Good Grief and What That Might Mean

I belong to a few mailing lists, where list-members write to a central mail server and then their posts get distributed among all the other members. Of all the various devices and their benefits that have evolved from the popularization of the Internet, in my opinion mailing lists rank up there at the top. There are lists that exist for all kinds of interests and even for various kinds of medical conditions.

On this particular list, a new member joined the other day and told us all a little about herself. She was presently experiencing some serious symptoms of depression due to the recent loss of her daughter. Her story was even more deepened in sadness because her daughter had died so young, mid-20's in age. Just when things seemed so exciting and promising for this young woman, just out of college, she was diagnosed with cancer. The early stages of diagnosis and surgery quickly showed that this young woman had cancer spread throughout her body. Thus, it became very evident that she wouldn't have much time to live and so she was sent home for whatever care her mother could give her until her eventual death.

Clearly, reading this new member's post to the list touched most everyone very deeply, myself included. The way this lady happened to detail many of the aspects of dying and death made the experience quite vivid and thus even more saddening. Later, members wrote back in response to her initial email posting, trying in various ways to offer help, concern and condolences. But when I tried to write to her I found it very difficult to respond to her expression of tragedy. Simply, I didn't know what to say. What can one say in such a case as this to help another person? What are the right or wrong things to say? And is it possible to write anything that would make this other person feel any better?

Some time ago I wrote about "walking in someone else's shoes" and in a way this topic relates to that one. We can't fully understand how another person feels, even when we may have experienced nearly the exact same thing. I mean, we're all different and there are all kinds of variables to take into account. We can try to listen. We can try to make some soothing "There, there" kinds of sounds. But it probably isn't too cool to say "I know exactly what you're going through." Oh, and there's another one that is very contemporary: "Been there, got the tee shirt."

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