Sunday, May 24, 2020

Comforting The Bereaved

I had mentioned before our friend and his wife and child who had suffered the double loss of first his father, who had lived with them for 20 plus years dying, and then whose son committed suicide within days after his father's death.

Today was our day to bring them dinner. Basically, a bunch of friends and neighbors have all signed up to coordinate and check in with them regularly, bring them a meal, and offer what small amounts of comfort that is possible in such a situation, which really isn't much.

So we brought them a full meal, and talked with them. They've got their cousins there, who are staying over which certainly helps.

They get regular visitors from their church, and their strong connection to their faith is certainly helping, as is the flood of friends and family constantly being around. But, they're certainly living with a terrible sorrow and trauma.

You can tell that they've been having a rough time which is more than understandable. Losing a child is every parent's nightmare and they're living that right now. Add the loss of the grandfather of the family and it's a horribly heavy burden. Their grieving is perfectly normal and I would have been surprised if it was any less than it was.

They're the first people outside of our own family who we've hugged since this whole lock down thing, which was very surreal but needed.

We stayed and talked with them for awhile, reminisced about those they lost, and then had them get back to their family.

Really good people, and I hope they can recover from this family tragedy in due time.

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