Parables of Grief--When Words Fail: How Presence Matters More Than Advice for the Grieving

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We all want to say the perfect words to comfort someone who's grieving, but what if the most powerful gift isn't words at all? 

After my husband died unexpectedly, I discovered that true comfort often came from the most unexpected places. There were neighbors who showed up with "grief groceries" – practical items like paper plates and toilet paper when I couldn't think clearly enough to shop. There was the friend who texted daily for months without expecting responses. And there was the beautiful moment when someone shared Isaiah 54:5 with me: "For thy maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is his name."

Through these experiences and many others, I learned a profound truth about mourning with those that mourn: presence matters more than perfection. Like the rabbit in the children's book "The Rabbit Listened," sometimes the greatest gift we can give someone in grief is to simply be there – not to fix their pain or tell them how to feel, but to witness their journey without judgment or comparison.

In this episode, I share what helped me most as a widow, what didn't help (like being asked "Are you over it yet?"), and how we can all become better companions to those walking through loss. Whether you're grieving yourself or supporting someone who is, these practical insights will help you understand that healing doesn't come from perfect words but from genuine connection that helps the grieving not feel so alone.

Join me, Mama Bear Wendy, as we explore how to truly walk alongside each other in grief. Share this episode with someone who might need these insights, and visit mamabearwendy.com to learn about my upcoming grief support groups and companion sessions.

Support the show

If you would like more grief support please see my website at Mamabearwendy.com for upcoming grief groups and 1:1 opportunities.

Although your experience and path will be unique, there is hope ahead in this path and you are not alone. I can see your pain and we will walk this road together. Here is a big bear hug from Mama Bear Wendy, your fierce support in the journey of grief, until next time.

If you enjoy this podcast please consider donating to help us keep going.

"Wendy has a beautiful way of sitting in the deep end of the ocean with you. Her presence alone is healing. She meets you where you’re at and doesn’t push you any further than where you want to go. She gently nudges you into new places with new perspectives. She is highly intuitive, sensitive and compassionate. She brings a depth to the table you rarely see. Her experiences have given her an extraordinary level of understanding and a safe place to walk to as she is a safe harbor fill of strength and integrity. She is raw and real and beautifully vulnerable and she is exceptional at conveying the words that are hard to find. She is a rare one." Christi D.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello friends, this is the Parables of Grief podcast
and this is your host, MamaBear Wendy, I'm here to share
some love and light with you onyour journey through grief and
loss.
I hope, as our healing pathsconnect for the next few minutes
, we can walk together and findstrength for the road ahead.
One scientist suggests thatwhat the grieving need most is
to have others witness our painand help us not feel so alone.

(00:25):
I hope in our time together,you will find the companionship
and understanding that you need.
The intention of this podcastis to use parables of grief to
find the Savior and His promisedhealing in the daily and
commonplace, to see how we aretruly never alone and to find,
like the disciples on the roadto Emmaus, the Savior by our
side, even if we didn'trecognize him at first, because

(00:47):
he showed up in unexpected andcommon ways.
Also, there is much coming soonto help with your journey.
The Parables of Grief book willbe coming out by Christmas of
2025, and there areopportunities to join me in
online grief groups andone-on-one companion sessions.
Please check out my website atmomadbearwendycom for more

(01:07):
information.
Today, we are going to talkabout how you can mourn with
those that mourn and several ofthe things that are a blessing
to those who are mourning andthose things that are not a

(01:27):
blessing.
I think we have a fun podcasttoday.
Doesn't it sound fun?
Probably not, but today we aregoing to talk about some of the
ways that people showed up whenmy husband died.
I've also got some things thatreally helped other widows that
I know, and that's going to beour topic for today.

(01:50):
So first we're going to startoff with a quote.
This is a quote from PresidentThomas S Monson, november of
2013.
I will not forsake thee, failthee or forsake thee, sorry.
Our Heavenly Father knows thatwhen we learn and grow and
become stronger as we face andsurvive the trials through which
we must pass, we know thatthere are times when we will

(02:13):
experience heartbreaking sorrow,when we will grieve and when we
may be tested to our limits.
However, such difficultiesallow us to change for the
better, to rebuild our lives inthe way our Heavenly Father
teaches us, and to becomesomething different from what we
were, better than we were, moreunderstanding than we were,
more empathetic than we were,with stronger testimonies than

(02:36):
we had before.
So one of the needs that thegrieving have is to have a
witness and there is actualrelief that comes from being
heard in our grief.
I have several stories of thingsthat people did when my husband

(02:56):
died that were a great blessingto me, and many of these
stories are stories of peoplewho acted without asking or
without figuring out if I had aspecific need.
When my husband first died, Icouldn't have told you my name

(03:17):
perhaps.
I was very confused, I was verydisoriented, I was very kind of
reeling from the reality of myloss and so questions, decisions
, all of that feltinsurmountable.
So there is a thing calledgrief groceries, and if you

(03:40):
haven't heard of it, then whatit means is there are things
that you need to run a house andthose things become very
unimportant to the grieving.
When my husband first died, Ihad two different neighbors
bring me grief groceries.

