I have carried a couple of buckets with me for the last twenty years. They are my props when I am talking about what helps people with their grief. I ask someone to hold one of the buckets and tell them to imagine they have just lost a loved one.

The bucket represents their feelings and I asked them to express what feelings they think would be in their bucket. I ask the audience to join in and words like pain, fear, grief, loneliness, empty, anger, guilt and sometimes relief emerge.

I then ask what thoughts would be going through their minds and such phrases as: Can I stand this pain? Who will take care of me now? How much will the funeral cost? What do I need to do now? What is expected of me?

Then I ask what frustrations would be in the bucket and get a large variety of responses. What I am trying to portray is that people in grief are overwhelmed emotionally, mentally, physically and even socially.

Then I produce the second bucket and say, “I also have a bucket. It is full of explanations, platitudes, new ways to think, and scriptures to quote. These are designed to make you feel better and they are all I know how to do.” Then I say the problem is your bucket is full to overflowing. There is no room for what I have to say, and my words run off like water no matter how wonderful they sound. I also say, “I am afraid of your bucket. I don’t know what to say and the intimacy scares me, so I say, ‘I am sorry’ and run.”

I was asked to speak about guilt and anger in grief at a conference for grieving parents. I asked them to tell me what they felt guilty about and many did so. One lady said, “All the way to the hospital my son begged me to turn back. He did not want the transplant, he was afraid. I did not turn back, and he died.”
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I asked her how many times she had heard such things as:

​And she stopped me by saying those did not help and “that last one makes me angry.” Then I asked if it would help if I offered to hug her and said, “That must really hurt?” and she said that would help.

Now why would that help? Because I am acknowledging her pain and not trivializing it. That feels like I am in her bucket with her, and she is not alone. I learned some valuable lessons that day that I would like to share, and think are vitally important to know right now.

We are totally surrounded and enmeshed in a world of full buckets. At this writing more than 50,000 people have died of the virus sweeping our nation [editor’s note: at time of reprint, more than 950,000 people have died in the US alone]. That number must be added to the number of folks that have died of other causes during this time. Add to the buckets of pain the fact that all of those who died in a hospital or healthcare facility died alone with no family or friends to comfort… adding guilt, regret, anger, and a much harder grieving experience to their pain. Many families will not even be able to have the comfort of a funeral or even the chance to see their loved one after they have died.

Add to that the buckets of grief from lost jobs, shattered careers, financial distress, marital strain, children out of school, fears about everything from food shortages to an actual depression and every neighborhood in our world has folks with full buckets.

The great need right now is for us to figure out how to help our friends, loved ones and neighbors empty their buckets. We don’t have to be some kind of professional to be of help. We just need to know how to listen. We need to understand and believe in the awesome power of the listening ear. Maybe sharing what I learned that day, and the fifty years I have spent trying to listen, will be of help.

It never begins in our bucket. We have nothing in our buckets that will empty theirs. There are no magic words or phrases that will heal. Buckets are only being emptied when the one holding it is doing the talking. As they talk, they are bleeding off the feelings and emotions that are flooding their minds and hearts.

This means we do not have to worry about what to say or fear saying the wrong thing. They need to tell their story and be understood. There is power in that word. The longer I study the impact it can make the more impressed I am. Basically we all just want to be understood. All of us have things going on inside of us we would give anything to be able to put into words and have them accepted and understood by some significant person.

Sounds strange and certainly different from how we normally approach helping someone in grief or pain. We want to play it down and take their minds off of the pain. They desperately need to say it, and have it understood.
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To me the key word in grief is significance. When bad things happen to us the first thing we need and want to do is establish the significance of the event. A child with even a slight bruise wants a band-aid and then shows off their boo-boo to everyone they can find. After everyone has seen it, the band-aid can come off. That is human nature. That is establishing significance. If they can establish the significance of what has happened, they can begin to move on. I think folks who seem to park and never get past a grief or trauma were never able to get their pain and loss heard and understood.

I know this sounds simplistic but there are more stories needing to be told right now than any time in recent history. We need listening ears and caring hearts to follow three simple words that begin with “H”:

HANG AROUND
Trust presence. If you are there you have been a help. If you can’t be there physically, then phone calls, Facetime, or other virtual presence is still presence.

HUG THEM
Trust touch. If appropriate, a hug is worth a thousand words. A hand held can do the same. At this time, we may have to rely on virtual hugs.

HUSH
Trust silence. We really don’t have to fix it or even have an answer. Just lay ears on them.

I have opened a new email address to offer help to any who needs help in listening or anyone who can’t find a place to tell their story. It will be there until I can no longer keep up. Please know that I don’t see well so write it large and as short as possible. Thank you. My email address is [email protected] and my ears are open.

This post reprinted with permission from a post of the same name in the Rumblings and Musings of InSight Books. Knowing what to say to a grieving family is difficult for everyone. Read on and learn more about their resources and trainings to better support your families and honor their loved ones.

