Grief…. The Audacity of the Sun to Rise

Grief is such a strange experience because when someone dies, the world has the audacity to keep going.

The sun still rises. Your pets still need to be fed. Work alarm still goes off. Bills still need to be paid. Emails are still coming in. Mail still getting delivered. Your phone is still ringing. Friends are still texting you asking if you want to go out. Everything just continues as normal…

And you’re standing there thinking, How the hell is everybody acting normal right now?

How is the world still moving when mine just stopped?

There’s something almost offensive about watching normal life continue when you’re grieving. You’re trying to process the fact that someone you love is no longer here, while somebody is texting you about their weekend plans. You’re trying to hold yourself together while your bank account is reminding you that life still costs money. You’re crying one minute and answering an email the next.

You're trying to arrange a funeral while your eyes are swollen from crying. You're looking through documents when you can barely concentrate. You're dealing with life insurance, family dynamics, phone calls, responsibilities, paperwork, and decisions that you never wanted to have to make.

And nobody can really see the full weight of what’s happening inside of you.

People mean well. They reach out and say, “Let me know if you need anything.” “I’m here if you need me.” “Is there anything I can do?”

And I genuinely appreciate that. I truly do.

But… Yes but… sometimes, during the grieving process, I don’t even know what I need.

I can barely speak. I can barely think. I don't have the mental capacity to create a list of things I need and then distribute assignments to everyone who has asked.

Sometimes, I need you to just do something.

Send a prayer message. Send some food. Send flowers. Come sit with me. Rub my back. Listen to me vent. Check on me without requiring a response. Take anything off my plate.

Just do something.

Because when twenty-something different people are asking me, “What can I do?” it becomes another thing I have to manage. And then there’s this weird fear of asking for too much. What if I finally tell you what I need and it doesn’t happen? What if you take it personally when I don’t know how to communicate what I need?

So, thank you to the people who simply checked on me. Those who showed up and did something without waiting for instructions.

And thank you to the people who asked, too. Please don't mistake what I'm saying for selfishness or ingratitude. It isn't. Sometimes grief just makes even receiving help overwhelming.

I might take hours to respond to you. I might take days. I may not respond at all

It’s not you. It’s me trying to survive something I don't have the words for.

I do understand that people don't always know what to do when someone is grieving. Some people become uncomfortable when they see someone crying. Some don't know what to say. Some want you to hurry up and feel better because your sadness makes them uncomfortable.

And sometimes, even your job takes your grief personally. Maybe I’m not communicating in enough detail, but did you know that the moment I try to speak, my voice cracks. I’m lost in thought, still trying to process everything I’ve just been through. I needed a minute, and I couldn’t respond.

If only they knew, I'm doing the best I can while trying to hold on to this job. You don't know what it took for me to log in today. To show up!

You don't know what it took for me to log in today. To show up! You don't know how many times I cried before I opened my laptop. You don't know that I barely slept. You don't know that I woke up from night sweats from flashbacks. You don't know that I'm trying to read an email through tears because my brain is somewhere else entirely.

And let’s talk about the you people around you asking questions that can come across as incredibly insensitive like: “How close were you to them?” “How old were they?” “Were they sick for a long time?” As if the answers to those questions somehow determine how much you’re supposed to hurt.

You cannot dictate how someone should grieve.

You don't get to decide how significant someone's loss is based on their age, their diagnosis, how long they were sick, how close you were to them or whether the death was expected.

The person experiencing the loss doesn't even know how they're going to respond until they're in it.

And while you're trying to process your own grief, you're navigating everybody else's grief, too!

You think losing someone will bring the family closer. Ha! Everyone is hurting, overwhelmed, and processing the same loss differently. Instead of recognizing that, we lash out and talk shit about each other.

Someone feels like they're carrying more of the weight. Someone feels abandoned. Someone thinks someone else isn't grieving enough. There are disagreements about the funeral, decisions that were made, or how everything is being handled. One person needs to talk about what happened, while another can't even say the person's name without falling apart.

And suddenly, the grief isn't just about the person who died. It's about the tension between the people who are still here.

Pain doesn't always make people gentler. Sometimes it makes us defensive, angry, impatient, and cruel. We take what we're carrying and place it on someone else because we're hurting and don't know where else to put it.

The people who need each other most start hurting each other instead.

We stop listening. We become short with one another. We keep score. We interpret silence as indifference and anger as disrespect. We forget that we're all standing in the same loss, just experiencing it from different places.

We're grieving the same person, but we're not necessarily grieving the same way.

And that's another kind of heartbreak: to be mourning someone you love while feeling further away from the people who are mourning them with you.

And somehow, after 3 days of bereavement, you're expected to log back on.

Show up.

Put on a face.

Make everybody else “comfortable.”

Because apparently, 3 days is enough time to grieve a lifetime of memories.

And then everybody asks:

“How was the funeral?”

“How are you feeling?”

“Are you okay?”

“What happened?”

I wanna scream »» How the fuck do you think I feel?

But you don't say it.

Because you're still trying to be considerate of everyone else's feelings while you're barely holding yourself together.

That's one of the hardest parts of grief that people don't talk about.

You're grieving the person you lost while simultaneously learning who people are when you're no longer able to show up for them the way you normally do.

You're learning who understands your silence.

Who actually remembered you lost a loved one

Who gives you space.

Who checks on you.

Who shows up.

Who is quiet.

Who disappears.

Who becomes impatient.

Who makes your grief about their fucking inconvenience.

You're learning that the people and institutions you thought would give you grace don't always know how to.

That's another loss in itself.

Because now, outside of grieving the person you lost, you’re also questioning whether you’re wearing out your welcome and whether you should cut people off for not being there.

You already feel like your world has been pulled out from underneath you, and now you're carrying the insecurity of wondering whether you're losing your footing in other parts of your life, too.

Grief isn't just crying.

It's confusion.

It's exhaustion.

It's anger.

It's silence.

It's guilt.

It's resentment.

It's remembering something funny and laughing, then feeling guilty because you laughed.

It's getting angry that the world kept moving.

It's looking at people eating lunch and shopping and going to work and wondering how they're doing all of this like nothing happened.

It's waking up and, for a split second, forgetting they're gone.

Then remembering.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Grief is realizing that your world stopped, but the world didn't.

The sun still rises.

The bills still come.

The emails still arrive.

The pets still need dinner.

People still need things from you.

And somehow, you're expected to keep participating in normal life while carrying something inside of you that feels anything but normal.

So if someone you know is grieving, don't always wait for them to tell you what they need.

Sometimes just show up.

Sometimes send the food.

Send the flowers.

Send the prayer.

Make the phone call.

Sit quietly.

Don't ask them to perform their grief for you.

Don't make their lack of response about you.

Don't assume that because they aren't communicating the way they normally do that they don't appreciate you.

Sometimes they're just trying to make it through the next hour without falling apart.

And if you're the person grieving, give yourself permission to not have the words.

You don't have to make everyone comfortable.

You don't have to respond immediately.

You don't have to explain your pain perfectly.

You don't have to grieve on a schedule just because the world has one.

The world may keep moving.

But you are allowed to move through it at your own pace.