You learn a lot when a family member/loved one dies. Obviously there's a lot of emotional and spiritual stuff, blah, blah, blah, but there's also a whole crap load of practical stuff. For instance (and this is in no particular order at all):
Things that the family actually needs help with:
Funerals are expensive. I don't care who it is, I'll be sending at least $10 to anyone I know who loses someone.
Taking care of someone dying is bloody
time consuming. The most helpful things for people to do service-wise, other than food (which no one seems to have trouble thinking about), are things like:
Just show up and clean. Nobody feels like cleaning when there's so much to do & you really just want to crawl in a hole yourself. Plus people are constantly coming by and so it's nice to feel like people peering in to find you wallowing in squalor that matches the way you feel.
Take care of the dang flowers. I now understand why people are always saying, "please do ______ in lieu of sending flowers. There's a ton, you think they're lovely, you wish had time/cared enough to make sure the water hasn't either disappeared completely or become a smelly science experiment.
Offer (sincerely) to help go through the person's belongings, or help clean out the house/apartment/shack they were living in. It's overwhelming, physically and emotionally. Even if you have a vehicle that might be helpful, that can make a huge difference.
Don't tell the grieving person what they're feeling/what they're going through/what they are
going to go through/or in any way compare any of your experiences to theirs. Be careful with this. Everyone grieves differently and situations are hardly ever exactly the same. I'm sorry, but your loved one taking their own life is very different from my sister unexpectedly passing away peacefully in her sleep.
That brings me to another point, think it through before you ask how the person died. The family doesn't necessarily want to rehash the details of the person's cause of death with
every. freaking. member. of. the. ward. Even if the person died totally naturally, in their sleep. Especially if you come across in any way as asking purely to satisfy the sensational gossip craving gnawing at your self-doubting, unfulfilled life. If you're extended family, a close friend I've known my whole life, one of my few and dear close girlfriends, of course I don't mind you asking. I know you're asking out of concern. But please don't ask if you're the Relief Society president I've never even talked to before, or a random co-worker I've barely ever talked to and whose name I can't even remember while you ask me.
For that matter, I really value the sleep I might manage to get on a Sunday afternoon much more than said Relief Society president fulfilling the "need" to visit me and see for herself that I'm really alright. Death is exhausting. It's hard to sleep, it's hard to eat, and the emotional toll beats you up physically. I'm still trying to catch up. And I still have to force myself to eat a lot of the time. I still don't always sleep well.
Last, I don't care how close a friend you were or weren't to my sister, don't insist on visiting my grieving mother, overstay your welcome, and definitely don't ask for anything belonging to my sister, even if you did give it to her. Perhaps that's just a personal issue. But seriously, the woman just lost her baby daughter. Give her some space, no matter how nice she's being to you.
Food for thought. Fortunately I can say these things because the few people who read my blog all fall under the category of close friends and family. Next up, the Chuck Norris/Natalie jokes we made up to make her feel better and crack a smile...
