6 Ways Our Culture Can Avoid Being 'Grief Illiterate'

“I think that our culture is ‘grief illiterate,’” my friend said.

I had just explained to her and another friend how I have been doing since losing our daughter at 33 weeks pregnant. And I had just thanked them for asking.

They expressed their thoughts: “We don’t know what we are doing. We have never been through anything like this, and it’s hard to know what to say.”

How are we supposed to respond to people’s pain? What are we supposed to say to someone who lost a child? To someone who found out they have cancer? To someone who lost their job, is struggling with a mental illness, or was served divorce papers?

It can be awkward. Especially if you have never gone through what that person is experiencing. It can be awkward even if you have.

Since our 20 week ultrasound when we were told our daughter probably wouldn’t live, and since our daughter passed away at 33 weeks along, people have said a lot of things.

There are those Christian clichés like, “God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.” But all I could think was: I never said God isn’t good. I only said I am in pain.

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