Anger, relief, sadness, joy: all of these are sadness. What helps those who are grieving is someone who has the courage to endure it. Our author spoke to a woman who knows about this. She is an undertaker.
Looking for answers to my question about how we can integrate death into our lives in a different way than just black, dark, sad, and what helps people who have lost someone, I met Bettina Strang. She works at the Trostwerk Hamburg. A funeral home that designs and accompanies individual farewells.
It was a very special conversation for me that changed my perspective on saying goodbye. The visit to the Trostwerk and to Bettina felt warm and comforting. I was particularly impressed by the respectful treatment of the deceased, the appreciation for life and the self-image, for the deceased as well as for the bereaved, to create a farewell that fits, that helps, that comforts.
What do mourners need most, I asked Bettina. Here are their answers.
Grief is part of life
People who grieve often experience the opposite of what they actually need. Kid glovessentences that don’t comfort or after a certain time an impatience if you still haven’t overcome the sadness.
People who grieve are not sad 24 hours a day. You can still laugh, you may even enjoy going away, but you may become exhausted more quickly. They depend on you not to step aside in shock if they suddenly start to cry. Grief is part of life and therefore someone is not completely out of function or in need of therapy. What is there can be.
When my grandparents died, there were… Funeral service old stories dug out and told. How we laughed! About the ice cream cake that my grandpa accidentally defrosted for coffee or about my grandma, who could laugh so wonderfully at herself and make the whole room shake. That’s how I wanted to remember her, with all her flaws and flaws. And then we cried, and then laughed again.
Grief is not just sadness; it is a parallel: I am sad, I feel pain, anger or powerlessness, maybe even nothing at all. Nevertheless, I experience joy, something fulfilling or something that touches me, that is good for me and that comforts me.
It’s better to ask instead of remaining silent
Because death and grief are still negotiated in the dark room and are rarely shown in broad daylight, they make us so helpless, awkward and speechless. I know the feeling of not being able to find the right words, but still desperately wanting to comfort, and therefore making do with flat sentences that unfortunately don’t help anyone in the end. Bettina’s answer to my question about what mourners really need is simple: Be there, listen and get involved.
Even if you are unsure: it is better to speak up than to say nothing at all. That’s often the first icebreaker, saying “I’m helpless, but I want to express somehow: I see you.” Working in an environment where everyone just gets on with it is often much more horrible. You don’t have to have comfort, but you have to be open to other people’s grief. We often underestimated how good it is for those who are grieving when people remember together. What doesn’t help at all, however, are well-intentioned sentences like “Now he’s saved”, “She was already so old”, or even worse “You still have two children”. The intention is nice, but it completely misses the emotional state of the person.
Can I bring you something from the supermarket?
According to Bettina, one of the worst sentences you can say to grieving people is: “Let me know if you need anything.” – “People don’t report!” says the undertaker. Better: Make it easy, especially in the first 14 days: Offer to shop, cook, take care of the children, take care of banal, everyday things. It is much easier for those affected to say “Thank you for offering me this. I don’t want that right now” than to ask for it.
Arguments, heartache, frustration: we need space to be able to say what is happening
This doesn’t just affect people who have lost someone. Frustration at work, heartbreak, arguments. For all that need we have a space in which we can say how shitty everything is, where we can be desperate or angry. And at the same time, we need the trust of our counterparts in our power and strength to carry on. All it takes is an ear, an endurance, an acceptance of one another.
“I’m so mad that I’m alone with all this crap now.”
Mourning is a process of saying goodbye and re-sorting. If someone is missing in my life, do we first have to learn how to organize this life without that person? Am I filling gaps or am I deliberately not filling them?
“I once had a widower with me whose sadness was the main focus throughout the entire funeral process. When he came to the final interview he said: I’m so pissedthat now I’m alone with all this crap and I have to take care of everything, the house and the formalities. And along with the anger came shame, because you can’t be angry when you’ve lost your wife.” Yes! You can also be angry. That’s also sadness, says Bettina.
Just like Relief in families who have cared for a long time or provided end-of-life care. This is incredibly stressful and most people experience that during this time everyone asks about the person who is sick but not at all about the people who are affected in the same way, albeit differently. Death automatically brings with it a huge feeling of relief. “All the stress falls away and that’s normal. And you still feel the pain and sadness just as much.”
Mourning for what you never had
What is also often overlooked, says Bettina, is the grief for people with whom you didn’t have the best relationship.
One facet of grief can then be mourning things that you didn’t have, that perhaps could have been, but that can no longer come true. If you ask yourself, why is someone here crying their eyes out or being so touched even though a mother died with whom they had no contact for 25 years? A lot of things often break down.
Don’t be afraid of other people’s feelings
We can impose ourselves more on those who are grieving, offer help or simply allow them to be part of it. After all, we know this too: very few people would call and ask if someone can buy or cook something for them. And we can expect each other and endure each other. Anything is better than remaining silent and pretending that nothing happened.
Bettina Strang works as an undertaker for the Hamburg consolation workthe individual, life-friendly Offers farewells. However, the Trostwerk sees itself not only as a companion during the initial period, but also advocates for a new culture of mourning that no longer pushes death out of life. Instead, it should encourage those who mourn to rediscover their own liveliness, especially in the face of death.