One of my biggest peeves
About this stupid disease
Is when people don't know what to say
But they feel they must say something anyway.
I can only speculate as to why
The most frequent talk is about knowing someone who died
I guess it's an attempt to sympathize,
But in my eyes
It made it difficult to want to keep talking,
To shut myself out from that person,
Knowing well that it wasn't intended that way.
And then the situation worsens,
And they say they understand;
I wish they'd go away
Because my response used to be ill planned.
I'm guilty of becoming enraged at people who say "I'm sorry".
Perhaps you should consider adding "to hear that".
When I hear "I'm sorry" by itself, I take it as expression of guilt
Despite everything I know about good intentions.
Oh, that sucks, I lost the rhyme,
And I'm getting tired and running out of time.
But I really wanted to relay,
Be very careful what you say
When talking to a recently diagnosed friend
Because often this disease feels like it's the end.
There will be more on this later,
But for now I must rest.
I don't mean to sound like a hater,
Some of this has been stated in jest.
You make some very good points! Another is that, maybe in a different way, these conversations also affect those who are close to the person - spouses, parents, siblings, etc. It's the worse time to hear about someone having died due to cancer or any other disease. Just being there means so much to those affected. A warm hug or just sitting quietly with them means so much more than words!
ReplyDeleteThis is a ton of truth. By the way, it applies to many other situations as well.
ReplyDeleteSomebody who don't know what to say but then says something anyway just to break the silence, should hear that sometimes there are no words and that this is OK.
Somebody who feels bad about running out of words should hear that it isn’t bad but instead at times the most reasonable thing to happen.