(04:01):
The first one brought me paperplates and toilet paper and
paper towels a giant Costcoversion of all of those things
and I was out when they weredelivered.
So I walked into my house withthem sitting on the front
entryway and it made me cry.

(04:23):
And it made me cry.
I cried over toilet paper.
Yes, I did.
It was such a representation tome of people solving problems
for me because I was so unableto think that hard Toilet paper
represented all the mundanedaily things that needed to be
done that I was incapable ofdoing at the time.

(04:46):
And to have someone think aboutthat for me, with all these
people coming to my house forthe funeral, was such a blessing
, such a blessing.
The second neighbor apparentlywent to Costco and prayed as she
got there.
Please bless me to know what tobring and what to buy and what

(05:09):
would be a blessing to thisfamily.
She brought, oh, so many things, and again it's Costco right,
so there's like 400 ofeverything.
When my husband first died,eating was almost impossible.
Everything tasted like ashesand just disgusting and I
couldn't put things in my mouth.
It was just too gross.

(05:29):
It was surprising because inevery other trauma time of my
life, food was a great blessingand a solace.
So to have it be so opposite,so taken from me, that I could
find no solace Usually sleep andfood were great ways to turn to
to find the solace that Ineeded, and there was no solace

(05:53):
in those things.
Sleep was almost impossible,food was terrible.
But this sweet friend broughttwo things to my house that day
and in her prayers she was, Ihope, inspired to bring us red
vines, that big box of them, andthe Kraft macaroni and cheese

(06:17):
cups.
That was one thing I could eat.
My children were like dancingaround the house when they saw
the red vines, so that was forthem, but the Kraft mac and
cheese cups were one thing thatstill tasted good and were such
a blessing.
I also received flowers from afriend of my son's who is not a

(06:41):
member of our faith, and shesent a scripture that I had
never heard or seen before.
It's in Isaiah 54, verses 4 and5.
Fear not, for thou shalt not beashamed, neither shalt thou be
confounded, for thou shalt notbe put to shame, for thou shalt
forget the shame of thy youthand shall not remember the

(07:03):
reproach of thy widowhoodanymore.
For thy maker is thine husband,the Lord of hosts is his name,
and thy Redeemer, the Holy Oneof Israel, the God of the whole
earth, shall he be called.
And the quote that she put inthe flowers was Jesus Christ
will be your husband.

(07:23):
Now that your husband is gone,and it meant so much to me to
have her share that with me atthat time it was such a comfort.
I had one friend.
We weren't very close but she,unlike many others for months,
would text me almost daily.
It was never an expectationthat I had to respond, which was

(07:46):
very gratefully received,because responding to many
people was really hard for mebut she would just every morning
, without needing to bereciprocated or commented or
anything else.
She would just send me a happymessage or I'm thinking about
you or praying for you.
Today it was so meaningful tome to have her, even months

(08:08):
later, still remember me, stillthink about me, still pray for
me.
I have a friend who is reallygood at serving and she had a
goal for many years to do Mealson Wheels.
And she called me probablythree months after my husband

(08:31):
died and said I've had this goalto do Meals on Wheels.
How would you feel about that?
And I was at the time lookingfor ways to get out and to be
active and to do somethingwithout huge consequences if I
failed or couldn't, and so thatseemed like a really good thing.
I had no idea the lastingblessing that would be.

(08:55):
We called it our therapysession, because her and I are
busy go-getter women and to findtime that we could both sit
still and talk to each otherwould be really difficult.
But because of that Meals onWheels thing we would get four
hours in a car together and wewere serving other people but we
were also getting to grievetogether.

(09:18):
She was the one who walked methrough being able to drive
again.
It was very hard for me todrive at first.
It was very frightening for meto try to be present enough to
drive and she would encourage me.
We would pull into people'shouses and have to back out and

(09:39):
she would be the cheerleadersaying you can do it, turn this
way, do that, you can go alittle farther that way.
It was such a blessing and itwas funny in the two years to go
from being so confused and soemotionally fragile with her
encouragement to outgrow some ofthat and her kindness and her

(10:03):
listening ear through.
That was such a blessing.
After my husband died it feltlike all of the relationships
around me changed and to somedegree it felt like I no longer
belonged.
It was very painful.
So not only did I lose myhusband but I lost a lot of the
relationships that I had throughmy being married.

