Thursday: Don’t Judge My Grief

A Week of Little Thoughts About Life

I’ve worked with people who are grieving husbands, wives, adult children, miscarriages, stillborns, brothers, mothers, fathers, sisters, abortions, friends, and dogs.

When you read that sentence, you may have found yourself judging something about one of the losses I listed. You may have found yourself thinking, well, a dog isn’t the same as a father. Or, if she didn’t want to grieve an abortion, she shouldn’t have had one.

Or, you may have been on the receiving end of a judgement or assumption about your own grief, “Your mother died over a year ago…you should be moving on by now.” Or, “You never really knew your baby, that’s not the same as someone who has had a child for years and gotten to know them.” Or even, “You must miss your mom so much,” even though you and your mom were not close for years.

The problem with judging grief is that we never know the whole story. The grief someone experiences is in the context of their whole life –

· All the other relationships they have,

· Losses and trauma that have come before,

· Who and how they experience trust,

· What was the nature of that particular relationship,