Join us in congratulating Doug Manning’s daughter Glenda Stansbury and all of the InSight family as Glenda is recognized with the Lasting Impact Award for her contributions to the profession from the ICCFA Education Foundation. We are grateful for all that Glenda has done for CANA, our members, and the profession for her caring heart and listening ear, acknowledging where we are and supporting us as we move forward.
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In 2011, Doug Manning was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from Foundation Partners Group. Last year, Glenda Stansbury was named Deathcare Rockstar of the Year and the InSight Institute was given the Experience Creation Award from Cremation Rocks!
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When the US economic crisis of 2008, forced individuals and families to become more budget-conscious. As a result, people got resourceful and creativity flourished, especially when it came to memorializing loved ones. In some cases, this meant the funeral director was cut out of the equation entirely or left on the outside looking in.
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I don't think it has to be that way. You can reposition your role and partner with these DIY people, these family members that want to work behind the scenes and bring additional value to their life tribute event.

I want you to think about the family members that you've sat across from who are the DIY consumer. I want you to think about yourself and your friends and family who have the DIY bug and think about the feeling when you complete a DIY project. It is that sense of satisfaction. It is happiness that you feel. The new Man Cave is the She Shed! It's where the DIY consumer gets the solitude, the focus, and the space to complete these projects. These projects that are an instant mood enhancer for them. And that's how these family members feel. This isn't just something that they do on a whim.

And the most famous DIY-ers? Martha Stewart has been around for decades. Chip and Joanna Gaines started with one home decor store and now they have their own television network. Ben and Erin Napier and the Property Brothers are part of the HGTV Family. Brit Morin is known as the digital Martha Stewart, and Tommy Walsh is one of the most well-known international DIY personalities.

And now, because of YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, we've seen the explosion of DIY bloggers all over the world. Some bloggers have their own sites or they use social media sites to reach out to potential DIY-ers. And it is their eagerness to provide video tutorials – step-by-step guides – to invite and encourage people to be a part of the DIY world. It is evident that the DIY world is expanding and here to stay.

Data shows that 50% of DIY consumers are female and 52% are between the ages of 24 and 44 – a mix of Gen X and Millennials. We know that DIY projects are directly tied to life changing events: a graduation, an engagement, getting married, having a baby, buying a home, and, we can add, the death of a family member. Every time there's a milestone or something big happening in their family, they have an event. They bring people together. They honor old family traditions. They start their new traditions, and it's not just about their immediate family, but they bring in their extended family and they also reach out to their large social circle of friends to be a part of those special moments.
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And, because of that, a life tribute event will most likely be the topic of conversation among many of the attendees. It will be the word-of-mouth marketing that funeral homes want! But—guess what? That funeral director will fade into the background and simply be seen as the person who provided the place and took care of the disposition.

Here are three ways to partner with those individuals to help you and your entire team avoid getting left out of the conversation when a DIY consumer appears in that arrangement conference.

SPEAK TO YOUR CREDIBILITY
The words “licensed funeral director” carried a lot of weight for many, many years. Then, we needed to say “licensed funeral director and cremation specialist.” Now we need to add a third line of credibility, and that is your “creative” credibility. That DIY consumer needs to hear, in the very beginning of that arrangement conference, that you are creative, that you're willing to explore ideas, and that you have resources to execute their vision.

BE THE IDEA GENERATOR
What I hear most from funeral directors is that they don't have the extra budget or the extra time to do the “wow” factor for a family. I understand that, so think of yourself as an idea generator instead. It builds your credibility. It says: We are creative. We want to help you. For example, "it was interesting to hear about your sister's involvement with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. I was thinking of a few different ways we could honor that part of her life."

KEEP RESOURCES HANDY
Have websites, magazines, and books available for your funeral directors to enable them as idea generators. Know the websites that consumers are going to directly. These are three from my extensive list of websites:
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beau-coup.com is a wedding and baby shower website (I forewarn you), but they have every possible keepsake, covering all different hobbies and interests, and can be personalized with shipping options to ensure items arrive in time for a tribute.

stylemepretty.com collects wedding ideas from all over the world to find out what brides are doing, what the trends are, and what resources that they're utilizing. If I was looking for tropical - Hindu - Jewish funeral ideas, I could go to Style Me Pretty to get some inspiration. And that's what you're going to find: a combination of cultures, hobbies and interests that bring it all together. And it's not just pictures: it is the resources and the vendors, too.

pinterest.com is ideal for free consumer research. Hop on and type in the search box “my funeral” or “mom's funeral” or “dad's funeral” and look at all the Pinterest boards that have those names. And these are just the public-facing samples! These are the ideas that people are collecting, that they're thinking about, so when the time comes, they go to their Pinterest board and see what they've collected over the past couple of years for a loved one or for themselves.

"When families participate, they remember. When they remember, they grieve. And when they grieve, they love." Remembering Well, by Sarah York
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That's the impact that you can have on these family members who want to have those DIY moments with other family members behind the scenes before that tribute takes place.