it took me awhile to settle on a small plant — a jade, which is symbolic of luck and renewal. the colour of the pot it sat in matched my friend’s living room perfectly.
when bad things happen, it’s hard to find the right words to say
i struggled with finding a card too. “in deepest sympathy” sounded too stiff, “thinking of you,” was a little too trite, and then there was the one about lemons and making lemonade, and well, i’m not sure who thought that was a good add to the sympathy card section. i spent almost an hour trying to find one that said exactly what i felt — but of course, nothing came close.
it’s not just death that leaves us scrambling to find ways to express our sorrow and support that feel like enough. a painful divorce, a scary diagnosis, the illness of a child, even the loss of a job — when bad things happen, it’s hard to find the right words to say.
how do you comfort someone who has received a terminal diagnosis? or whose true love has left them for someone else? or whose wife has had to move into long-term care? words just never feel quite right.
and when we do take a shot at saying something, we desperately hope we don’t say the wrong thing.
a friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago had a “what not to say to someone who has cancer” list that she either laughed about or simmered over depending on how she was feeling. at the top of the list was, “everything happens for a reason,” with “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” coming in at a close second. when a neighbour told her that he would pray for her, she joked that what he really meant to say was, “i hope someone will help you other than me.”
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