Grief is hard to watch. I saw it this week when visiting a person who had lost a partner of many years.

And it made me think. As we sat in the beautiful house with the picture window overlooking the stunning Worcestershire countryside, I was reminded, of the words of C.S. Lewis on the death of his wife: “Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare unreality, the wallowed-in tears. For in grief nothing ‘stays put’.

"One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats.”

And this person’s story mirrored that quotation. Stories of the time they had both spent together; of the character and virtues of the person who has gone; of losing the person who understood one the most; and of the gut-wrenching reality of losing your soul mate.

The sadness affected me and made me think of how I would be were I to lose my wife. Probably about the same.

“And if I could give all this up just to have them back again, I would do it without blinking an eye,” said the grieving person in front of me.

I didn’t know what to say, apart from trying not to be trite; I didn’t know what to do apart from listening; and I didn’t know how to communicate that I understood – even if just a fraction – the loss they were facing.

In times like this, I realise my limitations and just do the best I can. I try to be available and human. And I attempt to give space to the stories that give me a mental picture of this human being gone from amongst us.

Of course, the truth is that people die all the time; but try telling that to the daughter or husband or mother or grandchild who had lost a special person: you’d deserved to be thumped. So maybe it’s best to limit the words you say; listen attentively and show that you understand.

Perhaps some small crumbs of comfort come from this approach.

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