“There Are No Words” Is the Problem
Rethinking how we talk about grief—and what the grieving actually need from us
There is a moment that comes for almost everyone who walks toward a grieving family.
It happens at the gate. Or the front door. Or the hospital room.
You slow down. Your body tightens. Your mind starts searching for something—anything—appropriate to say.
And then, quietly, almost instinctively, you decide:
There are no words.
It sounds humble. Respectful, even. But for the people on the other side of that door, it often lands as something else entirely.
An ending.
Colin Campbell learned this the hard way.
After a catastrophic car crash killed both of his teenage children, Ruby and Hart, he and his wife, Gail, were surrounded by people who loved them deeply—people who brought meals, sent messages, showed up.
But when it came time to speak, most of those same people faltered.
They avoided the names of the children.
They avoided the subject of the loss.
They avoided saying anything that might “make it worse.”
And so they reached for the one phrase our culture seems to permit:
There are no words.
It was meant as reverence. What it created was distance.
For Campbell and his wife, what they needed most was not protection from conversation—it was conversation itself.
The Myth of Fragility
Chaplains see this clearly, often before anyone else does.
Grieving people are not as fragile as the room assumes.
They are already living inside the worst moment of their lives. There is no word you can introduce that is more powerful than the reality they are already carrying.
Campbell puts it bluntly: nothing anyone could say was going to “trigger” them. They were already thinking about the loss all day, every day.
The real danger wasn’t saying the wrong thing.
It was saying nothing.
What the Grieving Actually Need
In response, Campbell developed what he called a “grief spiel”—a simple, direct set of permissions that transformed how people showed up.
For chaplains, this is more than a personal coping strategy. It’s a model.
It reveals three needs that show up again and again in acute grief:
1. Permission to Speak Plainly
Grieving people do not need you to sanitize reality.
They need you to enter it with them.
Say the words: death, loss, your son, your daughter.
Avoidance doesn’t protect—it isolates.
2. The Names Matter
One of the most painful experiences for Campbell was hearing people avoid saying Ruby and Hart’s names.
It felt, in his words, “bizarre and cruel.”
To speak a name is to acknowledge a life that still matters.
For chaplains, this is non-negotiable:
Say their name.
Invite others to say it too.
3. The Conversation Must Return to the Loss
Grief is not a topic to briefly acknowledge and then move past.
It is the center of gravity.
Campbell described it vividly: trying to talk about normal life while ignoring grief felt like ignoring a spear through his body.
Chaplains understand this instinctively—but others in the room often do not.
Part of the role is to gently bring the conversation back:
“Tell me about them.”
“What has this been like for you today?”
Where People Get It Wrong
Even well-meaning people often make one critical mistake: they try to relate.
They offer their own stories of loss.
On the surface, it feels empathetic. In practice, it often minimizes.
Not all grief is comparable.
And in acute, catastrophic loss, comparison can feel like distortion.
What the grieving need is not comparison.
They need witness.
The Role of Emotion—All of It
There is another misconception that chaplains are uniquely positioned to correct: the fear of emotion itself.
People worry that if they cry, they will make things worse.
Campbell discovered the opposite.
Crying together brought relief. It normalized the pain. It created a shared acknowledgment that something sacred had been lost.
Even laughter—especially dark, unexpected laughter—had a place.
For his family, humor was not a betrayal of grief. It was continuity of identity.
This is where chaplain presence matters most.
Not controlling the emotional tone of the room—but giving permission for the full range of it.
Tears. Silence. Stories. Even laughter.
What This Means for Chaplains
There’s a hard truth here, and it’s worth stating plainly:
If a chaplain defaults to silence, distance, or vague language, they are not neutral.
They are reinforcing the very barrier the grieving are already experiencing.
The work is not to have perfect words.
It is to make words possible again.
That means:
Saying the name
Naming the loss
Asking real questions
Allowing emotion without managing it
Redirecting others when they retreat into avoidance
And, when needed, helping families articulate their own “grief spiel”—giving them language that teaches others how to show up.
The Quiet Shift
When Campbell and his wife began telling people what they needed, something changed.
The fear in the room softened.
The conversations deepened.
The silence broke.
Their friends didn’t become experts in grief.
They became present.
And in the aftermath of profound loss, presence—expressed through honest words—is not a small thing.
It is everything.