Commiseration comes in several guises, and over the years I’ve become intrigued by a certain form. Many families open a condolence register when they lose a loved one. In Nigeria, the registers are often modest hardcover notebooks that mourners fill with cherished memories of the deceased: a colleague praises her acuity, a co-chorister rhapsodizes about that time he brought an audience to tears with his rendition of “Amazing Grace,” a neighbor recalls how she helped him pay his hospital bills. I often address the deceased directly in these registers, but of course I am the one who sometimes experiences a cathartic release after scribbling my gratitude, and I write hoping that my fond memories might bring comfort to the bereft should they ever open the register again. Our acts of mourning, even when intended to honor the dead, primarily comfort the living.

Perhaps it is this well-intended effort to comfort the living that compels us to offer as consolation only hopeful anecdotes that glance off a tragedy, focusing instead on some point beyond it. Writing to Helvia, Seneca reminds her of distant and recent catastrophes, the death of her own mother while giving birth to her, the loss of her grandson and Seneca’s own exile. “I have kept away not one of your misfortunes from you,” he writes, “but piled them all up in front of you. I have done this courageously for I decided to conquer your grief, not cheat it.” His is an attempt to help his distraught mother find perspective through the adoption of the Stoic principles he lays out. While the idea that grief can be conquered is suspect, the unflinching acknowledgment of devastation that has already occurred, which he appears to view as an essential part of an attempt to conquer grief, remains worthy of consideration.

It is understandable that we seek to protect the bereaved by responding with hope when they express despair, giving our assurances of light at the end of the tunnel and rainbows after the storm. Contrary to what Seneca believed, sometimes that very distraction is a necessary part of the process. However while there’s no meteorological guarantee that those who survive a storm will sight a rainbow, they must at least deal with the reality of wet and slippery ground beneath their feet, and the labor of figuring out how to walk the path. Even if we don’t agree with his principles, Seneca shows us in his consolation to Helvia that we can offer a hope that acknowledges the reality of despair.

If, to paraphrase a quote attributed to Thomas Mann, a person’s dying is more his family’s affair than his own, the event is for most families cataclysmic and life-altering. Even in offering comfort, there is room to acknowledge that, and a willingness to contemplate this reality with the bereaved can itself be a consolation.

Ayobami Adebayo is a novelist. She is the author of the novel “Stay With Me.”

Now in print: “Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments,” and “The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments,” with essays from the series, edited by Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley, published by Liveright Books.

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