Lessons for the living

Author offers advice on what to do when friend loses loved one

In this story: Honesty and sympathy About those football tickets ... The ultimate demographic RELATED SITES

By Todd Leopold
CNN Interactive Books Editor

(CNN) -- For those losing a loved one, death is a terrible blow. But what can make it doubly painful is the reaction of friends. Some act like nothing has happened. Others make awkward jokes, attempting to lighten the mood. And still others, acting with unspeakable brashness, actually ask for the deceased's belongings.

Which is why Lynn Kelly called her book "Don't Ask for the Dead Man's Golf Clubs." The book, published by Workman, is a how-to guide for helping friends in their time of loss told through the stories of people who have been through the experience.

Kelly is no stranger to death herself -- she was widowed at age 34 -- but she wrote the book, Kelly says, after a friend died in an auto accident. Others sought her out, wondering what they should do. She looked for books on the subject intended for friends of the bereaved, but came up with nothing.

"There is so much fear in doing the wrong thing, so many people don't do anything," she says. "Then it seems like we don't care, and for the bereaved, it hurts. Sometimes we don't realize how much we rely on friends. For many of us, families live far away, so we're all in the same boat."

She decided to write her own book, asking for stories from people she knew. They told people they knew, and suddenly Kelly was getting inundated with letters.

"I asked them two questions," she says. "What did friends do that helped, and what did friends do that did not help?"

She was surprised, she says, about how much people agreed on the basics: Express sympathy. Listen. Include the family. And be honest -- if you don't know what to say, then say that.

She was equally surprised to find out what people did not know. Some people were told it wasn't good to cry with the bereaved; others thought it wasn't polite to laugh with them.

Kelly says the approach depends on the bereaved, but it never hurts to express emotion.

"As a friend, if you tell me a happy story about my loved one, that's a gift you give me," she says. "Sometimes laughter is the only thing that gets you past the lump in your throat."

She also found tales of simple acts of kindness. Indeed, many religious customs are a blessing to people in grief, Kelly says.

But often the simple act of being there was all the bereaved needed.

"If they had not been there, I think I would have felt like I had lost my friends," said Fannie Booker of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who lost her husband to pneumonia.

"I was 13 and I was almost overjoyed to see my friends at my mother's wake. I didn't think any of them cared," recalled Scott Chojnowski of Rocky River, Ohio.

The most surprising part of the book is the chapter titled "What Not to Do," a compendium of stories that would be funny if they weren't so sad.

The father of Sarah Williams, a Scottsbluff, Nebraska, woman, had four tickets on the 45-yard line for the University of Nebraska's football games. "He used to say he wouldn't be cold before somebody would ask for those tickets," Williams recalled. "His funeral was on Wednesday, and that afternoon the phone rang and a guy said, 'I'm sorry about your dad. By the way, what are you girls going to do with those football tickets?' "

Then there was Marge Lee of Long Island, New York, who lost a son to a drunk driver. "One person said, 'At least you have four other children,' " she said. "What? Like I had a litter and I gave one away?"

"People who have lost a loved one can relate," says Kelly, who notes that the title question is a particularly common faux pas. Another, she adds, is the standard "I know how you feel."

"It's a unique experience," she says. "Just because I lost somebody doesn't mean I know how everybody feels."

The lighthearted title, Kelly admits, may belie the book's message, and that's by design.

"It makes you chuckle, hopefully. It helps you read a book that's about death. ... I thought it should be as friendly as possible."

However hard the topic is to discuss, she adds, "it's the ultimate demographic. We're all going to die."

Friends' support can only make a trying time easier. "As a friend, your job is not to judge but to support," Kelly says. "Healing is a long, slow process, and you need to be there with a shoulder (to lean on) during that time."

Even if you have nothing to say? Even if you think you have nothing to offer?

Absolutely, Kelly says.

"If you're a friend, it doesn't matter what faith you are, how much money you have, or where you live," she says. "It hits us all the same way. So you can treat people the same way you'd want them to treat you, regardless."

AARP: Coping with grief and loss
The Compassionate Friends
GriefNet
Center for Loss and Life Transition
Workman Publishing

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