1 quote
“For the family in the hospice room who doesn’t know what to say.”
1 idea
Everybody comes to the funeral. Almost nobody comes in week three.
I’ve watched this from the inside more times than I can count. The casseroles arrive, the house fills up, the phone doesn’t stop. Then the crowd goes back to their own lives — which is normal, and not a betrayal — and the widow is standing in a quiet kitchen on a Tuesday afternoon in the third week, which is exactly when it actually lands.
Grief runs on a longer clock than sympathy does. If you want to be useful, don’t compete for the crowded week. Take the empty one.
1 exercise
Think of someone who lost a person this year.
Open your calendar right now and put their name on a date three weeks out. Not a note to yourself — an actual reminder that will go off. Title it with their name.
When it goes off, you won’t feel like it, and you won’t know what to say. Reach out anyway. That’s the whole point of setting it today, while you still care enough to bother.
— Rob