Ep # 181 - How To Offer Real Sympathy When Someone Is Grieving

The hardest part of grief is often the moment before we speak. We want to help, but our brains grab the same worn out lines, and suddenly our support sounds like a script. We’re joined by Mari Timpanaro, founder of Of Grace and Grief, to talk about a surprisingly practical skill: learning how to offer sympathy that actually lands for the person who’s hurting.

We dig into why “I’m sorry for your loss” can feel both true and totally insufficient, and how to move toward personalized condolences, specific support, and words that sound like you. Mari explains how her work differs from grief therapy or a traditional grief group and why so many people need a collaboration space when they’re staring at a card, drafting a text, or trying to support a boss or coworker after a death, a breakup, a job loss, or another life changing disappointment. We also talk about how social media condolences can unintentionally erase meaning, and how one thoughtful message can matter more than a dozen automatic replies.

The conversation gets real about pet loss grief and why bereavement support should match the bond, not other people’s assumptions. We also touch on gender expectations around grief, why many men hesitate to reach out, and what “showing up” can look like when face to face talks feel intense. If you want better tools for grief support, sympathy messages, and workplace condolences, you’ll leave with ideas you can use immediately.

Subscribe for more local stories, share this with someone who wants to support a grieving friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What’s one condolence that helped you most when you needed it?

Of Grace and Grief
Mari Timpanaro
Located in Bergen County, NJ
ofgraceandgrief.com

Transcript

Welcome To Good Neighbor Podcast

Intro/Close 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.

Doug Drohan 0:10

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. I am your host, Doug Drohan, and the owner of the Bergen Neighbors Media Group. Today we are joined by Mari Timpanaro. She is a the owner of a practice Of Grace and Grief. Um, you know, we'll get into how uh I've had some experience with that. Um, and uh I'm sure a lot of our listeners have. And you know, let's let's dive right into it. Mari, welcome to the show.

What Of Grace And Grief Does

Mari Timpanaro 0:39

Doug, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here this morning. Thanks. I appreciate it.

Doug Drohan 0:45

Yeah, no, thank you. So the name of your business is Of Grace and Grief. Um, it's a grief support service business, I guess we could call it, right? Yes. And it's like therapy, you're a therapist, a licensed clinical social worker.

Mari Timpanaro 0:59

So we can go into more detail as we move through the podcast, but what this space really is is so yes, I am a licensed social worker. This is not a space for counseling or grief therapy, it's a different sort of grief niche, which I can get into.

Moving Beyond “I’m So Sorry”

Doug Drohan 1:15

All right. Well, um, well, why don't we get into that and we could talk about how you got here? Um I you know, I think the toughest thing when you know you know someone who's had a loss, you know, someone died, um, is a lot of people are don't know what to say. Oh, I'm really sorry. Sorry for your loss. Um and that's about it. You know, I mean the famous thing you hear is thoughts and prayers when there's a shooting or something. Um, but that does little to support people through the grief. Uh, and you know, everybody handles it differently. So what is uh like what's different? Like, you know, when there's are you teaching people who are going through grief how to, you know, how how to overcome it, or or is this for people that know someone who's going through it and this is teaching them how to talk to them or you know, sympathize or empathize, or is it a bit of both?

Mari Timpanaro 2:10

Doug, this was absolutely the perfect intro. You've done your research. So pretty much the premise of grace and grief is this space of to your point, you know, we are all familiar with loss, grief, disappointment, and sympathy. And because we've all experienced it in some capacity, we understand it, kind of understanding quote unquote. Yet what we may not understand or really feel comfortable with is how to move beyond the I'm so sorry thoughts and prayers. The easy things, the kind of what's expected when somebody experiences a loss. And the purpose of grace and grief is to really be that collaboration space where we can make words of sympathy your own. And whether it's the death of a close family, you know, somebody who's close to you who has a death, a job loss, a pet loss, a relationship loss. It's that space of moving beyond the I'm so sorry to how does this person receive love? How does this person receive sympathy? How do you feel comfortable sharing sympathy? And where can we find your heart words in the middle of all that?

Doug Drohan 3:26

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think um, you know, I personally I'm I went through something when my brother passed away a while ago, but I feel like you're before that happens to you, you know, you don't really know how to uh empathize or even just say something to somebody, it's all it's awkward. But then when you go through it, now you're part of a club, especially if it's cancer. Uh and you just somehow you you just become more empathetic to anybody else that, especially if it's cancer, that uh that's going through because you've been there or you are there. And I think it makes it easier to be able to talk to people like that. But before that, it was pretty, you know, difficult for me to, I don't know, say something that felt genuine.

