After loss, it's always interesting who reaches out and who does not. This isn't a judgment call at all; some people just find it too difficult, while others are uncomfortable and don't know what to say. That's all valid. What's curious to me, though, are those who reach out months later and offer a battery of excuses of why they didn't contact us sooner.
How do we react to that?
I remember one person in particular emailed me a list of their own trials and tribulations that happened around the time that Bill died. And of course, it was all legit. But how should I have reacted? "I'm so sorry to hear all of this"? Offer to listen to them vent? I didn't know so I just replied "Don't worry about it," because (I think) the point of their email was to apologize for not reaching out and not to seek comfort from me. But then I felt guilty, like maybe I should be a better friend and offer to listen... but I just couldn't.
When someone is already maxxed emotionally, it's unreasonable to expect them to be the ones to listen. That's asking an awful lot. It's asking them absorb more emotional hardship while offering up what little solace they have left in reserves. Think about it: We wouldn't asked someone starving to death to offer up their last bit of food to someone who was just peckish, would we? It's sort of the same thing.
Profound grief can feel like an abyss and it requires every bit of emotional reserves to pull out of it. It's reasonable to conserve it for ourselves in times of extreme hardship. It's not selfish at all - it's simply providing ourselves with whatever we have to be able to survive. Like the oxygen on airplanes in the event of an emergency, how can we attend to others if we can't even breathe?
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