Friends who have experienced a Death in their Family

Tips for Helping Before a Funeral

Setting up a WhatFriendsDo.com team page will be the easiest way to coordinate all the help friends can provide when a friend or family member has died. Most people are very independent and want to be capable. Therefore, offering a family a variety of suggestions and letting them pick one may help them receive your love without making them feel inadequate.

Some of the things that will be helpful to coordinate include:

• Notifying friends and family of the funeral arrangements
• Notify others regarding requests for donations
• Arranging for someone to house-sit during the funeral,
• Transporting out-of-town friends and relatives to and from airports/train or bus stations
• Arranging for lodging for out-of-town friends and relatives
• Arranging for someone to answer the phone and keep a list of messages will be very helpful
• Coordinating food, paper products and beverages is a great help
• Getting the house cleaned, the dishes washed and laundry done is also helpful
• Fresh bed linens are always a treat, so maybe someone can get all the beds freshly made
• Someone might offer to polish shoes and take clothing to the drycleaners
• Arrange for someone to mow the lawn, shovel snow or rake leaves

This simple guide will help turn a memorial service into a celebration of life $9.95

Tips for Helping After a Funeral

Stay in touch!! This cannot be said enough times. Friends will return to their daily lives and will think of the deceased person often, but immediate family members will be thinking of their loved one 24 hours a day for many, many months. The best way to help them go through their grief (and they have to go THROUGH it) is to let them know you are also thinking of their loved one. A name is precious and the mention of that special name of their loved one and encouragement to reminisce will be treasured gifts.

One of the ways to help the family is to acknowledge the birthday or anniversary of the person who has died. Typically, the most genuine and practical help begins to diminish after the first month. You might consider putting a special symbol on your calendar to mark monthly anniversaries and make a point to make contact on or near those days.

Through a WhatFriendsDo.com team page, coordinating the following activities will be very easy to do: providing meals, helping with lawn care, helping with thank you notes. There can be a lot of paperwork (medical bills, insurance claims, changing names on utilities, bank accounts, etc.) to be done, so an offer to help will be appreciated.

While visits to the cemetery may seem very personal, your friend may welcome company. Offer to accompany your friend and combine it with a meal out.

It's NEVER too late!

Perhaps you were unable to attend a friend's funeral or memorial service, and now you feel like too much time has passed to get in touch with his or her family. Weeks, months, even years after the loss of a loved one, family members will be so glad to hear from friends. Your phone call, card or flowers may very well be exactly what family members need!

Personal Items

Dealing with the personal items of a deceased person is a very delicate issue. Some people want to remove all clothing and personal items immediately, and other people need time before they are ready to take that step. Don't push. A spouse, parent, child or sibling needs to take their own time in dealing with this step of letting go.

Mentioning stories of how others have dealt with this process might be a way for you to get a sense of your friend's feelings on this subject.

Dealing with Grief

Grief is an emotion we are given to help us with our sense of loss. Grief is a season of lament in which we mourn for someone. If a friend has recently passed away, keep in mind that it will be a VERY long time before the immediate family members don't have their loved one on their minds constantly. It will be helpful and important to them to know that you are also thinking of the deceased person.

Don't wait for your family members to call you to get together ... or to call to say they just need to talk or be distracted. Initiate something specific for a specific time ... and if they turn you down, don't push. Accept their response and then ask again another day.

Acknowledge the special days ... the birthday of the deceased, a wedding anniversary or the anniversary of the death are important dates to the surviving family members. They will be grateful that you, too, have remembered the special date.

Send notes ... and feel comfortable mentioning the deceased. Yes, it may make them cry - but they're going to be crying anyway - and tears help heal.

Do simple random acts of kindness for them ... something like taking the trash can from the curb to its usual spot after it has been emptied is a nice treat. Small and simple as it is, it will be appreciated.

Distractions are good. It may have been a long time since family members have been able to indulge in a day to be carefree ... invite them to a silly movie, or a trip to see a special garden, or out to lunch somewhere fun. Be creative!

The pain of losing a spouse is often compounded by the reality of how this loss has affected other relationships. Unfortunately, it is common for friendships to be altered because of a loss. Grief has to do with people's emotions caused by a change, and change is something with which people don't always deal well. So, the typical assumption for most people is that being around couples is difficult for the surviving spouse. This causes even more loneliness, as the spouse AND the friends are gone! Including the surviving spouse in social activities with couples will be a beautiful gift you will give to your friend.