Mari Timpanaro 4:14

Yeah. And it's and I think it's you know, it's also a space too where there are still so many kind of preconceived notions and stigmas about grief, but also we each have our own experiences with grief or our own perceptions about grief. And especially that space of, well, if I say something beyond I'm sorry, will I re-satden or retrigger this person who's going through something as opposed to maybe coming from a space of it? Doesn't have to always be so doom and gloom. It can be some people receive sympathy in a space of a joke, or a space of, you know, listen, I appreciate the thoughts and prayers, but that's not my thing. Just give me a space to share that the my loved ones' memories, or give me some ideas how I can remember this person. Or, you know, if somebody's going through a significant loss like a parent, that's absolutely a space of complete and total, oh my gosh, what do I say to this person? How do I help my how do I help this person? And how do we move through the this is so this is terrible, I'm so sorry. I wish I could take this away from you to hey, I'm here. Yeah, I'm here to be a space of, you know, if you need to call me, if you need to let's go to a movie, let's move the sympathy into ways that people kind of can really receive.

Doug Drohan 5:42

Yeah, yeah. So this is so um, I'm just trying to think like, would someone who's struggling with a situation like this where they don't know what to say to their friend whose mother just died or their dog just died?

Mari Timpanaro 5:59

Come on in, come on through.

Doug Drohan 6:01

Yeah, so are they, but how do they find like this is new to me? Like, I didn't know some uh support like this existed. Um do you find like this is something people are seeking, or maybe they didn't know?

Mari Timpanaro 6:12

So um so what I'm what I'm seeing now is to exactly your point, it's still very much kind of a niche space when you think of grief support and collaboration, you don't think of it like this. You think of grief groups, you think of grief therapy. Not so much this space of, hey, I'm the one who's writing the words of sympathy, and I just don't know what the heck to say.

Doug Drohan 6:36

Okay.

Mari Timpanaro 6:37

So it's still a lot of word of mouth, very because I know it is very niche and very kind of, well, what what are you exactly? So it's that space of coming through and saying, you know, hey, my boss just lost their pet, my boss just lost their father. We're not close, but I know it impacted this person.

Intro/Close 6:55

Yeah.

Mari Timpanaro 6:55

What do I do? What do I say? What how can I go beyond a fruit basket? Like, what are some other options that I can show that I care, that I offer my condolences without the pre-printed condolences, best wishes, hopefully as well.

Doug Drohan 7:13

I think the tough thing also is social media, like on Facebook, people like to post when they've had a loss. You know, so-and-so just died, and you hit a like button, you have now these automated responses. I'm sorry for your loss, my condolences. And I guess it's nice. I have to say, when my brother died, it's going back 1998, getting mass cards because I'm Catholic and a lot of you know, family members, but getting some things or even going to the wake and seeing flowers from my childhood friend's family, you know, his that we grew up with meant so much to me. And, you know, 20, what is it now? Do the math, 26 years later, I still have all those cards. I mean, they're packed away somewhere, but they meant so much to me, especially coming from people that I hadn't seen in a long time, but we had grown up together. Um, I don't know that social media, you know, I guess it helps when you just get a, you know, an emoji of some sort. But I'd imagine nowadays it's harder and easier in some ways because people feel like, all right, I I clicked on their post and sent the you know hard emoji.

unknown 8:27

Right.

Mari Timpanaro 8:28

I think you know, with social media too, it's great in so many facets because it is it's quick, it's established, it's easy in a sense, it's automated, it takes, but it takes the personalization out of it. It takes the intention is still there, but the heart can kind of be, you know, you're one of 20 likes as opposed to individualized Doug, I'm making outreach. This has to be super hard for you. Remind me of the joke your brother told you that you know the whole family just really cultivating that space of making it individualized.

Doug Drohan 9:03

Right, right. So, at what point did you come up did not come up with it, but at what point did you discover there's a need for this kind of help?

LMSW Vs LCSW Explained

Mari Timpanaro 9:12

So it kind of was a selfish need to begin with. This was about 11 years ago. My best friend's mom passed away unexpectedly. And we were at the wake, and you know, it was her husband and I were kind of we were in a group with her, just you know, we were all sobbing, trying to console her. And I'm thinking, there's got to be something more I can do than I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It just began to feel inauthentic, and like these words aren't these words don't mean anything. It's you lost your mom. And where else can we find this space to help you move through this? Because you know we're sorry, you know we feel awful about this. We can't fix it for you, but what else could we actually do and say to maybe start to help you move through the process beyond I'm sorry.

