We Need Tender Words For Tragic Situations

Dear Gloria and Heidi,

I am a new listener. I found your website and heard your first show a few weeks ago. It looks like you are doing mportant work.

Unfortunately, in the only interview I have heard (with your guest Rosemary Smith), I was hurt to hear the way you spoke of a tragic situation in which a family lost four children. Gloria said, “the son got on drugs and went berserk and shot them”. The choice of words and the way they were delivered sounded like the level of compassion that might be demonstrated by a 15-year-old boy talking to a room full of other 15-year-old boys.

I know it must be difficult to be on live radio and to monitor everything that you say, but I think there might have been a more compassionate, benevolent way to describe the tragedy, especially since you were the one who jumped in and expanded upon Mrs. Smith’s otherwise benign statement that she knows a family who lost 4 children. Your guest, Mrs. Smith, even felt the need to interrupt your explanation and defend the family and their son.
The whole thing felt very awkward to me.

I have lost a child, and by the grace of God, it was not because of drugs or violence or alcohol or suicide or anything that could be judged by others as “inappropriate”. However, for those families who have lost children to those situations, the hurt and the loss can’t be any less — they have still lost their precious children .Those families probably feel even more isolated than the rest of us because of the stigmas associated with the deaths, and to hear you describe Mrs. Smith’s friends’ tremendous losses in such an off-hand way could create a feeling of even greater isolation in your listeners who are in those situations — given that the comments are coming from accomplished grief therapists on national radio.

I am not writing to be critical but, instead, to try to share a perspective that might not be quickly apparent. If there is one thing I have learned on this journey through loss, it is that there is no room for judgment — overt or subconscious. We are ALL hurting, and we all deserve to be treated kindly and tenderly.

Sincerely,
Diane Cooper

Dr. Gloria Responds

Hi Diane,
Thanks for listening to the show and caring enough to respond.  I am sorry to hear about the loss of your child and as a bereaved mother I am very sorry that I offended you on your very first listen to the show.  Needless to say that “beserk” was not the best choice of words.  However, as you have noted we do expose ourselves warts and all when we do live radio.  Hope my poor choice of words will not turn you off from the show.  I will be having the woman on the show whose son killed himself and family members.  At that time I will express my concern and apologies to her and share with our audience her amazing story of courage and resilience.  Your energy to reach our after loss is impressive.  Yours truly, Dr. Gloria
 
P.S. Look for your comments and my response on the blog.  I appreciate your interest.  I’m sure others felt the same way.