What’s the first response that comes from people who talk to those who have recently lost a loved one or have been hit by a tragedy? “I am sorry for your loss”. Although it appears to be a response that is concealed with good intentions and sentiments, people need to stop using it and here’s why:
1. It’s an unnecessary cliché
While someone is grieving, they do not need clichés. What they need is actual support, someone to pour their heart to. Someone to help them understand what happened, why they are angry & emotional at the same time, and someone to sit with them and help them cry the pain out because that’s what is needed at that very moment. I remember the day my father passed away, I being the eldest child was running around like crazy to help with the preparation for the funeral while accepting clichés in form of clichés. What I actually needed was someone to hug me, sit with me and tell me, “You need to cry. You too are human and you lost your father. It’s okay to feel the pain. Even if you have become the man of the family, it’s okay to cry.”
2. Feels like an insincere apology
When people use the phrase “sorry for your loss”, it feels like an insincere apology. Why? Here’s why. When people repeatedly said that to me I wanted to ask them, “Why exactly are you sorry for a loss that isn’t even yours?” I mean in no way my loss affects them directly or even indirectly. Their lives will go on as it was before my father passed away. It’s me and my family who is going to have to live with it every single day of our lives. And it will affect our day to day tasks.
When people use that phrase while consoling someone, they forget that it’s not their loss but the person they are saying it to. Also, one can tell which words are coming from the heart and which words are conveyed just for the sake of it.
3. Pity isn’t required
While people keep repeating “sorry for your loss”, they forget that it makes the grieving person feel like someone to be pitied at. Trust me that is not required. Because even if I lost my father, I am not sorry for it. I do not regret the life he lived. I am proud of it and I shall continue his legacy and follow his footsteps to try to be the good person he was.
4. It forces the grieving person to isolate themselves
Hearing the same phrases, again and again, makes the person isolate themselves. Some even don’t get to grieve properly. And take it from me, it does the biggest damage ever. I have gone through it and let me tell you it’s ugly.
5. Actions speak louder than words
I can guarantee that not much people can tell the true meaning of this phrase. What it actually means is that you do more than what you do for someone means/matter ten times more than what you say. What people do is that they only say, “I am here for you”, but they are rarely physically present for that person. At the very moment of losing a loved one, what a grieving person actually need is someone to sit with them. Because that moment requires someone to help the grieving person to fight that anger, all those emotions bubbling in.
