After we lose a loved one, some of us withdraw because we’re “not very good company”. We are depressed and lonely ..and people try like crazy to cheer us up. Caring about a grieving person can be tiring. However, if we want them back, we need to invest care and concern ..especially when they seem stuck in their grief.
Until you’ve been on the receiving end of the everyday words of condolence, and the common platitudes shared with the grieving, it’s difficult to understand.
I know how I feel. I miss the person they were before the loss. However, if I want them back I need to invest care and concern, especially when they seem stuck in their grief.
Please read this thoughtful article from Next Avenue.
What Not to Say to an Isolated Older Adult
What Not to Say: “You should go out and enjoy yourself more often…”
Large group activities or entertainment shouldn’t be the only solution for loneliness, said Paul Falkowski, founder and executive director of Omaha-based Community 360, a nonprofit that recruits and trains trusted volunteers to visit older adults in nursing homes.
“The deep-seated need to feel that someone cares about them cannot be met in those [large-group] activities,” he said. “An older woman living in a nursing home once said to me, ‘I have a lot of people around me, but there is no one here just for me.’”
What to Do Instead: Encourage creativity, self-discovery and new traditions. When Kubota rediscovered her identity, she found a better way out of isolation. “I had to remember who I was and what I loved before I was a wife and mother,” she said. Since then, she’s started painting again and participates in a fitness boot camp — where she’s at least 20 years older than most in her class.
