When a Friend’s Mother has Passed Away near Mother’s Day

Sometimes, the death of a loved one occurs on or around a significant holiday: Valentine’s Day, a Birthday, Father’s Day or Mother’s Day.  You may know someone who is suffering this Mother’s Day because of the loss of a parent. As a licensed psychotherapist, I have helped my patients with the grief and the loss of the most primary relationships in their lives. From this work, I offer you several important tips to helping a friend with the loss of their mother as Mother’s Day approaches.

You might notice your friend being very quiet or avoiding people altogether. They might be taking a sick day. At the same time, you may be celebrating your own mom’s Mother’s Day. You may be honoring your own mother with pictures and thoughts on social media. The same social media in which your friend participates.

How do you offer support and encouragement to a close friend in these circumstances?

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS:

There are practical things you can do. Here's a short list:

OFFER SUPPORT:

First, you may want to check in with your friend before Mother’s Day to say to them, “I know your mom recently passed, is there any way I can support you this week?”

Your friend may have little to say, may still be grieving and may not even know how they can be best supported.  In that case, feel free to ask your friend “Is it okay for me to drop by and spend some time with you? When are you free?

Another way to assist your friend is to let them know “if you want to share your feelings, your thoughts or anything else with me, I want you to do it. Even if you just want to call and talk about something else, I’m here for you.”

Many people have conflicted feelings about their relationship with their mothers. They may feel some disappointment in the way their mother lived her life, or in the way their mother interacted with them.

You can share with your friend “Hey, I know me and my mom had our tough times. If you’re having any thoughts or feelings, positive or negative, about your Mom or yourself, I’m open to listening to you.”

It’s okay as a friend to not have the answers. You don’t need to have any solution and can simply empathize with having the problem. Simply stating, “I hear you…that’s hard…that must have been difficult…I’m so sorry that happened to you.” can be enough.

We don’t have to whitewash someone’s life simply because of their death.

It’s okay for your friend to have mixed feelings or even anger towards their deceased parent. Feelings are not facts and they can change over time.

CONDOLENCES AND TOKENS OF APPRECIATION:

Sending a handwritten condolence card goes much further than posting condolences online. It says, “I took the time to find this card, handwrite my thoughts and mail it to you rather than jetting off a few sentences online.” 

You might even decide to send a small gift of food or flowers to let your friend know you care.

In this day of electronic communication, a ‘real-life’ communication speaks volumes about your feelings for someone.

REFRAMING FOR THE POSITIVE:

If you didn’t’ know your friend’s mother very well, you can ask “Would it be ok to ask you a few questions about your mom?” If they consent, you can ask “What are some of the positive ways your mom affected you or the lives of others?”

Yet another way that you can be supportive is to ask, “Can I tell you some positive things I remember about your mom?”

Still another way to be supportive is to tell your friend “Can I tell you some positive things I see in you and your life that I think might have been influenced by your mom?”

You might also ask your friend, is it alright if I share your loss on Social Media?  Would you like to keep this private?  They may appreciate the thoughts of others but not have the energy to post it themselves so that others may support them. Of course, honor their request for privacy if they request it.

RE-EVALUATING VALUES

Reminding your friend of the positive Values their parent stood for may be another method to helping them. Values are not morals or commandments but rather operating principles for a persons life. Values can range from Adventure to Honesty to Compassion to Humor and many, many more.

If your friend cannot think of their parent's Values and how they embodied them, try to elicit your friends own personal Values for their own life. In many respects, Death forces us to think about the finality of our lives and to e-valu-ate our way of living. This may be a good time to help your friend re-focus on their Values. One good way to elicit Values is to ask your friend 'how would you like to be remembered many years in the future? When they identify them, ask them 'are you living your Values?' If not, you can ask 'what can you do this week, something small, that would move you in the direction of your Values?'

HELPING YOUR FRIEND TO THINK RATIONALLY ABOUT THEIR LOSS

It’s important to remember the 3 main distorted thoughts that humans have when confronted with difficult circumstances in life.

These thoughts are:

• I should be perfect
• She should have treated me nicely and fairly
• The world should be an easy place for me to live in.

These distorted thoughts can easily arise in the wake of a loved one’s death.

I SHOULD BE PERFECT:

'I should be perfect' is an insidious thought that hides in other kinds of thoughts and feelings—thoughts like--

I should have been a better son/daughter. 

I should have said I love you before she died.

 I should have visited her more often. 

I should have seen her medical problems earlier. 

I should have saved her. 

I should have been kinder, more understanding.

And because I didn’t do any or all these things, I am a low-down, dirty, awful, terrible human being. I’m essentially rotten garbage.

These kinds of thoughts, if left undisputed, usually result in a feeling of low self-worth, low self-esteem, shame, self judgement, self-condemnation.

If you see your friend reacting in this self-condemning way, try to gently ask them—'if I had done something similar, if I hadn’t been perfect for my mother, would you judge me as a rotten person?’

Most friends will demur and tell you that they’d never treat you that way.  If so, you can ask them 'Why do I get better treatment than you do? Why would you give me compassion and understanding and not give the same to yourself? You’re imperfect, so am I. Lets find a way for you to give some of that understanding to yourself.’

