6. EMPATHY | So often when someone experiences the death of a baby or child, family and loved ones fail miserably at empathy because they try to fix what has happened. They usually do this because they either love you so much or just can’t deal with it themselves so they say things like “God needed another angel. It was probably for the best. At least, blah blah blah” They are desperate to show you a silver lining when there really isn’t one. As we know these kinds of words rarely ever help, in fact they more often than not make us feel even worse. So today you are invited to educate people on the art of empathy. We don’t need to turn this into a vent about what not to say, but rather, what to say and what they can do that will actually comfort the grieving. What does empathy look like for you?
I guess the biggest thing I would like people to know about empathy, is you cannot be empathetic, unless you put yourself in that other person's shoes. You have to picture the tragedy happening to yourself, and to your loved ones.
It's often so easy for well-meaning people to tell a friend, "leave him, you deserve better" regarding their husband/boyfriend/friend with benefits, etc. It's so easy to do that, because they're only looking at it from a logical viewpoint. They look at their friends partner, not feeling the love that their friend feels, and they can confidently say "I would leave if I were you". Well of course you could leave this person that you do not really know or love.
People who are jerks and show their true colors in the very beginning, are often broken up with right away, or do not get a second date, because then you CAN use logic and say, this person isn't for me. But once you've built a life together, and deep feelings are involved, you have assets together, your family is their family and vice versa, and especially when you have kids together, it becomes so much harder. For someone to truly empathize with their friend about their doomed relationship, they have to be able to think of their own relationship, and imagine trying to leave this person they love and want to spend forever with, and to realize that all that love doesn't go out the window because of the bad issues.
It's the same thing with pregnancy and infant loss. Except people do not want to put themselves in the other person's shoes, because it is terrifying. The worst possible loss one can experience is the death of a child, and no one wants to imagine that. They look at this person that just had a miscarriage....they were just told of the good news one day out of the blue. They may not know about all of the months or years that couple endured, trying to get pregnant. All of the doctor appointments, all of the time waiting, hoping, and praying. So to them, they figure well, you were pregnant once, you can get pregnant again. They weren't in love with this person's unborn baby, they didn't feel their kicks, and dream of their future.
Even in the case of a tragedy that is widely known, like the little boy who was killed by the alligator at Disney World. It's been about 4 months, even people who were very empathetic at the time, probably think life is getting on for that family now. They've had time to grieve, they've had time to accept it. But they don't see the heartache, the days they cannot get out of bed. They are not picturing how they would feel if it was THEIR child who was killed in such a horrific terrifying way. They are trying to place emotion on a child they did not know, a child they did not love. It's easy to think the family is moving forward and feeling better these days, when the shock and tragic feelings wear off about this little boy we didn't know. But picture that it was your child who was so innocently playing on the beach. Picture that it was your family, who had to get on the plane and leave what was supposed to be a magical vacation, without one of your children. The picture becomes so much more clear.
But people don't want to do that, they don't even want to imagine it because it is too sad and too terrible. Well if you cannot even imagine it, then think about how horrible it is for the family whose living this reality. They say to really understand what a person is going through, you have to experience it for yourself. That is probably true to a degree, but I don't believe that entirely. I've never lost a living, breathing, walking, talking child. But even the slight imagination of losing Emily right now, and not seeing her beautiful, giggling, sweet face every day is so horrible I have to shake my head and let the image "fall out of my brain". So you can imagine the loss a person has experienced even if you haven't been through it, it's just that most people do not want to.
I found that most of the people that had the type of advice like it's for the best, everything happens for a reason, it was God's will....had children of their own. So it was always so baffling to me that they couldn't stop for one second, think back to when they were pregnant with their children, and try to imagine being told that you would deliver 18 weeks early and your baby won't survive. And I know they didn't do that, because if they did, even for one second, nobody would even think of giving that kind of advice.
Like they say, it's easy to say God needed another angel, when He didn't ask for one of yours.
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