We don’t talk about. . .You know.

In Disney’s Encanto, Bruno is the uncle of the main character, Mirabel. The Madrigal family all have special gifts due to a tragic event. Bruno’s gift was the ability to see into the future. Since he has foretold of unfortunate events, he is seen as bad luck, and we don’t talk about Bruno.

Yes, nice little segue into this post. I suppose it comes from the messiness of grief, but we don’t talk about, well, you know. We want to wrap up grief and loss into the three days of bereavement leave. Snap, funeral’s over, moving on. We don’t talk about the hard nights crying in the bath tub. The days you can’t get out of the truck to go into work because you just don’t have the energy so you sit in the parking lot for a while. We don’t talk about the numb shock as you sit in the office at the funeral home, making arrangements, planning services, ordering flowers. And when I say that “we” don’t talk about it, I don’t mean the people actually living it. I mean the others. The people that have never walked that path.

You can see the screensaver mode come into their eyes as they sit in awkwardness listening to you talk. Like they want to run away as fast as they can, but they don’t want to seem cruel or uncaring. Because, let’s face it, grief is messy. We don’t want to talk about messy. Or uncomfortable. Or painful. But sometimes, we really need to talk about it. Not just the ones living it. They NEED to talk about it. Because it’s what they think about. It’s what they feel. It’s an overwhelming inability to comprehend how the world can have the audacity to continue to spin, while their world has changed so much. How each month that passes, that day is another mark of another month. How, after you shift from counting it in days, to weeks, to months, to years, that date comes and goes. Holidays, their birthday, special dates in the family. They come and go and they are no longer the same. They need to talk about it. So, we need to talk about it. Listen, actively listen, as they talk about these things. Don’t zone out and wish you could be in any other conversation in the world than this one, because that shows. And, honestly, as someone that has been on this side of the screensaver eyes, we are actually glad that you don’t understand. Because it’s something that you just don’t understand until you do.

So, talk about the messy. Ask questions about their person. About the events. Favorite memories. Not talking about their person doesn’t make them forget they are gone. Talking about them shows that you remember that they were here.

Let them know that they are not alone.