“Lord, if I can’t make it better, please help me to not make it worse.” is my favorite little prayer my grandmother, Betty White “BJ”, taught me and I quote it often because it’s so often relevant. She was a lot of things, but most importantly she was a helper.
“What can I do to help?” is a good place to start in a tragedy or stressful situation. If you don’t know what to do or who to ask, say that prayer to make sure what you are doing isn’t making it worse.
Sometimes helping is staying out of it and being nice, smiling, dropping by a card or a meal, or even not perpetuating someone’s grief by not gossiping about it with other people.
So if what you’re doing isn’t helpful, don’t do it. A super hard thing to when that thing you should be doing means “keep it to yourself”.
Deeper Than a Puddle 