Experts say the language and practices of grief are best learned at home, when we are little, role-modeled by the adults in our life.

The poem What I Learned from My Mother by Julia Kasdorf is a great explainer of this. Here's an excerpt:

I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches...

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

Who taught you what to do when someone dies or is sick?

(S-R archives photo)

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