(10:26):
But I had one friend whostarted having lunch dates every
month and the women that hadbeen my friends that were my
married friends, included me inthose lunch dates and allowed me
to share my heart that theycould not understand, but they

(10:47):
just listened and encouraged meand saw the effort I was making,
even if I didn't do a very goodjob of it.
I had a friend who heard aboutit, heard about my husband's
accident, and that night she goton and in a group that I had
through business, she started aGoFundMe.

(11:09):
My kids had mentioned maybe weshould start a GoFundMe and I
had told them no, we don't needit, we don't need other people's
money, we don't need anything.
And they had said, mom, it'sthe only thing they can do for
us.
That's the only thing they cando right now is give money.
Let them do what they can.
And I was so grateful that shehad done that for me, that I

(11:34):
didn't have to decide it, that Ididn't have to beg for help or
anything, that she had juststarted it for me.
I was so grateful.
So here's some things that I'velearned that don't help, and the
first one is judgment.
I think this is probably easyfor everybody to see, but
unfortunately it is sometimeshard for us to do, and that is

(11:56):
things like are you over it yet?
Yes, I've had people say thatto me.
I have had people judge thatI'm doing well, which makes me
assume that they've probablyjudged when I'm not doing well.
Certainly I have judged myselfwhen I feel like I'm not doing

(12:17):
it well.
Any kind of judgment words,they just are not helpful.
Comparing, comparing doesn'thelp.
One friend said that somebodysaid to him I know just what
you're going through.
I lost my dog.
Now I lost my dog as well, andI love that animal, but it does

(12:37):
not compare in the suffering ofmy loss of my husband.
And so, to some degree, anycomparison.
Again, this is not the Olympics.
There's no award for being theone that gets the highest jump
in grief, right, nobody cares ifI win.
But any comparison just takesaway from this need that we have

(13:02):
to be heard and ministered toand understood.
And then the last I'm going toshare is an idea from one of my
favorite picture books.
This picture book is called theRabbit Listened In the A murder

(13:24):
of crows comes and knocks hiscastle down and he has multiple
friends who all come.
The chicken comes and sayslet's talk about it, and the
bear comes and growls and wantsto be angry and all the
different animals come withtheir different solutions to

(13:47):
this young man's problem.
The different animals come withtheir different solutions to
this young man's problem, buteach one doesn't serve the need
that he has, because they A arejudging and assuming that they
know how he should feel and inthat assumption and pressure,
even to feel the way they feelhe is lost and unable to express

(14:10):
himself.
Well, soon a rabbit comes andthe rabbit comes and sits by him
and he doesn't say anything andhe can feel the presence of the
rabbit and the warmth of him.
And because the rabbit listensonly and doesn't talk, this

(14:31):
young man is able to be angryand he's able to talk about his
feelings and he's able to do allthe things the other animals
were trying to do for him.
And because the rabbit justlistens, this young man is able
to heal.

(14:52):
I think that when we talk aboutmourning with those that mourn,
at least in my life, I havealways wanted to be the one that
said the right thing, theperfect thing.
I wanted to be the hero.
I wanted to come in and be theone that they said oh, I'm so
grateful you came, because yousaid just what I needed to hear

(15:13):
and what I learned is that whatthe grieving need most is
someone who doesn't talk, whoknew that what we really need is
just someone who will listenand let us talk and witness our
pain and our suffering and bewith us and be warm, for it is

(15:34):
so cold.
It is so cold to be grievingand the loneliness and the
sorrow and the separation fromothers can be so heavy, from
others can be so heavy.
So my suggestion is there arethree things that we should not

(15:54):
do when we are trying to mournwith those that mourn.
The first one is do not judge,do not put shoulds on others of
where they should be right nowor how they should feel or how
they should handle the situation.
Number two do not compare.
Comparison has been said to bethe thief of joy, and I would

(16:19):
say it is the thief ofconnection.
In this case, comparison makesboth parties feel less than, and
that's not connection.
And then, last but not least,more is not better when it comes
to talking to those who aremourning.

(16:40):
Sometimes the best thing, themost healing and beautiful thing
you can do for someone, is justlisten, just be with them, just
sit with them.
Again, the connection, thedesperate need, is to not feel
alone because it is so lonely.
All right, that's our podcastfor today.

(17:01):
Thank you so much for coming.
If you would like more grief,support, please see my website
at mamabearwendycom for myupcoming five pillars of
resilience group and one-on-oneopportunities.
Although your experience andpath will be unique, there is
hope ahead in this path and youare not alone.
I can see your pain and we willwalk this road together.

(17:23):
Let's take a deep breathtogether and here is a big bear
hug from Mama Bear Wendy Untilnext time.