If you think that their parent had some kindness in them, you can also ask 'if your mom has a consciousness right now, wherever she is, do you think she would want you to suffer right now?'

I MUST SUFFER GREATLY:

Another reason that people often torture themselves about the death of a loved one is the belief that if they don’t suffer greatly, the lack of suffering also makes them a ‘bad person.’ They believe that if they don’t feel awful, miserable, terrible that they are not properly honoring the loss of their parent.

You can gently ask them “Wouldn’t your parent have the goal of you being a happy person?” If the answer is no (which sometimes it can be) you can ask them, ‘do you believe that a parent’s wish for their child to suffer is a worthy parenting goal?’

You can help your friend by reminding them that there are other rituals that can allow them to honor the life of their parent—visiting the burial site, lighting a candle at their place of worship, prayer, donations of time or money to a worthy cause in honor of their parent. Using artistic, creative expression in paint, music, or writing in honor of the parent.

SHE SHOULD HAVE TREATED ME BETTER:

This thought, a variant on 'she should have been nicer or fairer to me' can also cause unnecessary upset when held onto in a rigid fashion. When your friend holds this belief they are essentially saying, 'My mom should have been a different person than who she was. She should have behaved differently. She should have apologized and made true amends to me.  Because she acted unfairly she was an awful, terrible human being.'  The usual result of this is deep resentment, anger, rage. In this maelstrom of emotions, people can act out, behave compulsively with substances, food, sex.

If your friend is holding a grudge against their deceased parent, it’s a tough situation. They may have genuine, legitimate reasons to feel mistreated or abused. In these situations, its not always the death of the parent but the death of the possibility of reconciliation, of rapprochement and apology from the offending parent. The possibility has died along with the person.  

At these times, its important to help your friend separate the poor behavior of the parent from your friends own self-worth, self-evaluation. Often when a parent mistreats a child, the child secretly harbors the idea that the parent didn’t find the child worthy of respect, and by extension, that the child was not actually valuable. They may internalize this as a belief that they are of low value.  Otherwise, why would a sane parent mistreat them?

Well, the reason people mistreat others is often due to irrational thoughts and beliefs and sometimes, organic brain dysfunction. Even if the parent did in fact judge their child as unworthy of love, as a low-value human being, it is not an actual reflection of real value. It is a direct result of the parent’s distorted thoughts and resulting negative actions. Helping your friend to see that their parent suffered from thinking problems may take some of the sting out of the friend’s belief that their parent willfully and rationally decided to mistreat them.

A rational parent acts in a manner that will best assist their child in functioning in the real world; a manner that helps that child succeed in work, love and play. Any behavior that puts the future welfare of the child at risk is irrational, i.e. the result of distorted thoughts and subsequent irrational behaviors.

Letting your friend know that their perceptions of mistreatment may in fact be accurate and supporting the idea that it would have been better had these things not happened goes a long way to salving that wound.  But agreeing that someone is evil and worthless and worthy of hatred may not assist your friend in moving forward. So, strive to be empathic without demeaning or awfulizing their deceased parent as a human being.

THIS WORLD IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO LIVE IN:

Finally, your friend may look at the death of their parent as proof that the world is an awful, terrible place to live. They may feel their parent’s life was cut short, or that the parent didn’t get a fair shake in life. Or that your friend was shortchanged by the parent’s life and/or death.

It is true that life is often unfair and filled with difficulties. However, in our modern world, people often forget this fact and come to believe that life should in fact be easy. It was not long ago, however, that people’s lives were significantly harder, and the thought of hardship was not foreign to many.

Electricity, indoor plumbing, electronic communication, medical advances, transportation—all these areas have become incredibly less difficult in a very short period of human history. Before recent times, many people died young, had difficult occupations, unsanitary living conditions and often uncomfortable life situations.  Yet the modern man-made advances have made life so much more comfortable that now ‘ease and comfort’  are assumed to be the way life SHOULD be—easy, convenient, no muss-no fuss. But these standards of living are quite recent and obfuscate the fact that in other respects life can in fact be challenging and difficult.

As a friend, simply acknowledging that ‘yes, life is difficult and no, it’s not always easy’ can help to soothe the suffering of a friend who has lost their mother.  Life is both sweet and bitter. One cannot exist without the other.

SECONDARY SHAME:

Last but not least, your friend may be secondarily shaming themselves for having the emotional reactions they have. People can shame themselves for:

• Feeling too much
• Not feeling enough
• Feeling angry
• Feeling scared
• Feeling sad
• Feeling happy or relieved

Help your friend by letting them know ‘there is no perfect or correct way’ to react to loss.  Some people feel numb, some people feel highly emotional and yes, some feel a strange sense of relief—their parent may have been suffering or their parent may have been highly critical and demanding. Either way, non-judgmental support is what your friend needs right now.

So, this Mother’s Day, if you know someone who is thinking about their mother who has passed on, reach out and offer your compassion, your time and your friendship.  And don’t be afraid to offer lots of hugs.  The human touch is powerful and transformative.

Happy Mother’s Day to All

  

Ross Grossman, MA, LMFT

www.affinitytherapyservices.com