David Kessler

Grief must be witnessed.

And so our work, the harder work, is to say, what's it like to sit across from that empty chair, mom?

Tell me what that feels like tonight.

Talk to me about it.

And here's the thing.

or anyone supporting anyone in grief, what they say is going to make you uncomfortable and you're going to want to fix them.

I'm a fixer.

Mel, give me three problems, I got solutions.

I get to grief and there's no fixing because no one's broken.

And it's really important, this idea of just sitting with them.

I just got back from Australia and I was talking to a researcher who told me she goes to these small villages and in the village, the night someone dies, everyone in the village has to change something in their house or in their yard.

And the researcher said, why do you do that?

And they said, because when the family wakes up the next morning, we want them to know now that your loved one has died, everything has changed.

That's witnessing grief.

Now that your spouse, your parent, your sibling, your child, your friend has died, all of us get everything's changed.

And people say to me so many times,

I just want mom back.

I just want my friend back.

I want dad back.

And I say, they'd love to be that person they were before also.