I don’t know how others handle grief when a family member has been lost but I know for my husband and I we prefer to keep the conversations brief.

I’ve gotten to hate the question ‘how are you?’ and yet people ask that without thinking (that is, it’s a question asked but do many really care about the answer?) and many ask it and don’t even know what’s happened in our lives.

How on earth do I answer a question like that?  And I hate telling people what we’ve been going through – we just really want to be left to get on with our lives. I feel like a broken record a lot of the time.

We have a circle of friends and family members we do chat with about our feelings and progress but apart from that, unless we raise the topic, it’s best that people just acknowledge our loss by offering their condolences (if they haven’t already done so) and then follow our lead. If we change the subject – keep it changed.  If we don’t raise the subject when you see us again, then leave it be unless it’s obvious it needs to be discussed.  Repeating the same things over and over and over again, although you might not have heard it before, for us just keeps the pain on the surface when we are trying hard to heal.

If you’ve lost a close loved one perhaps you’d like to share how you coped with your grief in the first few months?