Doug Drohan 10:10

Right. So then you are you already had the background of being a um you know an L, you're an LMSW, so not LCSW. What's the difference?

Mari Timpanaro 10:21

Great question. Fantastic question. So I'm an LM LMSW and LSW. So that's for New York and New Jersey. And LM and LSW and LMSW, it means that as a social worker, I can work in crisis support, I can work in policy, I can work in administration, I can do therapy. Um, however, when it comes to the therapeutic role, I have to be supervised by an LCSW.

Doug Drohan 10:45

Okay.

Mari Timpanaro 10:46

Whereas an LCSW has the full capacity to do diagnoses, treatment plans, billing independently. That's just that's a difference. I can do therapy, I can do all these things, but there are certain components of the work that just need a different level of supervision.

Doug Drohan 11:01

Got it, got it. But you had this background before you decide before you realized, you know, there's something here that people need help with.

Mari Timpanaro 11:10

Yeah, you know, whether whether it's help or just an extra, an extra outside ear of just yeah, I've been staring at a draft of this mass card for 10 minutes and I'm going, oh boy. Yeah, where to go from here.

Men Women And Sharing Grief

Doug Drohan 11:22

Yeah, yeah. So do you find, is there a uh in terms of your uh clients, is there a a clear deline delineate delineation? Sorry, excuse my butchering the English language here, uh, difference between male and female. Like, do you get more women that would are more willing to work with you versus men?

Mari Timpanaro 11:43

I will say I'm seeing more kind of views on the website from women. And that could just be noticed be because of how you know we as women maybe use social media or just how the algorithms play out or just what we actually are looking for. Um, but there's there's no real delineation yet as to who is being served.

unknown 12:04

Yeah.

Mari Timpanaro 12:04

Just everybody.

Doug Drohan 12:06

I asked that because you know, traditionally, and and I hear this from a lot of therapists, and and you see it actually because men are more reluctant to reach out. And, you know, I I've you see all these moms groups and support groups, and all these, I've had other people on my podcast show that do mommy chats or help women with um, you know, postpartum or prepartum depression and all these other things. And there's a lot of therapeutic help out there for women, and there doesn't seem to be that much for men, and that's probably probably because men aren't that apt to share and reach out. And you know, I use my own experience of sitting around with my friends, and we never, you know, we talk about sports, we talk about whatever. You know, we don't talk about um, hey man, how you doing? I know you've been out of work for a while, what's going on? You know, how you handling it? You know, it's it's the the deepest we get is like how's that job search going? You know, it's not like oh, you've been out of work for 10 months, you have you know three kids, and um, you know, you had this high-level job, how you coping?

Mari Timpanaro 13:10

Right. Right.

Doug Drohan 13:11

Yeah. So yeah, that's why I asked that, because I, you know, I wonder how many um, because we could all benefit from it, right?

Mari Timpanaro 13:20

You know, I think it's also too, it's a great point where it's kind of that the quote unquote male versus female or male and female kind of what's expected when we share emotions or what's expected when we share grief. It's it could be in a you know, a fate, you know, I know that I've heard I read somewhere where women are more kind of that we're we're we're face to face. We really want to get into the every detail face to face. Whereas men, if you guys sit, you know, sitting side by side, literally, you know, you're still next to somebody, but there's less intimidation of eye-to-eye contact where you're still in a space where you can talk to somebody, you can let things be shared, but it's being shared while watching a football game, while watching doing a video game. Yeah, you're still in the presence of somebody who can support and you know, understand and be your friend. Yeah, but it's less like it's less look into my soul. It's more of like, so how's it going? What's what's going on?

How Remote Sessions Work

Doug Drohan 14:15

Yeah, yeah. So how does it uh how does it work? Do people come to your office? Is it done remotely?

Mari Timpanaro 14:22

Like this is all remote. So of graceandgrief.com. You can also find me on Instagram of of Grace and Grief, but on the website, there is a link to scheduling either a 15-minute free consult or a full, you know, I'll call it a session right now. Just a space of, hey, here's what I'm looking for. You know, there are there's a pre-session questionnaire of just to give me some ideas of all right, what are we working for? So we're not coming in with a blank slate.

unknown 14:49

Right.

