Four Unexpected Words to Say to a Grieving Person

This article is part of our Novembering series dealing with grief, loss, and death.

My grandmother died in 1999. Pang Foua and I had only been married a few years, and we planned a trip to visit my grandpa shortly after the funeral.

I was terrified. What do you say to a person who’d lost the love of his life of over fifty years?

Maybe I could ask him about his golf game. (He lived on a golf course.) Or perhaps we could feed the ducks. (A perennial favorite of all the grandkids.) But nothing felt right, and every idea just felt so hollow and inconsequential.

We arrived and set out on a walk around their neighborhood. And then, Pang Foua held his hand in hers and asked the last question I ever expected.

“Tell me about her.”

I froze in fear. I had always thought that you didn’t want to bring up the person who died because it would remind them of all the painful emotions.

But much to my surprise, Grandpa smiled and started telling stories of Grandma—how they met, trips they went on together, and life in their quiet retirement village. We smiled, cried, and even laughed together as we walked.

At that moment, I had to throw out everything I thought I knew about grief (which wasn’t much).

I learned that asking a person about their lost loved one doesn’t remind them of the pain (as if they could forget about it). Instead, it usually reminds them of all that was wonderful about the person and their relationship together. It allows the one who’s still here the opportunity to share their joy, and it allows the one who passed to live on through memories and stories.

Now, twenty-two years later, there’s rarely a funeral I attend where I don’t ask someone the same question.

“Tell me about them.”

And then I just sit back and listen.