People Say Stupid Things, They Can't Help Themselves, Forgive Them.

Again, I am an exhaustive reader and researcher of all things grief related right now.  One of the things I keep hearing about is how people around the one grieving may ask how the one grieving is doing but might only do so out of social norms.  They are hoping that the one grieving responds that they are fine or are ok because that's what they want to hear so they don't have to acknowledge their own feelings or they don't know how to comfort the one grieving. I feel like those kind of people are just afraid of the experience the one grieving is going through either because it is foreign to them or because it could bring up their own grief that they might not have properly dealt with.

So far in my early stages of grief, I've been fortunate to have so many people around me who ask how I'm doing and when I answer honestly, that I'm living moment to moment, they do not shy away, they do not change the subject, they do not cringe and look uncomfortable. They have been able to read my response, body language and tone and have so far been able to respond in a helpful way. 

One widow gave me a card with 10 phrases of wisdom that she came up with herself. Number 4 said "people will say stupid things, they can't help themselves, forgive them."  Fortunately, not very many people have said too many stupid things to me and if they have, I've been able to forgive them immediately or have forgotten the stupid thing they said. It bounced right off of me and, potentially, right back onto them.

I'm hoping that all this research about grief is helping me in dealing with it properly and in a way that is healthy.  There is nothing that I hate more than wasting time or doing something wasteful when something useful could be done instead.  Grief is so painful that I do not want to spend any unnecessary time or energy in anything that will prolong my grief.  And since grief is such a personal journey, I'm figuring out that nobody call tell me what is wasteful and I just have to figure it out on my own and be ok with looking back and potentially realizing that maybe NOTHING grief related is wasteful.  It is all helpful.