How to support someone who is grieving: practical help

Everyone tells the bereaved to ask if they need anything, and the bereaved never ask. They do not know what they need, they do not want to be a burden, and they do not have the energy to organise other people’s kindness. So the help has to arrive without being requested, and this guide is what that looks like, in the first fortnight, in the months after, and in the things not to do.

The first fortnight

Food. Bring a meal, in a container you do not need back, without asking whether they want one. A grieving household stops eating and stops cooking, and a meal on the step is the oldest form of help because it works. Do the same in week three, when everyone else has stopped.

The practical load. The school run, the dog, the shopping, the bins, the lawn, a lift to the register office. Pick one, say “I’m doing the school run this week”, and do it. The word “week” matters; a single act is a gesture, a week is help.

The calls. Offer to ring the people who need telling, or the pension company, or the utilities. Who to notify when someone dies is the list, and half of it can be done by a friend with the death certificate and the person’s permission.

Presence. Sit with them. You do not have to talk. A person in the house, making tea, answering the door, is a relief the bereaved cannot ask for.

The funeral. Offer to sit with them, to drive, to hold a child, to stand at the door and greet people so they do not have to. Funeral etiquette in the UK covers the day.

After the first fortnight

This is when it matters, because this is when everyone else has gone. The bereaved describe the third and fourth weeks as the loneliest, and the months after the funeral as the hardest.

Keep turning up. A message every week or two, a visit, a walk. Say their loved one’s name; people avoid it for fear of upsetting them and the silence is worse. Put the anniversaries in your diary, the birthday, the first Christmas, the date of the death, and send a line on each; grief at Christmas and on the first anniversaries explains why those days are hard.

Do ordinary things with them. Cinema, the pub, a football match, a walk. Grief is not a state a person has to be kept in; the bereaved need ordinary life offered to them without being expected to enjoy it.

Notice if they are not managing. If, weeks on, they are not eating, not sleeping, not working, not leaving the house, or drinking, that is the sign, and a friend is often the only person who sees it. Say so, gently, and offer to make the call with them; when to get bereavement counselling, and where to find it in the UK lists where to ring.

Four things well-meaning people do that make it harder

Asking them to decide. “What would you like me to do?” is a question the bereaved cannot answer. Decide for them and tell them.

Fixing. Advice about the estate, the house, the will, the stages of grief. Unless they ask, do not. Listen instead.

Competing. “When my mum died, I …” is sometimes a comfort and often a way of taking the conversation back. Say it once, briefly, if it helps, and then return to them.

Disappearing after the funeral. The commonest one, and the one the bereaved notice most. The fortnight of casseroles ends and the silence begins. Be the one who does not stop.

Supporting a child, or someone far away

If there is a child in the house, telling a child that someone has died is what the adults around them need, and taking the child for an afternoon so the adult can grieve is a form of help nobody asks for. If the person you are supporting is grieving for someone whose funeral was in another country, they may have missed it entirely; grieving far from home is written for that, and for the friend who wants to understand it.

What to say

That is the other half of this, and what to say when someone dies, and what not to say covers it: three things that always work and six that land badly. The short version is that you say you are sorry, you say their name, and you name the one thing you are going to do. Then you do it.

To understand the weeks you are helping with from the inside, coping with grief in the first weeks is what the bereaved person is living.