How to (keep) Showing up When the Worst Happens

What to expect from the bereaved after a year

A peony bouquet for Bailey and my mother

When we think of loss we think of the loss, through death, of people we love. But loss is a far more encompassing theme in our life. For we lose not only through death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on. And our losses include not only our separations and departures from those we love, but our conscious and unconscious losses of romantic dreams, impossible expectations, illusions of freedom and power, illusions of safety — and the loss of our own younger self, the self that thought it always would be unwrinkled and invulnerable and immortal. JUDITH VIORST

A year ago, on July 12th, we celebrated the life of our late daughter Bailey with hundreds of friends, family members, and good people from the community we’d never even known. Eight months later, I wrote How to Show Up When the Worst Happens, which was far and away my most-read post. Now that it’s been over a full year since that celebration and extraordinary outpouring of love and support, it’s time for a second “How To” installment.

I never, ever want people to feel that showing up is misguided, because showing up is always the right thing to do. It’s never too late to say “I’m sorry for your heartbreak” or to write a note. Loss has a beginning, but not an end. Before I knew better, I certainly fell short when the bottom dropped out of the lives of others. I now have perspective, certainly not in the way I wanted, but I have it. I’ve scoured books, the internet and even asked ChatGPT for commentary on how to show up for people after their first year of tremendous loss. I discovered specific advice is in short supply. Loss inevitably crashes into our world in all shapes and sizes, and we need to know how to support each other in times of joy and anguish. Especially these days. So here’s what I’ve learned.

The Gift of Patience

What works:

• Patience for the bereaved. A friend who also lost a child warned me that the second year was harder than the first, because the world initially gives you room to mourn. In those first long months, you swing moment to moment, hour to hour, through darkness, and as you move from shock to acceptance and back again, you are tucked away in a cocoon. But then the needle passes the one-year mark, and the world around you revs up again. She was spot on. There is no timeline, no tidy progression, no “recovery” when it comes to losing a child. Grief is not a habit that you can just up and quit. Another friend’s voice still catches when she talks about the loss of her son forty-five years ago. As I’ve said before, there is no healing, just adaptation. And Kubler Ross’s famous stages of grief? They’re guidelines originally written for terminally ill patients facing their own departures, not a road map for those who remain.

What to Avoid:

• Impatience. This is a long, long haul.

People Change

Despite the biblical adage that a leopard doesn’t change its spots, people do change. Personal catastrophes reshape us just as natural disasters alter the landscape. I am not the same soul I was fourteen months ago, and this holds true for everyone I’ve met who has been hit by extreme loss. Navigating this transformation is a full-time job.

For example, my executive functioning — a term I don’t relish since the word “executive” seems too left-brain for right-brained me —has taken a big hit. For most of the last year my attention span has been akin to a pinball machine. I still can no longer multitask or stack my day with appointments. Nor do I want to. Our focus has shifted as well. We have a new commitment to honoring Bailey and a dedication to different kinds of advocacy and projects.

We are more vigilant with our time, especially since we’re mourning with my cancer diagnosis lurking in the shadows. We make sure we prioritize our daughter, Fiona, and each other.

What works:

• Expect social withdrawal. My once rather extroverted husband and I are seeking more serenity. This means we want to sit in the garden with our dog Rose and watch the light, the pollinators, and listen to the birds. Or the snow falling in the winter. There are still places in the world we want to explore, and we are considering returning to school. We may never resume the social calendar of yesteryear, and instead are recommitting to our creative lives.

• Acknowledge and accept that your friends are in a period of deep change and will resurface in a different iteration, sometimes visible, other times not. Check in without much expectation. One lovely friend regularly sends postcards. Another friend takes one of the butterflies I made for Bailey with her when she travels and sends photos while signing off on any communication with “no need to respond.” Another friend keeps her door open if I ever just want to drop by when I’m running errands, and I do. Other friends ask us over to intimate dinners, knowing that large crowds are still a challenge. Inclusivity like this lets the bereaved know that you are still thinking about them a year later and that you understand they will be overwhelmed for some time.

What to Avoid:

• Unintentionally guilt-tripping the bereaved with — “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you” or “It’s so difficult to make plans with you.” Intense grief is physical— it feels like you are trying to swim against the current with a Kevlar vest on. If you’re low energy and depressed, you’re wretched at communicating and making plans.

