Suggestions for cheering up my best friend. (more inside)

October 31, 2007 12:03 PM

What are some little things I can do to help and cheer my wife up after the death of a close relative/friend of hers?

My wife's grandmother passed away this last Saturday, and we had the funeral yesterday... they had a very close friendship and saw each other 2-3 times a week. My wife and I have been together for around 10 years, she is incredibly funny, active, and caring all the time. Since this weekend I have been able to take her to dinner and get her out of the house and that seemed to help quite a bit for the time we were out. What are some little things I can do to help and cheer my wife up after the death of a close relative and friend of hers? Is there anything someone has done for you in the past that really made your day?

posted by Mardigan to human relations (18 comments total)

I don't know if "making someone's day" is exactly what you're looking for, but it seems like you've been doing a pretty good job of keeping her otherwise occupied, which is probably the best you can hope for this early on.

Also, depending on your religious beliefs, maybe if she says something or does something you think her grandmother would do or would be proud of, let her know that.
posted by Grither at 12:11 PM on October 31, 2007

Well I would like to make her day of course, and we have a wonderful daughter that keeps us both busy (1 1/2 year old). I was looking for a few small things to do to help out or show I care "above and beyond" in her time of need. Are flowers really appropriate? Should I be trying to coax her out of the house more? Some man made dinners?
posted by Mardigan at 12:21 PM on October 31, 2007

I find that attempts to distract me from something I'm sad about just make me feel isolated and alone; the well-meaning person trying to help clearly doesn't understand. If it were me, I'd want to feel understood before I could move on. I'd want to be able to tell you about grandma, have you understand what she meant to me, and ultimately for you to be able to celebrate her with me.

My wife's grandmother died a couple years ago. While on vacation this summer we stopped at a restaurant north of Detroit where the fam used to go, and we consumed a giant memorial bacon sandwich.
posted by jon1270 at 12:21 PM on October 31, 2007

is incredibly funny, active, and caring all the time

I think that very quietly whispered in her ear at the right moment will do.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:26 PM on October 31, 2007

Let her mourn appropriately.
posted by konolia at 12:27 PM on October 31, 2007

yeah, let her grieve for a while. if she's still moping after a couple of weeks, then it's time to intervene. you don't have to walk on eggshells, just be understanding and gentle.
posted by thinkingwoman at 12:29 PM on October 31, 2007

It's normal and healthy to be down in the dumps after an event like that. Don't interfere with it unless it becomes pathological, which doesn't sound likely.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:35 PM on October 31, 2007

Agreeing with everyone else. One of the hardest things to deal with when people are grieving is the insistence from everyone around them that they "cheer up" and get over it. It can be hard to deal with someone who's grieving and wanting to make them feel better is, of course, a natural and laudable impulse, but just make sure that you're not pressuring her to put on a happy face just to make you feel better.

Maybe just ask her what you can do to help? I'd suspect that doing things that help her without requiring her to show appreciation immediately might be good -- taking care of feeding your daughter so that your wife doesn't have to worry about it, for instance, rather than making your wife a dinner at which you're expecting her to act happy and "better." Or cooking soup or stew or something else that can sit there for a while so that she can eat it when she's hungry, again without the expectation that she has to perform gratitude or happiness for you over the dinner table.

But it may also be the case that your wife is finding comfort in certain routines and would be upset if you just took them over without checking with her, so I think checking with her first would be important.
posted by occhiblu at 12:39 PM on October 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Just be there for her, in whatever form SHE needs. Don't let your completely understandable and laudable desire to cheer your wife up get in the way.

I don't mean this to sound as snarky as it'll probably read, but this time in your wife's life is about her, not about you. She will tell you (through her actions, her body language, or her direct words) what it is she needs; don't force things in an attempt to "do the right thing". There's no timetable for grief. Just be a good husband, and the rest will follow.
posted by pdb at 12:40 PM on October 31, 2007

My own quite wonderful grandmother died recently.

Don't 'coax her out of the house' or anything like that; as others have said, just let her grieve. 'Let me know if you'd like to go out to (favourite restaurant)' is fine, but just jump to 'I could pick up a bottle of wine for dinner here' if the answer is no.

Flowers don't really go amiss; Mr Kmennie brought some home when I was grieving and I thought that was great. And making dinner is not a bad idea. You don't have to scrub the house down, but don't make any extra mess or irritation. Let her sob on you at inconvenient times, and don't tell her to stop sobbing. (Do not make the mistake of asking "What are you crying about?" for some time yet.) It is very early to expect to cheer her up, and any direct (or sometimes even subtle) "cheer up" machinations are kind of an insult to one's feelings.