Pet Loss And Workplace Bereavement

Mari Timpanaro 14:49

You can come in and say, okay, you're reaching out because your best friend lost their pet. You're reaching out because your best friend lost his grandpa. All right, let's start there. Let's get some more information about the person who's going through the morning. Let's go through get some information about you as the support person, and we work it from there.

Doug Drohan 15:10

You know, it's interesting you mentioned pet because people that aren't pet owners, um, you know, when you lose your pet, it's it's like losing a family member. It's awful. And I think you might discount it. I know the last time my last dog who died, you know, I took a day or two off from work, you know, and my boss knew how I felt about my dog, and I had met him once when he was in town, and and uh, you know, he was totally uh sympathetic and said, Yeah, you know, take as much time as you need. Um, so it's interesting. Like I think people, especially if you're a dog owner, you get it. But for people that aren't pet owners, maybe they have a tougher time handling the condolences. It's like, ah, it's your dog or it's your cat. Or I know you lost your bird, and I wasn't that and I was not that sympathetic. You know, her bird was like 20, she had that bird for like 15 something years or whatever. And that I was I was like, Oh, too bad. Sorry, sorry to hear that.

Mari Timpanaro 16:12

But I was like, birds don't pass, you know, really.

Doug Drohan 16:18

No, I know, but I I didn't have that much sympathy for, I have to admit, I was like, it's a bird, you know.

Mari Timpanaro 16:23

Right. What's the what's you know, whether it's a bird, a fish, a bunny, a chinchilla, a cat, a dog, a horse. I now know, you know, there's bereavement time, you know, being carved out in companies, this is the company I work for, yeah. Where pet loss is now a kind of a is bereavement time. You can take a day or two of bereavement time to mourn your pet.

Doug Drohan 16:43

Uh you you you had me at everything except fish. Right. I get the bird, I get if you had a lizard, I don't know about a snake. Um, you know, it's it's I I'm gonna go off topic a little bit, but you know, one of the best movies of all time is Pulp Fiction. And at the end of the movie, Samuel Jackson and John Travolta having this argument, well, Samuel Jackson won't eat pork anymore. And uh he's like, uh, you know, pigs are dirty. And it was something like uh, you know, about dogs, like you know, people have pigs as dogs, and he's like, that would have to be one charming, you know, I don't I don't want to use his uh his language, but that would have charming, that'd be one charming pig for me to like really you know care about uh you know to that point where I'm not gonna eat it. But um, yeah, fish, I don't know. Uh but no, but I'm going off topic, but the point that I started was pet grief is can be as deep, um, you know, as as human uh laws. So I get it. Um so you mentioned you mentioned your website. So um again, they would go on ofgraceandgrief.com. There is a section there to book an appointment.

Intro/Close 17:58

Yes.

Building A Niche Business

Doug Drohan 17:58

Uh, if they follow you on Instagram. Now, on Instagram, you list yourself as an entrepreneur. So I like to ask this question to people who are on my show. Like, what has it, what is the journey of an entrepreneur been like for you? Because, you know, starting your own business, no one, you know, there's not a a class in school usually for that. You gotta no, there's not. Yeah, so what has that that journey been like?

Mari Timpanaro 18:26

You know, it's been I'm gonna be right kind of not trite, but it's it's been, I don't want to say the blood, sweat, and tears, but it's been thinking I could do it all myself, and then going, okay, no, I need to bring in professionals. I need to bring in a professional to help me with the website, the branding, because I have no idea what I'm doing. It's reaching out to friends of mine who are also entrepreneurs and have really built success into other areas. And I'm going, what tools are you using? Because your website looks great, your social media looks great. What is your platform? Um, it's also frankly putting aside my pride and going, okay, I have to really hit the ground running and do a lot of uh cold marketing and outreach and really pumping this up because just having a website out there in the universe doesn't do much. Yeah, I've got to hit the ground running. I've got to put everything out there and go, okay, if this, you know, this cold marketing strategy worked, this didn't, so let me tweak this or really I was actually down in Florida last week, and we were visiting my parents who were wonderfully snowboarding in the beautiful Florida beaches, and I brought down business cards, and my mother is like, I will pass these around.

Doug Drohan 19:53

Especially Florida, you know.

Mari Timpanaro 19:54

I mean it's it's honestly being you're it's learning how to be professionally shameless. Yeah, going, I believe in this, I want to help you believe in this too. So here's my information, here's how to get to me.

