• Be gracious. Do not be surprised if someone deep in mourning gets a little snippy with you, is irritable, is not very talkative, or tends to dominate the conversation. It’s not you, it’s that mourners have a lot got going on. If you are in mourning, be gracious with yourself and with your family. I’m sorry if those around you haven’t experienced much grief — it’s incredibly hard to fathom a grieving mind if you haven’t experienced a deep personal loss.
• “I’m sorry” feels like such a weak thing to say, but it encompasses a tremendous amount of emotion and care. The short phrase empathizes with the survivor and often creates an understanding between two hurting people.
• Acknowledging the situation is better than avoiding the topic altogether. It may be awkward to speak up, but a simple “I see you,” goes a long way.
• The less decisions a person in mourning needs to make, the better. Mourning requires an enormous amount of mental energy, and helping make a decision alleviates a bit of mental fatigue.  Don’t be surprised if a griever locks up / shuts down if you ask them what you perceive to be a simple question. Nothing is simple in grief. Nothing. 
• Presence is best. Be, share, and create emotional safety.
• It’s okay to ask “How are you doing?” It’s a simple phrase that shows you care, but monitor your tone while asking. There’s a significant difference between an excited “how are you!?” and an empathetic, “so, how are you doing?” Odds are, a mourner is not likely to match excited energy.
• It’s not okay to ignore the situation. The unknown of grief can make one feel awkward and uncomfortable when he or she does not know what to say nor how to act, but a simple acknowledgment of “I’m sorry for your loss,” is preferable to pretending to act normal. Talk about the elephant in the room. It’s all that the griever thinks about. The mourner cannot act normal, he or she is in deep grief. Please do not put a mourner in a situation where he or she feels pressure to be normal.
• It’s okay to ask if a survivor wants to talk about it — if one is close friends with a griever, the bereaved may crave the kindness of a listening friend. If one is more of a stranger to the mourner, the griever may be uncomfortable talking about the situation. No matter the reaction, it’s okay to ask. Better to ask than to ignore.
• Declaring “Your [loved one] is always with you,” is not helpful. Perhaps it will be in the future, but in the first few days it’s more of a reminder of the chasm between the mourner’s life and his/her loved one’s death. This phrase is especially painful for a suicide survivor, who is left with an incredibly deep abandonment wound. 
• Letters are a great form of communication. They are incredibly thoughtful and sweet. Unlike a text or phone, letters are calming — there is little pressure to respond and they are crafted with care. Sending a mourner a letter is a kind thing to do, and it means more to the survivor than you realize. Even if a griever does not reach out after receiving a letter — he or she likely forgot — that letter meant a lot. 
• Calls are easier to answer than text and/or instant messages, but a mourner might not always want to talk and they will likely forget to call you back. Don’t feel bad if you call multiple times – calling shows that you care. Texts and instant messages are great too, but a bereaved individual may only have the capacity to answer a few 2-3 messages a day per day, so please be gracious with their delayed response.
• If you have to start a sentence with “I’m sorry to ask you this,” or “I’m sorry to pry, but…” do us both a favor and don’t ask that question. That’s your conscious telling you that, yes, it is an inappropriate question to ask.
• Simply reach out: via text, via instant messenger, commenting on posts. The survivor may not responded, but often appreciates them. Messages help. Survivors appreciate reading about your experience and it can feel validating and comforting to see friends’ support, prayers, and encouragement. A simple moto to remind yourself is that you may need to reach out to a survivor 3 times before the survivor realizes you reached out at all.
• Podcast, sermons, videos, and songs are not necessarily helpful. A survivor does not have the energy or focus to listen to hours of lectures. This can quickly feel overwhelming.
• Share your stories of the person who passed away. Survivors want to hear them.
• Educate yourself. Don’t make a survivor educate you. It’s 2026 — there are multitudes of resources (even Chat GPT) to help you navigate how to support survivors.
• Keep inviting, even if the mourner keeps turning down invitations. Celebrations are incredibly difficult for a mourner, though we are truly happy for others. Grieving makes one sensitive and easily overstimulated. If a mourner thinks an event will be triggering, he or she is likely not going to attend the occasion. Triggers mean tears or irritability, and a mourner will not want to take attention away from someone else’s event by letting their emotions surface. Mourners want to support their friends, but they have very little capacity to do so.
• Remind the griever how much he or she means to you. Again, someone in mourning simply can’t show up for their friends in the same way they did before. This can make a griever feel incredibly isolated, feel like a bad friend, and anxious about their relationships. Mourners need a lot of reassurance and reminders that they are loved and are not a burden. We are hyper aware of how little we can give in relationships, and that scares us.
• Be kind.
• Understand that survivors are unfathomably exhausted. Honor that.

Future Ways to Help

• Small tasks are incredibly helpful — doing a load of laundry, wiping down a counter, calling to set up a dental appointment. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even remember to put a pair of shoes on – it’s invaluable to notice those little things that may be neglected and to help one another out.
• Listen. Create a safe space for the wounded. A survivor may want to share details such as how their loved one died, this is a privilege and not a right. This sacred information should be honored with respect and reverence.
• Create a “GoFund Me” or something similar on behalf of the survivors
• Lawn care
• Meals: Meal trains are incredibly helpful, please do this for your grieving friends.
• Gift cards, DoorDash, Uber Eats

Resources

• Read Megan Divine’s It’s OK That You’re Not OK. It’s an excellent book that discusses the cultural dismissal of grief and loss. We live in a culture that has left behind the art of lamentation and grief, leaving mourners with even more confusion to their natural response to tragedy. Amazon link: https://a.co/d/bHe9yHY
• Read chapter 17 of Mel Robbin’s Let Them theory. Amazon link: https://a.co/d/0eER0zBJ