• Expecting past communication patterns to return. We’ve received hundreds of notes, hundreds more emails, and hundreds of texts. Many people asked me if I got their note, and were disappointed when I couldn’t remember specifics. I suffered traumatic short-term memory loss and am still on hardcore cancer meds for another five months, so my memory took a double hit. My ability to recall is, at last, returning. Months ago, I hit the pause button on returning correspondence and have just resumed writing notes. Just have faith that your words were read and appreciated.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Mourning is a universal part of the human experience, yet an individual journey.

What works:

• Taking time to observe, listen, and understand. Everyone has a singular style of mourning, both consciously and subconsciously—inwardly and outwardly. I am a high-functioning introvert (for more on the nuances of introversion, explore

  Susan Cain
  : The Quiet Life) while my husband Daniel is an extrovert. I need to retreat much more than Daniel does.

• Space and Sincerity. Just give space and deliver invites with the caveat that they have permission to break plans. Do what you say you are going to do for the grieving, but without strings attached. If you say you want to honor the bereaved by donating to a fund or a cause in her honor, follow through.

What to Avoid:

• Badgering the bereaved to join fundraisers, political gatherings, and large hootenannies. I am now plagued with social anxiety, which is fairly common and diminishes with time. Or so I’m told. We are well aware that the world is on fire and there are endless causes that need our attention. But for now, we prefer quieter ways to advocate and give.

• Agendas. I’ve heard from others who are in this same ghastly club that after a year, the transactional world comes roaring back. Best to pursue favors and agendas with others in your rolodex.

• Ignoring boundaries and timing. I was attending a concert and seated dinner when a man I slightly knew approached my table, inserting himself between me and the gentleman I had just met to my left. He immediately referred to my “tragedy” and then asked me for coffee at a later date to continue the “conversation” I never asked for. I swiftly shut down the exchange, but my dinner partner heard every word. Like any decent human, he asked if I was OK, so I filled him in, but resented the interloper putting me on the spot in the first place.

Appearances Deceive

If the bereaved appear to be high-functioning, they are concealing an inner anguish that resembles a post-apocalyptic landscape. I like neither attention nor drama, so I present as “coping well.” Geraldine Brooks wrote the following in her memoir Memorial Days about the first year(s) without her husband Tony Horwitz, “I have come to realize that my life since Tony’s death has been one reckless, exhausting performance.”

What works:

• A hug, a quick acknowledgment that your heart has been with them, while steering the conversation into laughter or a good story. People assume I’m coping because I‘m laughing. The truth is that I’m managing this level of hell with laughter, especially at the absurd. That’s an important distinction.

What to avoid:

• Taking things personally. Large groups throw me into a twist. At one event I spotted a woman through a slice in the crowd whose child was unkind to Bailey in middle school. Somehow, that precipitated a panic attack. I felt the familiar dry mouth, the nausea, and the vertigo and had to leave a conversation to collect myself out of view. I sought out the soul after dinner to apologize and explain my abrupt departure, but they had left. So I texted. The response was terse, making clear that I had delivered offense. Trust me, when the bereaved are off or distant, it has nothing to do with you.

Second Hand News

Avoid collecting second-hand or third-hand information and disseminating it as incontrovertible facts.

What Works:

• Directness. If you have a burning question, ask the bereaved if you can ask it first, and if the response is affirmative, go for it. For example, when I shared with one friend that we were in couples’ grief counseling, he asked me if he could ask what the process was like. It was a thoughtful question, and my answer helped me realize how effective our therapy has been in navigating this journey and strengthening our marriage. That said, consider the personality and the tenor of your friendship before plunging into the deep end of the pool. I am private but also candid. That is not true for everyone.

• Follow the breadcrumb trail. If there are email updates, Caring Bridge updates, or a Substack, read them.

What to Avoid:

• Positioning yourself as an authority based on hearsay. Because our daughter died of accidental fentanyl poisoning, speculation ran amok. I’ve had more than my fair share of awkward conversations with people who bypass asking us directly about our experience and instead regurgitate misinformation. Remember the game of telephone?

• Grief tourism. A friend taught me this phrase, and it’s perfect. Unfortunately, some consider tragedies as public domain and leapfrog into questions regardless of their relationship to the bereaved. Just resist the temptation to insert yourself into the narrative.

Remember, the bereaved need time to come to terms with being haunted. In our case, we look for and find Bailey everywhere, all the while reflecting on how to embrace and navigate the world again. And always with a little help from our friends.

Showing up is a gift of time and love. So thank you to all who’ve shown up for us in person and in writing and for reading me on this platform.