Why Sorry Isn’t Big Enough.
How to comfort a person in grief.
Grief is a mysterious entity. We never know the hour of its arrival. A death or a life-threatening health diagnosis pops out of the universe and rocks your existence. Now you wonder what to do while crumbling under the pressure.
Grief and loss are now your companions. You carry them like bad friends who won’t leave. Depression circles you like a pack of hungry hyenas waiting for a turn at your neck. Food tastes like cardboard and tears rain from your eyes. Work is on the back burner while you navigate your new reality that life may never be the same.
Friends start to show up with the words I am so sorry on their lips. Over and over again your ears are assailed with that same word. It begins to become annoying background noise that you wish would stop, but you know it won’t.
Sorry is too small for the intensity of your emotions. It doesn’t bring back who died or cure the illness. You offer the customary thank you but have no words. Sometimes you want to stare back at them and say nothing because that’s all you can muster.
My last child is an organ recipient. He had his heart transplanted at two months old. I get it. Many people said they were sorry, and we responded with the standard thank you. However, we were numb to the word and it did…
