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Be Not Afraid GriefNot everyone is able to turn grief into an occasion forhealing. After losing their son, a couple I know droveseveral hours to meet another couple (I’ll call themthe Smiths) who had just lost a daughter in similarcircumstances, and took them out for lunch. Sadly, theSmiths were so paralyzed by their pain that they wereunable – unwilling, even – to see beyond it. Afraid thatthe other couple’s loss would be too much to carry ontop of their own, they did not even acknowledge theirhosts’ kindness, but gave them a cold shoulder.Someone who has not suffered the death of a lovedone might be tempted to write off a couple like theSmiths as self-centered. But that would be heartless.Deeply wounded people often spurn expressionsof sympathy that they would otherwise accept, andsometimes they may even take themselves by surprise.It is not our place to judge.In the same vein, it is presumptuous to offer quickexplanations. Writing of September 11, 2001, EllynSpragins notes that because of the public nature of thecatastrophes in New York and Washington, millionsacross the country, including people who live far away,grieved for the dead in the following weeks. “We’ve allprayed,” she writes in the New York Times; “we’vewept, learned the names of some of those who died,given blood, and sent money to charities…The sufferingof strangers has become a part of our own lives.” And18