I assume you knew the deceased reasonably well, too; do tell your wife what you liked about her grandma.
posted by kmennie at 1:16 PM on October 31, 2007

Here's something you can do.

This will probably be very difficult for you, and you will be tempted to do something else instead...

Listen to her when she's feeling sad, let her talk as much as she wants to about her grandmother, let her cry if she wants to cry and laugh if she wants to laugh. If you have a shared memory of something to do with the grandmother, bring it up when she's talking about the day you were all at the beach or wherever. This is something that will need to be done repeatedly for some time, but probably less and less often as time goes on.

The hard part about this is that you will be continually tempted to try to "fix" her sad feelings, and get her to act in a cheery way. Do nice things for her, but don't do them with an expectation that she should behave in a "cheered up" way when you do them. She will appreciate them all the same, even if she does not show this the same way she usually does.

Rereading your question, I see you have asked for little things to do, and what I've suggested is really a big thing made up of little moments day in and day out. Some little things you could do would be to buy her a gift certificate for a massage, day spa, or the like. Make her some gift certificates that say "redeem for husband to do (chore she usually does)", or some other things that she might usually prefer to do herself, but sometimes just like a break from.
posted by yohko at 1:39 PM on October 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

++yohko

Let the grieving process take it's course and understand that she will start crying for (what seems to you) no reason. You don't have to comfort her in those times, or even say anything. I know my wife appreciated that I wasn't always trying to fix things.
posted by trinity8-director at 2:47 PM on October 31, 2007

Skip the cheering up part, and just be there for her. Talk to her about her grandmother, and listen a lot. She'll cheer up later, but she needs to mourn and she needs to feel she has mourned fully. Let her.
posted by kenzi23 at 3:00 PM on October 31, 2007

You can't cheer her up, you can distract her, you can be supportive, the cheering up comes from within as one works past grief, and artificially ignoring the grief is not necessarily good. Just be there and plan a few distracting things but don't be disappointed if she isn't a barrel of laughs while doing the distracting things.
posted by caddis at 3:04 PM on October 31, 2007

Let her talk about her grandma. Maybe go through family photos with her and let her tell you about what the pictures represent to her, the memories they invoke, even if you've heard the same stories many times before.
posted by essexjan at 3:08 PM on October 31, 2007

Please be careful. My grandmother was one of the very most important people in my life, and just a week after she died, my then-husband (angrily) asked why I was crying still. I left him about six months later.

Grief needs to happen at its own pace. There are comforting things you can do while it's taking its course, and you've been given some wonderful ideas.
posted by vers at 3:55 PM on October 31, 2007

I agree with everyone else...I think the most comforting thing you could do would be hold her and listen to her. It probably doesn't seem like much to you, but it'll probably be extremely important to her.
posted by christinetheslp at 6:10 PM on October 31, 2007

When a close family friend passed away this summer, I was surprised by how depressed it made me. I wasn't just blue or grieving, I was also just sort of exhausted and had the blahs a lot. Sometimes I enjoyed just doing something that took my mind off my missing friend, but sometimes I just liked to wallow in it. I wanted to talk about her, complain about her, remember things about her and whatnot. A lot of times doing this sort of thing would cheer me up because I didn't feel so much like she was gone forever. So, as I was easing in to the idea of her not being in my life anymore, there was a sense in which talking about her was also keeping her with me.

And, let me restate, I was EXHAUSTED which meant that another way to cheer me up was to do all the stupid stuff that suddenly seemed unmanageable. Someone bringing over dinner or taking out the trash or helping me carry something that was heavy or doing the laundry or inviting me over. Just knowing that among my good friends I could spend time with them even feeling like I was a bit of dead weight (not cheery, not particularly charming or energetic) and they were cool with that, cool with me and weren't going anywhere. Obviously this dynamic shifts some if you're married and clearly not going anywhere, but letting her know that she's awesome even when she's not feeling awesome as people have suggested, is a grand idea.

Also, I'm not sure what family dynamics are like with you guys and your families, but if she's close to hers, be encouraging for her to be with them, talk to them or communicate with them. I spent a lot of time talking to my sister this summer, more than usual really, and I felt that it was good for my mood. I don't think I'd call it cheering up particuarly, but it definitely helped.
posted by jessamyn at 9:29 PM on October 31, 2007 [1 favorite]