because you don’t have the words. The words aren’t important. It’s bearing witness to someone else’s pain and expressing sorrow that they have to go through it even while knowing there may be little that can be done to ease it. After my father died, one of my friends wrote a note that, along with many lovely sentiments, included, “I’m sorry that you have to deal with all the business of death.” At that point, wrestling with getting death certificates and closing my father’s bank accounts and credit cards, etc., it felt wonderful to know that someone understood how frustrating and difficult it was to have to focus on all that when my world was reeling. I felt seen. It was one of the most sympathetic things anyone said to me.

Writing a sympathy note also lets someone know that the person or thing they’ve lost — a marriage, robust good health, a home, a job — is not vanished, forgotten, but is acknowledged as part of them, someone or something that mattered deeply.

No one can ease the pain. We all know that: those of us who are in the midst of it, those of us who wish we could provide some comfort. But the real comfort comes in knowing we are not alone, that others stand ready to feed us, hug us, cry with us, clean out closets and drawers with us — to abide.

Who could ask for anything more?