November 2022

To the Griever

I want to remind you that grief and gratitude can exist together. They don’t cancel each other out. You can feel gratitude for what you have while also feeling sad for what is lost. You can smile and cry.

To the Supporter

A reminder to those who care about a griever: Grief and gratitude can exist together. They don’t cancel each other out. Do not “prescribe” gratitude. Telling someone to stop focusing on what they have lost and instead focus on what they have is not helpful. Gratitude cannot cure grief. Grief cannot be cured at all. It stays with you.

To the Griever

Griever, it is ok if you don’t feel grateful right now.

To the Supporter

You can be support your griever by listening, acknowledging and not trying to fix it.

It’s instinctual to want to say something when someone dies, receives a diagnosis or is in the middle of a challenging situation. But what should you say?

Unfortunately sometimes what people say to a person that is grieving or going through a challenging time is not comforting or helpful and can actually be really upsetting to hear. You have the best intentions. You want the other person to know that you care. So what can you say?

Here are my 4 ideas of what you can say to someone who is grieving or in a difficult situation.

1. That’s hard
2. That’s sad/horrible
3. I’m here for you in what ever way you need me
4. I love you

You have to remember that you can’t fix what’s going on and that whatever you say isn’t going make that person hurt less. But what you say can let them know that you know they are hurting and that you love them.

Grief is weird. Having your husband die before you celebrate your 5th wedding anniversary is weird. Suddenly going from wife to widow is weird. Navigating a life you never expected is weird.

Some things made sense like waves of sadness and crying. Feeling lost and uncertain of the future.

But there were other things that I wasn’t expecting.

Being tired all the time. Grief brings a whole different level of exhaustion. I can get so mentally exhausted from all of the emotions and thoughts that my body also feels exhausted.

Being forgetful. This one has been hard to deal with. I used to keep track of my life and Chaz’s life all in my head. We joked that I was his secretary. Now if I’m not doing whatever it is immediately, I need to write it down or POOF! It’s gone from my brain. This has gotten better but I still have weeks where nothing sticks in my brain and I rely on written lists.

Being ok and then suddenly not being ok. Sometimes there’s a trigger and sometimes not. I can have a string of good days and then I’m suddenly not ok.

But probably the biggest thing that I didn’t expect about living with grief was to reach a place where I’m accepting of every emotion, every trigger, every memory, and every new experience.