Skip to main content

Verified by Psychology Today

Grief

How to Show Up for Grievers of the LA Fires

Grief over the LA fires: The sorrow is profound, and our support should be too.

Key points

  • Grief over the loss of homes, communities, memories, and possessions is powerful.
  • We shouldn't try to "cheer up" grievers or tell them we can't imagine what they're feeling.
  • Take your cues from the griever as to what would be most helpful.

While I sit in Boston watching the news out of Los Angeles, talking to my friends on the West Coast, refreshing my social feeds to see who I know who’s been personally affected by the fires, the word I hear most frequently is “grief,” not only for the tragic loss of lives, but also for the thousands who have lost their homes.

As I mourn the death of my teenage daughter, it took me more than a minute to get on board with the notion that the loss of a home is grief-worthy. Sad? Of course. Devastating? For sure. But something to grieve over? Actually, yes.

We know that grief isn’t a contest. We can grieve the loss of a 98-year-old grandmother and a beloved pet and a teenage daughter without having to determine which loss is most profound. And we can also, and by all means should, grieve the loss of a home, a neighborhood, a community.

The word “bereave” comes from the Old English bereafian, meaning "to deprive of, take away by violence, seize, rob"

Isn’t that exactly what the Los Angeles fires have done?

They’ve deprived thousands of people of their senses of safety and security. They’ve violently taken away people’s homes and possessions. They’ve seized memories and robbed so many Californians not only of their livelihoods but also their day-to-day lives.

If all that isn’t worthy of grieving, I’m not sure what is.

So what can we learn from how we talk to people about the loss of their loved ones that can be applied to this horrific, apocalyptic destruction? What can those of us who sit thousands of miles away, safe from even the smoke in the air or the glow in the horizon do? Equally important, what should we not do?

Don’t “at least” those suffering

Saying things like “at least you have your health,” or “at least you’re safe,” isn’t helpful. For one thing, people whose homes and lives burned to the ground don’t actually feel safe.

And even though victims might acknowledge that they’re grateful they’re physically OK, pointing that out for them can feel like you’re minimizing their complicated losses. It’s like saying “look on the bright side,” an attempt to cheer them up, and cheerleading isn’t what a griever needs.

Don’t say “I can’t imagine”

Of course you can. In fact, you probably have been imagining what it might feel like to have every photograph, every piece of clothing, every book and blanket, gone. Your grandmother’s candlesticks, your child’s early scribbles, gone. The kitchen table where you ate dinner and played Scrabble and did homework together, gone. Your livelihood, gone.

It’s what the poet Anne Bradstreet so beautifully described all the way back in 1666 in "Verses Upon the Burning of our House”:

And here and there the places spy

Where oft I sat and long did lie.

Here stood that trunk, and there that chest,

There lay that store I counted best.

My pleasant things in ashes lie

And them behold no more shall I.

Under thy roof no guest shall sit,

Nor at thy table eat a bit.

Imagine that. And then imagine that the neighbors and local businesses and places of worship that would typically jump in to help a family whose house burned down have also lost everything.

Don’t tell people to “let you know if there’s anything you can do"

They’ve got enough going on right now without trying to figure out what you can do.

The good news, forgive the expression, is that there’s no shortage of ways to help victims of the fires. A quick Google search provides dozens of ideas. You can donate money, clothing, gift cards, or services. And it takes just a minute to find out where and how.

And if you know people personally who have been affected, you can listen and validate their grief. In this case, that’s particularly useful if you’re geographically removed. This is a communal loss, and people going through it might not want to put their sorrow on someone else who has their own losses to contend with.

Take your cues from the griever

Many of us are most comfortable in problem-solving mode, and there are a lot of problems to be solved right now. But if your friend isn’t ready for problem solving—if she wants to cry and yell and then cry again, be there for that, too.

Unlike after the death of a loved one, your friend will most likely rebuild and move on over time. She’ll have a new house, a new coffee shop, a new route for her morning walk—maybe even in the same location where the old ones were. But that doesn’t mean the trauma of what happened will disappear or the fear that it might happen again will subside.

When the fires are put out and the ashes swept away, people will remember not only all the things they lost, but also how others showed up for them. There will be sweet memories of how people responded sprinkled in with the sorrow. Our actions today will become part of how their stories are written over time. Stories that will include tragedy, but also the resilience and human spirit that couldn’t be extinguished.

advertisement
More from Jessica Fein
More from Psychology Today