Oatmeal, slow responses, and the nature of Sympathy
While making my cholesterol-reducing oatmeal this morning,
I watched with surprise as a drop of boiling water left
unexpectedly on the rim of the bowl boiled/cooked a blister into
my hand. I was considering bowl design flaws when I should
have been running cold water over the spot to avoid injury.
Later as we passed in getting ready for work, I shared with my
Wife that I had an industrial accident to report, to whit that
I had managed to badly burn my hand and stare at it rather than
correct it before my hand finished cooking. "Well," she replied,
"that's not an industrial accident; an accident is when equipment
is damaged. What you had was more of an industrial incident."
This did not reduce the pain of my blister, but it did bring
on light reflections on the nature of sympathy.
When other people found out that I had Cancer, they often would
Share with me stories of anyone else that they knew that had cancer.
I did not find this very helpful.
When my Wife first found out she had a condition, I went out to the
net to study that condition. One helpful list I found was the
top 10 things not to say to someone with that condition. In this
case, one of the top 10 things not to say was
"At least you have [this condition], and not Cancer".
After our son died, EVERYONE would ask, "How are you?"
I developed a fairly obvious reply, "It's a tragedy, and we're sad."
Later I studied the word tragedy, and decided it was actually a calamity and not a tragedy.
So then I would explain, "Well, we're very sad, and shocked, but we're doing the best we can."
I still found myself asking his friends, "How are you?"
When one asked me how she might tell how she was, I suggested that if she felt like hurting
herself, that would be bad, but otherwise she was ok.
I still feel guilty if people casually ask "How are you?" and I forget and say I'm good.
I do have moments where I feel good. I also tend to cry every day.
During one phone conversation with someone who did not know our son had died,
I replied to "How are you?" with "good"; she joked, "I'm not convinced! You don't SOUND
like you feel good!?" I told her "Sorry, but I'm not trying to convince you." We moved
on to other topics.
Another person tried to get me to understand how frustrating and sad it was that he
had not been notified personally about when my son's funeral was.
The best sympathy statement to me is, "I am so sorry that happened to you."
I watched with surprise as a drop of boiling water left
unexpectedly on the rim of the bowl boiled/cooked a blister into
my hand. I was considering bowl design flaws when I should
have been running cold water over the spot to avoid injury.
Later as we passed in getting ready for work, I shared with my
Wife that I had an industrial accident to report, to whit that
I had managed to badly burn my hand and stare at it rather than
correct it before my hand finished cooking. "Well," she replied,
"that's not an industrial accident; an accident is when equipment
is damaged. What you had was more of an industrial incident."
This did not reduce the pain of my blister, but it did bring
on light reflections on the nature of sympathy.
When other people found out that I had Cancer, they often would
Share with me stories of anyone else that they knew that had cancer.
I did not find this very helpful.
When my Wife first found out she had a condition, I went out to the
net to study that condition. One helpful list I found was the
top 10 things not to say to someone with that condition. In this
case, one of the top 10 things not to say was
"At least you have [this condition], and not Cancer".
After our son died, EVERYONE would ask, "How are you?"
I developed a fairly obvious reply, "It's a tragedy, and we're sad."
Later I studied the word tragedy, and decided it was actually a calamity and not a tragedy.
So then I would explain, "Well, we're very sad, and shocked, but we're doing the best we can."
I still found myself asking his friends, "How are you?"
When one asked me how she might tell how she was, I suggested that if she felt like hurting
herself, that would be bad, but otherwise she was ok.
I still feel guilty if people casually ask "How are you?" and I forget and say I'm good.
I do have moments where I feel good. I also tend to cry every day.
During one phone conversation with someone who did not know our son had died,
I replied to "How are you?" with "good"; she joked, "I'm not convinced! You don't SOUND
like you feel good!?" I told her "Sorry, but I'm not trying to convince you." We moved
on to other topics.
Another person tried to get me to understand how frustrating and sad it was that he
had not been notified personally about when my son's funeral was.
The best sympathy statement to me is, "I am so sorry that happened to you."