Shut up if you don’t know the right thing to tell a bereaved person - Matilda Amissah-Arthur

The wife of former Vice President, the late Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, has urged Ghanaians to allow people to grieve on the quiet side if they are lacking the right words to share with the bereaved.

Matilda Amissah-Arthur believes most people don’t know the right thing to say to the bereaved and end up saying words that only add to the pain instead of consoling them.

Speaking to David Ampofo on ‘Time with David’, she said “somebody has lost the spouse or the child and you come and you say ‘all is well don’t worry’… you can say I’m sorry for the loss.”

She said nothing can be well at a time someone has lost a loved one.

“You can pray with the person, it's best, if you cannot, just shut up and be there with the person, don’t go and say the wrong thing,” she added.

Mrs Amissah-Arthur said one thing she hated hearing when she lost her husband was “give it to God, your husband is in a better place, God needs him.”

She said she found it very inappropriate because “who says God needs my husband, God doesn’t need any of us, we need God. So, to come and tell me that God needs him, no.”

She also advised that if you want to help a bereaved person, ask the people around him or her what you can do to help and not the person directly.

“I’ve lost my husband, I’m not in a good frame of mind, you’re coming to tell me anything I need I should call you…at that point that is not my worry. My worry is that if possible, how can my husband come back. If not possible how would I go through the state, I’m in.”

Mrs Amissah-Arthur also urged people not to try to get all-friendly with the bereaved if they were not that close when the deceased was alive.