By Colin Mosgrove, MSW Intern
“You’re so strong.” It’s a phrase many people hear after a loss or during a difficult chapter. Before becoming an intern at Death with Dignity, I believed words like these offered comfort or simple affirmations meant to steady someone in pain. But in a recent interview with TIME, Rebecca Love, a psychologist who recently lost her son, shared her perspective on how these three words ended up doing more harm than good during her time of loss, and it resonated with me. After reading Ms. Love’s experience and reflecting on my own, my understanding of language and presence in times of grief has evolved far greater over the last 5 months.
Through my conversations with terminally ill patients and their loved ones at Death with Dignity as an MSW intern, I’ve come to learn something I will carry with me long after graduation. In moments shaped by grief and uncertainty, what matters most isn’t what we say, but how we show up. Presence and genuine care carry far more weight than any well-intentioned phrase.
Navigating Language at the End of Life
Grieving can be a messy, painful, and transformative experience. When those difficult emotions are overlooked or left unacknowledged by others, it can leave someone feeling invisible—unseen, unheard, and alone in their experience. “It took me a long time to sort out how I felt about it, and I realized that ultimately, it completely invalidated my pain,” says Love. What she was experiencing in her grief was a sense of disorientation and loss of control as she tried to navigate the hand she’d been dealt.
While “You’re so strong” comes from a well-intentioned place, it doesn’t always serve the one suffering the loss—it serves the speaker. In the article, Lauren Jessell, a licensed clinical social worker in New York, points out that “There’s an implicit suggestion that the person somehow chose their circumstances and is rising admirably to meet them—when in reality, they’re simply doing what they have to do to get by.”
Well-intentioned comments encapsulate the griever into a socially admirable definition, a neat box with a bow on top. This phrase can silence the griever’s inner experience and reward the act of hiding vulnerability.
Presence at the End of Life: My Personal Journey
Over the course of my life, I have lost my great-grandmother, great-grandfather, two great aunts, and my grandmother. These experiences are in part what motivated me to seek an internship here at Death with Dignity in the first place. While I was only able to say goodbye to my grandmother, I have vivid memories of the day she died. I was with her as she took her last breath. She was surrounded by her loved ones. And when her last breath came and went, every heart in the room broke open, sending forth a river of tears that still nourishes and connects us to this day. Being there to say goodbye was a privilege and a burden we all shared.
The losses I’ve experienced throughout my life have been profoundly difficult. These people were intimately woven into the fabric of my family, and in many ways, they still are. What was most supportive for me during these times was people sharing their presence with me. Loved ones checked in on me, and when they did, they didn’t try to change my emotional state. In the article, Jessell writes, “…the goal is to be with the person rather than try to bypass the hardship they’re enduring.” This resonated deeply with me, because the people who supported me in my life accepted me exactly as I was and never tried to fix my grief.
What Does Being Present Look Like? My Experiences at Death with Dignity
As an intern at Death with Dignity, I hear from patients and loved ones across all fifty states. Many terminally ill patients are reaching out to gather information on how to access medical aid in dying as they consider their end-of-life options. In engaging with terminally ill patients and loved ones, I find that presence is invaluable. Presence shows they’re not alone. That their grief is welcome and can be held by others, and by the world.
If we are engaging over the phone or email, signaling presence through language can look like: “I hear you,” or “I can only imagine what you’re going through.” In my personal experience, the simplest and presence-signaling phrase is, “I’m here with you.” And often, after offering that steady presence, silence is enough. And in the realm of silence, one may enter into the language of the nervous system. This is where taking an audible deep breath or reaching out for comforting, consensual touch can help the griever’s nervous system feel safe to be as it is.
Access to medical aid in dying allows terminally ill patients to choose how to live their last moments, days, and weeks. In doing so, it becomes a final expression of autonomy and humanity—an opportunity to engage, even at the threshold, in a deeply personal act of shaping one’s own ending.
Your Story Matters. How Your Personal Experience Can Offer Presence to Others.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn’t make any sense.”
– Rumi
Grief, suffering, and death can feel nonsensical and isolating. In those moments, what matters most is not always finding the right words, but choosing to remain present with one another anyway. So when someone you love is hurting, I invite you to meet them in that field. The one with the grass. The one where the world feels too full for language.
Have you witnessed the peace that medical aid in dying can bring? Or experienced the heartbreak of someone being denied that choice? Join me in sharing your story. Your story has the power of presence—to help others feel less alone—and to remind the world what a peaceful end-of-life option can truly look like.