Doug Drohan 20:06

And I think it's important to say shameless because I struggle with that when I worked for big corporations. I looked at self-promoting as being this thing to look down on, you know, like kissing ass, like I'm trying to suck up to the boss. You know, you go to a company thing and it's like, yeah, I'm gonna go there and talk about myself and things like that and promote like how great I'm doing. No, I could never do that.

Intro/Close 20:29

Right.

Doug Drohan 20:29

You know, but when you know, I was gonna use the phrase like a lot of businesses I meet, a lot of business owners, they have that old New York lottery slogan, a dollar in a dream. They think, I got an Instagram page, that's it, it's all I gotta do. You know, business is gonna change function. I always ask people, like, I remember this guy opened a deli, an offshoot of another deli that was very successful. And he opened a new one in a new town. And I said, What are you doing for advertising? Like, oh, I got a I got a Facebook page. I'm like, okay, but how does anybody know you're here? Like, how are people finding you on Facebook? Like, just because you're posting, if I don't follow you, you it's like a tree falling in the forest. So a lot of business owners make that mistake. Oh, I created a website, oh, I post on Instagram every month. But to your point, you have to, and I do this in my newsletters. I talk about surround sounding your business and also how to amplify what you do. Like, so you know, my core businesses um, well, I say I'm a storyteller, it's part of it, but it's using stories to help advertising uh succeed. In other words, it's about putting brand, creating brands for businesses, not just an ad. And a lot of them write articles. I bet a lot of therapists who write articles about grief, about other things. And I try to educate them like, okay, that article's in the magazine, which is going to, you know, 15,000 people, but now you should amplify it. You could get 20 more touches out of that by. Creating Instagram posts, maybe doing a reel, putting it in your newsletter, putting it on your website, doing a podcast show. But it takes work. Like if you just set it, it's not a set it and forget it kind of thing. And we talk to a lot of business owners that say, I haven't advertised in 30 years. It's all word of mouth. That's the holy grail. We all want that. But how do you get there? And nowadays it's harder than ever because there's so much on you. Like you said, this worked and this didn't work. Well, I got news for you. What worked last year may not work this year.

Intro/Close 22:29

Right.

Doug Drohan 22:29

And you've got you have to constantly tweak everything you do and constantly get yourself out there because you've got to be the person they think of or the person that they remember when they do a search for grief counseling or whatever it is. And A, you got to make sure you're you're showing up, you're popping up, and that means having those keywords that Google finds you. But then number two, the whole key to Google Analytics is two to five times more people, uh, or two to five more, two to five X more clicks happen for businesses that people are familiar with versus ones that they're not familiar with. So that doesn't happen overnight. And I always tell people marketing is you got to have patience. Yet I don't have right, but you know, it's like your business, somebody comes to you once and they expect it's gonna be that's it, I'm good, I don't need your help anymore, or is it a process? And you know, I think um a lot of people forget, you know, my business head, I want it now, you know, I want it right away, and and your consumer head is like, no, I'm not ready right now, you know, it's nice, but it's not the right time. So we have to remember that there's you know, you can't fool Mother Nature was another commercial, but our brain science, consumer behavior is what it is, and it takes time for people to remember you, and and maybe even more so when you have a niche of of what it is that you do.

Mari Timpanaro 23:54

So yeah, exactly exactly.

Where To Find Mari And Close

Doug Drohan 23:56

Yeah, no, but it's great. I think you know you're on the right, you're on the right path. And um, you know, with all that said, let's repeat again, and then this is gonna be at the in the copy of the podcast, but of graceandgrief.com on Instagram. And is there a phone number they can call?

Mari Timpanaro 24:15

Right now, um no phone number attached, just everything is through the website or through Instagram.

Doug Drohan 24:20

Okay, all right, great. Well Mari, this was great. Did I did I forget? Did we not cover everything, or is there something you wanted to touch on before we go?

Mari Timpanaro 24:27

Or no, I we covered everything. You know, this was what a rush. What a rush. What a Monday morning. This was fantastic. There you go.

Doug Drohan 24:36

Uh excellent.

unknown 24:37

All right.

Doug Drohan 24:38

Well, you and I will be right back. We're just gonna have Chuck say a few words and then I'll be right back with you. Bye, bless.

Intro/Close 24:43

Great. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen.com. That's gnpbergen.com or call 201 298 8325.