Grief is awkward, whether we’re trying to comfort someone in the loss of a job or the loss of a loved one. I’m on the receiving end as we mourn the death of our six-year-old granddaughter Lydia. We’ve received kind expressions of love, plus some well-intentioned fumbles. With gratitude for everyone’s attempts to console, here’s what I’m learning to avoid and what really helps:  
AVOID SAYING:
     * I know how you feel because my dog died recently. (That’s painful, but please don’t make comparisons to my loss.)     
     * I remember when  _________ . (Your ten-minute grief story follows, in which your burden shifts onto my already slumping shoulders.)      
     * God knew best. (So my struggles aren’t legitimate?)     
     * How are you? (Please don’t ask me to describe the searing pain running through me.)      
     * Have a good day. (Really?)     
     * If there’s anything I can do, let me know. ( But I can’t think beyond this moment.)     
     * Could this have been prevented if ________? (Please don’t ask me to read something you saw online.)     
     * Here’s what will help you get over your grief. (I need to travel through it, not get over it.)
BEST THINGS TO SAY:     
     * It’s good to see you.     
     * I’m so sorry.     
     * I miss (Name), too.  
BEST THINGS TO DO:     
     * Give a hug and don’t try to fill the silence.     
     * Drop off a meal in disposable containers.     
     * Offer SPECIFIC help. “I’m going to the grocery store today; what do you need?” or “Friday is your laundry day? Can I come over to help?”     
      Giving comfort isn’t comfortable, and we all stumble sometimes - me included. Perhaps the best we can do for each other is to keep our arms wide and our words few.

     When I spotted this hibiscus escaping between glass panels of a greenhouse, I wondered whether its plant brain cried out, “Enough of this protected environment. Give me the ecstasy of an authentic life!”     
     And I asked if I’m allowing the sun and the rain and the wind of real life to hit me, or whether I’m sheltering myself in some greenhouse. Whether my blossoms will unfold in a controlled habitat only, or I’ll allow them to be showcased in the world?     Is it time to break out of my comfort zone? To join that group I’ve avoided? Launch that project? Volunteer in that organization? Make a great escape into vital living?     
     What’s the point of blooming in the privacy of a greenhouse anyway?

     The late-night phone call stabbed our hearts: “Maggie had a seizure.”    
     How could this happen to our four-year-old granddaughter when her older sister died following a seizure this spring?      
     Maggie and her parents had flown to California to make fresh, good memories. But before they reached the Magic Kingdom, Maggie fell unconscious in her father’s arms.     
     The thought of losing Maggie, my little Magpie, pierced me. She and I sing a kids’ song in which we stoop down to touch our toes, but she leans over and touches mine because I don’t have the flexibility to bend that low. Now would she leave me to touch the sky?     
     When paramedics arrived and pricked her with an IV, Maggie regained consciousness. Then she spent two days in the hospital where doctors ran tests. Nothing conclusive…seizure perhaps brought on by a fever…didn’t seem related to her sister’s mysterious death.     
     We exhaled the breath we’d held too long, and I pondered how thin the thread of life is. How quickly it can be severed.      
     Recently I’d attended the funeral of a cousin and observed how wisely he invested his eighty-four years. And at a high school reunion I’d studied two poster boards filled with photos of classmates who have passed on.     
​     Whether we’re four or eighty-four, life is precious. Magpie should have decades more to touch toes and touch lives. My days are fewer, and I want each to count before I arrive at that ultimate Magic Kingdom. So I’m learning to number my days. To make each moment matter.

My Magpie Maggie in the hospital.

    This sign that I spotted in Washington struck me as overly dramatic: “Falling Can Be Deadly. Please Stay on the Trail.” So if I leave the trail, I’m in danger? And if I stay on the trail, I’m safe? If only life were so simple.     
     Here are signs others shared with me that made me chuckle:     Molly wrote about a large billboard in Utah that announces, “Stop and Eat and Get Gas.” No thank you.
     Pat says an Oklahoma sign warns, “Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates.”    
     Terry laughed about the name of a South Dakota graveyard: Canton Lutheran Cemetery. To be buried there, how do you prove you’re Lutheran?         
     In the Utah desert, Julie drove by a wooden sign proclaiming, “Forrest Gump ended his cross country run at this spot.”     
     I puzzled over this sign beside a Colorado parking lot: “Caution - Children Ahead.” Am I supposed to watch that I don’t harm them, or that they don’t harm me?     
     Whatever signs cross your path, I hope you never have a deadly fall, that those who hitchhike into your life aren’t convicts, and that you don’t come across children who harm you.     
​     And perhaps in today’s heated political climate we could all use this Nebraska sign promoting civility: “When push comes to shove, don’t.”

     Ouch! Lies bite. I’m not talking about the ones we tell. I’m talking about the ones we believe.     
     Recently I felt stiffness in a family relationship. Why was she giving me the cold shoulder? Meanwhile, she believed her own lies and thought I didn’t want to be around her. Then, like ticks burrowing deep into our souls, we believed more lies: “She doesn’t value me.” “She doesn’t love me.” “Things will never get better.”     
     Finally the volcano burst. Anger. Tears. Gut-wrenching pain.     We could have walked away and called it quits, but Love pulled us back.     
     We talked. We cried.     
     And Truth cut through the confusion with laser precision, exposing the lies for what they were. Then with a skilled scalpel, Truth dug the festering falsehoods out of our souls.     
     Between sniffles, we said our “sorries.” We experienced what the first-century Jewish teacher Mark describes as the phenomenal result of having our thinking turned around: “times of refreshment.”     
     Relief!     
     Now I’m hoping we’ll be closer than ever in spite of this - or maybe because of it. If only we’d talked sooner and exposed the lies to the Light.     
     Do any lies fester in you about someone? Or any lies you’re believing about yourself? My advice: dig them out before they burrow deeper.
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     Photo courtesy of the California Department of Pubic Health with text added.