A Comment from a Subscriber on What to Say to Someone When You Don’t Know What to Say

I'm happy to see you.
I’m happy to see you.

A subscriber sent in the following comment which reinforces last week’s Reminder: “When my husband passed, and I was getting out of the house again, the kind of greetings that undid me were ‘how are you doing?’ Or, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ I was trying to keep it together and it just opened the wound in a public setting and was not appreciated. ‘Happy to see you,’ ‘you look well’ or ‘I’ve missed you,’ are so much better.” The lesson here is that when people have gone through a tough time and are trying to move forward with their lives, they don’t want to be reminded of that tough time they’ve just been through. Comments like, “I’m sorry for your loss,” do just that. On the other hand, these same people want to know that you care about them. Comments like, “I’m happy to see you,” communicate this very well.

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