Loss is a part of life. Yet we talk about it so infrequently we have no idea what to do when it confronts us or someone we love.
Erin Moon certainly has an opinion on this matter. Erin is the type of woman who could make a friend on the subway. Yet she is now without her very best friend. Her husband and love of her life passed away to cancer in 2011, leaving her as a young widow.
The trauma of her inconceivable loss has made her a role model of sorts. Through her blog and her life, she makes her experiences of “fumbling through life” public, so the rest of us can have some idea of how to get out of bed in the morning, even when something
knocks the breath out of us. In the beginning Erin says she was not “cognitively aware. Over the last year I have felt much more present within. I’d rather be more present, even if it’s in total crap.”
She has unwittingly become a woman who has inspired talk beyond the calm and collected. As a yogini, actress, audible books narrator and voracious traveler, Erin speaks eloquently and lives boldly, moving and traveling to corners of the globe to learn beyond her own experiences.
We asked Erin her advice for how to help to support someone who is going through the unthinkable. Of course, as with anything, this may be person-specific. But let’s get the conversation going:
Ask them to give themselves advice.
The director of Erin’s yoga training program said, “Teacher, heal thyself.” She suggested that Erin construct a home practice for a student who was going through exactly what she was. Erin went home and did exactly that. She then did the same practice for over a year. Erin recalls, “It was
really good advice. Yoga work is like maintenance and my maintenance changed. Everything I did was about opening up, which I was resisting. I did not allow myself to physically shut off.” This may feel harsh coming from someone else, but from yourself it is all love.
Trite comments like “Time heals all wounds” are not only unnecessary, but also untrue.
Erin says: “I’m better at not feeling alone because of my age. I’ve accepted this as a part of me as opposed to something that is going to get better or go away. It’s not going to do either of those things. And that’s okay.”
A big loss may transform the person you know.
Let people change in their experience and support them instead of tethering them to the past. Erin says, “I am indelibly changed.” Of her past self she says, “I’ll never be her again. The struggle of his illness and losing him has made me a completely different person.”
Love the new person rather than trying to call back the old.
Take your lead from the person who is in front of you.
Erin says this is important, “Don’t make it about how you feel. Make it about what you read and see in that other person. I can’t help them with their empathy for me. Little questions that are not loaded with emotions are fine. It’s when your own emotions come to the floor that the missteps start to happen.”
You can talk normally to someone who is grieving.
It is the difference between “How are you?” and “How are you?” Let the person instigate the conversation. Silence is also welcome. “Treat me like a freaking normal person!” Erin insists. “That’s what I don’t have in my life right now. Normal has been blasted to smithereens. All I want is some normal interaction, not what is constantly going through my brain.”
Don’t tell the person that you could never be as strong as them.
At first read, that may seem like a compliment, but look deeper. “It doesn’t actually make me feel good,” says Erin, “because you have no idea what you would do if you had made the promises that I had made or had been in my position.” You can try to imagine what the person is
going through, but let’s be honest, imagination is nowhere close to the real situation.
Be there.
Pick up the phone when a person needs you. Answer their texts. Take them out when they have been absent for some time. “That kind of stuff is the most important”.
Three years later, Erin says, “Stafford will always be a part of me. The biggest way I honour his life is by living. I try to do things that light me up, bring me joy and help other people.”
That she does, as we felt lit up even during a conversation that could be classified as difficult. She has a plan to write a memoir.
Send us a copy, please, Erin!
