We are born, we die: the only two certainties in our life. Even if we push the inevitable as far away from us as we can, it does arrive. We may not yet have experienced bereavement close up but at some time in our lives we will need to know what can be most helpful to a close friend or more distant acquaintance.
Billy, Me & You by Nicola Streeten is published by Turnaround £11.99 or www.guardian.co.uk/bookshop Written 16 years after the death of her son this book has a distance and fuller perspective than you’d normally suppose. She talks of the reaction of others towards her as well as her own process of grieving. If we have no intimate experience of death this perspective could help us all as we have to come to terms with death being part of our lives, even if today everything is done to distance that fact from us.
So what is our reaction? What do we do or say? Do we cross to the other side of the road to avoid talking to someone who has been bereaved? Probably the best answer to the question, “what do I say or do?” is to ask yourself, what would I like to hear from others? Continue reading