Sunday, May 17, 2020

A Chaplain on What To Say to People Who Are Dying

You’re never going to know what the right thing to say is. So silence is often your best friend. For two reasons. One, silence offers you the space to get to know what to say. It allows you to be present in a way where the moment washes over you so you can become inspired. Your gut tells you what to say. That’s the right thing to say or do. And No. 2, it offers a space for the other person to say what they want to say or do what they want to do, or to just cry or just be in the silence....My best advice to you is forget what you think you know, and just listen....You don’t have a final goodbye, which for a lot of people helps with closure. It’s going to take a lot to accept that, that that’s the way it is. It happened that way. It doesn’t mean that that person wasn’t deeply loved and didn’t know that they were deeply loved. It doesn’t mean that you can’t share your love for that person with other people who also loved that person.

The best we can do is to speak to other people who also knew that person and share memories. Talk about how they made you laugh, or they made you angry. Laugh about that because it doesn’t matter anymore.


How I Talk to People Before They Die

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