The headlines of the past few weeks remind us how incredibly fast someone we know can suffer a horrific and painful loss. Mother Nature in the form of Hurricane Debbie and the Colorado wildfires wreaked devastation on innumerable families. Those events have more recently been compounded by mass shootings in Tuscaloosa, AL and Aurora, CO.
How should we respond when someone suffers the loss of a home or a family member?
Most certainly we should not respond with platitudes. To flippantly tell someone looking at the charred embers that once had been a home, “Oh, you can rebuild in no time,” is cruel. Telling a parent, who has just lost their child, that certainly he or she “is in a far better place,” reflects an utter lack of understanding of the depth of a parent’s pain.
After tragedies like these, any one of us may not be able to truly console the person who has suffered a loss. However, when you're starting work, remember you can always tell a fellow employee that we are always willing and able to listen. Then, we owe it to our fellow human beings to do just that.
