Don’t be scared to say the wrong thing (or nothing) at a funeral

After Damaris Hernández’s husband committed suicide, some of their acquaintances turned their back on her — for nearly a decade, in some cases.

They weren’t trying to be cruel. They were just terrified of saying the wrong things, and, therefore, they said, and did, nothing.

Hernández said such emotional impairment bubbles up from childhood, when kids are often obsessively shielded from grief and therefore don’t know how to handle themselves around it.

“My first exposure to a funeral or to someone who died was my father-in-law,” she said. “I was in my late 30s.

“My mom never wanted me to see it as a kid. You stay home and don’t talk about it,” said Hernández, 53, who was born in and spent her early childhood in Mexico but has lived in Minnesota for going on three decades.

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