Day 6: What Not to Say

I'll never understand why people always feel the need to say something. You know, sometimes, words are just not appropriate, especially if you don't know what to say. When you don't know what to say, how do you know that the words you've chosen to speak are the right words? How do you know that your need to say something, anything, isn't doing more damage to an already tender heart? Why do people think that they always need to say something?

Sometimes, especially when you don't know what to say, words are better left unsaid.

When you've been through a devastating loss, most people think they have to say some encouraging words, like they have to help you. What they don't know, is that unless their words are carefully chosen, they can hurt more than help.

After I lost Landon, I heard some gems. It has been 2 and a half years since my loss, sometimes words still hurt me, but when you're right in the middle, when your heart is raw, they hurt the worst. There are many many many phrases that really have no place being said to a grieving mother, there's no way I can list them all.

Any reference to the loss "being for the best" is not a good thing to say. Even if you truly believe that the situation happened for the best, which I hope you don't, there's NO WAY the person going through it believes it. It's one of those things that's better left unsaid.

Any reference to trying to make the grieving mother feel better about her situation is not a good thing to say. For example "you're young, you can always have more". Phrases such as this do not help, for the most part, they simply anger the grieving mother. Think about it, do you not think she knows how old she is? She could care less what her age is, what she cares about is that her child is gone, she will never see her precious baby again. Don't you see, it doesn't matter if she goes on to have 6 more kids, she'll always be missing one. These are things that are better left unsaid.

Any reference to religion is not a good thing to say. It doesn't matter how religious the grieving mother is, when her child dies, she will not care that "God has a plan", nor will she care that "her baby is in a better place" (my personal favorite *eyeroll*). Think about it this way... If my son is in such a better place, would you trade places... let your child take the place of mine? These phrases fall in the category of things better left unsaid.

Comparisons... when your baby dies, it is like nothing else. Saying "I know how you feel, my mom died last year" does not compare. When Landon died, I got many comparisons, someone even told me they knew how I felt because their dog died. Let me put it as plainly as I can, in life, we are supposed to encounter death. Your grandparents are supposed to die, your parents are supposed to die, brothers will die before sisters and sisters will die before brothers, and sadly one spouse will die before the other. We are supposed to encounter death. We are not supposed to encounter the death of our children, that's not natural. I read a quote in a pamphlet shortly after Landon died, it said "when your parents die, you have lost your past, when your child dies, you have lost your future." Losing your child is not the way nature is supposed to work, our children are not supposed to die before us, they're just not. Please, please don't compare the loss of a child to anything else. These comparisons are definitely better left unsaid.

I know that people who say these things are just trying to help, but I wish that instead of trying to help, they would think about what they are about to say and decide if it really is better left unsaid. Help by bringing over supper - she most likely could care less about cooking, help by doing a load of laundry - she is probably behind on many household chores, help by going grocery shopping for her - she hates going out because she inevitably sees pregnant people or newborns everywhere she goes... think, and then help.

Even now, 2 and a half years later, people still say things that make my heart stop... just last week, in a conversation about children, a coworker actually said to me "you're lucky Jaxon is an only child"... umm, lucky I'm not, and no he's not.

Day 6 is what not to say, I have done a picture of several things that are better left unsaid, with my personal favorite across the entire thing. You may be thinking that you have to say something, what should you say? Well, I'll tell you tomorrow, as day 7 is what to say.