What Society Gets Wrong About Grief

My daughter passed away 10 years ago. I still grieve. The anniversary of her loss, her birthday & Mother’s Day remain the hardest days for me. I don’t expect that will change. There is no timeline for grieving. The worst thing I heard was “she’s in a better place now.” Absolutely not! Her better place was with her family & children!

I think of grief like the ocean. Some days, there isn’t a cloud in the sky. And some days it comes out in all its force.

I recently hit 10 years after my dad died, he was my only parent and was his only child. I went through an intense cyclical period of grief and loss not only for not having my dad but for losing my only family in a society that emphasizes family above all else.

I still remember vividly a conversation where a friend, who was completely well intentioned, suggested I was holding on to my grief 3 years later. I didn't have the words to explain how complicated it was, I even now have days where the grief feels so intense and real it's like it was yesterday and others where it's been so long that it feels like it was a lifetime ago. So much of the conversation is about like you get to feel broken up for x amount of time, then its well their dead, get over it. I hope things continue to change.

"We are taught to feel shame about grief that lingers. Like a stain on our clothes, it marks us as flawed, imperfect. To cling to grief, to desire its expression, is to be out of sync with modern life, where the hip do not get bogged down in mourning.

Love knows no shame. To be lovong is to be open to grief, to be touched by sorrow, even sorrow that is unending. The way we grieve is informed by whether we know love." -bell hooks "All About Love"

In Ashkenazi Judaism we say "may their memory be a blessing" which I think is better than being sorry for something you had no control over.
My bestie lost her fiance last year and I feel like thinking about his memory as a blessing to keep hold of rather than a regret to be sorry about has been helpful though it's obviously still difficult

I lost my mom suddenly less then three weeks ago and my tears very much come in waves. I will be fine and then something will remind me of my mom and I know that she isn't here anymore. I know that I will be greaving her the rest of my life and that as I watch my daughter as well as my niece and nephew grow up there will always be that thought of how I wish my mom was there to see it. I really love the Day of the Dead celebrations since they unlike a lot of Western European morning practices celebrate life and death rather then morn it. Greaf doesn't have a time line nore is there a right way to do it. Also it is ok to have a wide range of emotions with greaf. I get mad at my mom for not taking better care of herself and for not seeking better medical help after he hospitalization a few months ago and it is ok for me to feel that. I am giving myself time and grace to morn my mom and also trying to be there for my dad and sister.

My dad passed unexpectedly in February and my college roommate of two years died before that in September. The combined grief left me not functioning and I didn’t do anything for months. I took a combined three months off of work because I just can’t handle anything. It’s hard. It’s sucks so much. All I write about is my dad dying and I’ll never get over it.

This was really good. I remember when my mother got angry with me because I was not grieving the loss of her brother, my Uncle, the "right" way. It was a very difficult thing and clearly something that sticks with me some 33 years later,. It is a shame that because of our own loss and trauma we can literally inflict additional pain on others.

I now have a very troubled relationship with loss, because I always second guess myself, and try to engage in performance for others rather than actually grieving my own way. When my first cat, one who influenced my life choices profoundly and who had connected me to an earlier, different version of my life, died of cancer after six months of palliative care, and then an absolute nightmare drive through a hurricane, literally past a tornado, to get her to the vet for euthanasia, I felt unable to talk about it with my parents, because I was afraid that they'd think I loved my cat more than others I had lost. It's different, though, and I am still hesitant to mention it to my parents.

"Grief is the price you pay for love" I vibe with that quote, thanks

I can't remember who said or what book it was in, but the words in burned into my brain "grief is the last way we get to love someone"

I've always thought that "the first everything is the hardest" meant more by the second everything you can say "I've done it before I can do it again" not that it hurts less.

There is no right way to grieve. My first major loss was my dog. People laugh at that but screw them. I was on my way to school for my senior finals and I drove past her mangled corpse on the road. I was an absolute emotional mess and sobbed in the school bathroom all day. A few years later in college, my friend called us over and sat us down to tell us she had terminal cancer in the bones of her spine and also began laying out the stages of how she was going to slowly lose her ability to walk, control her bowls, etc. Her death wasn't sudden and try as I might have, it was so hard not to openly grieve in front of her because she wanted people to be happy around her in the time she still had left. It was miserable at her funeral when her family "celebrated" her going to heaven and I wish I could burn the digital photo they forced me to take with her other friend of us fake smiling and holding a massive framed photo of her with our red tear stained faces. What I vividly remember thinking at the time was that everyone who did attempt to reach out did so more for the gossip more than they did to acknowledge the pain of the loss and the willingness to just sit and be there during our loss. While I didn't want to talk about the loss at the time, it simultaneously hurt when people seemed to actively just avoid being in my presence. Her death still hurts to talk about even almost a decade later. And after attending another half dozen funerals since then I've learned that there isn't a right way or length to grieve someone because there are so many things that can factor in, your bond, the way they died, etc. Everyone handles it differently on an emotional level. You can't control what emotions come out of someones death.

3:55 yes, exactly this. That's all you need to say at someones loss and offer some companionship. If they want their space, then give it to them. If they want to talk, then fine but don't force them to spill their guts out to you. Just having a presence and not being alone for long periods of time can be a huge benefit.