DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was very close to my mom. When she passed away unexpectedly 10 years ago, I was quite devastated. I returned to my home (about 700 miles away) following the funeral, and a concerned friend offered to pick me up and take me out for a cup of coffee.
I will say, the idea of someone caring lifted my spirits. But in the car on the way to the coffee shop, my friend said, “Well, it is something we all go through.” It was said in a rather “oh well” kind of way -- cold and lacking empathy.
It felt like my friend was ignoring the depth of what I was experiencing. It felt like a knife had been stabbed into my heart. Honestly, I wanted to just jump out of the car and walk home!
I will never forget that moment, and to this day, I wonder what the best words to say would have been. Could you please advise? Yes, I still miss my mom. I always will. Maybe my friend didn’t realize just how calloused they were.
GENTLE READER: Your experience illustrates why Miss Manners urges everyone not to improvise when consoling mourners; grief can be both intense and irrational.
On a rational level, it seems unlikely that your friend picked you up after the funeral, took you out for coffee and drove you home because they lacked empathy for your situation. But it is all too easy to cause lasting rifts at such a time with a misplaced word -- or even with one that, though not the formulaic “I’m so sorry for your loss,” strikes the mourner the wrong way.
Having now addressed herself to everyone else, Miss Manners will only add that she is sorry for your loss and believes that your friend was, too.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: My son-in-law (age 45) tells me that his generation finds it OK to invite a woman to dinner without her husband. He and my daughter do not like my second husband, and want to invite me, alone, to dinner with them at their house.
I feel that it is unacceptable manners and an awful snub to my husband to dine without him (unless it is a work-related event). Lunch is OK, I think -- I often meet women friends for lunch, but not dinner, without their husbands. Can you weigh in on this?
GENTLE READER: When your daughter was 11 and told you that all of her friends’ parents let them stay up until midnight on school nights, did you believe her?
Perhaps, but Miss Manners’ answer -- one she would have you make to your daughter in private -- is that it is not her husband’s generation’s feelings that are being hurt by excluding your husband.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the appropriate response when a gift receiver criticizes the gift you chose for them? For example, my in-laws, who are from a different cultural background than me, frequently (almost always) express criticism at my gifts.
GENTLE READER: Although she is unaware of any culture that values insulting gift-givers, Miss Manners remains confident that “I’m sorry you don’t like it” transcends cultural barriers.