Cured
My boss's reaction to the news that my 78-year-old mother died of pneumonia: "My dad had pneumonia last year too, but I cured him with organic honey. You should have given your mom that, and she’d still be alive."
Comfort
My ex died in a tragic accident at just 32. We had broken up two years earlier but were together for seven years and parted on good terms, so his death hit me hard. A friend kindly offered to go out the next evening. "We’ll have a few drinks and you can talk it out," she said, and I was grateful because that’s exactly what I needed. But just as I was about to leave, she messaged me saying sorry, she couldn’t come because her "friends with benefits" guy had just texted and she was meeting him.
The card
I was devastated when my grandmother died. We were very close—she practically raised me. At work, struggling to keep it together, a colleague asked what was wrong. I said I hadn’t gotten over losing my grandma yet. He replied, "You’ve played the ‘grandma died’ card for weeks now. Tell me what’s really bothering you—did your boyfriend run off?"
But then
My mom had melanoma and the disease took her quickly. At the funeral, my brother’s girlfriend told a small group of relatives how she once took her own mom to a plastic surgeon to remove a mole, so her mom wouldn’t die of melanoma because she had it "checked out."
Sulking
My mother-in-law got upset when, two weeks after my mom’s death, my husband told her we wouldn’t be going on vacation with them because we were still grieving. She said, "Then you go with them, and leave me at home." She didn’t understand why my husband wanted to be with me "no matter what," when I needed some alone time to grieve in peace.
I get it
When my dad died, a young coworker came over, hugged me, and said she totally understood how I felt because she was grieving too—her Djungarian dwarf hamster had died two weeks earlier. She wasn’t joking or being sarcastic; she was completely serious.
The picture
After my sister died, a relative had a photo of her made for me. They enlarged a very unflattering picture to a huge size (100 x 80 cm / 39 x 31 inches), put it in a gold frame, and asked which wall in the living room I wanted it on. When I thanked them but said I couldn’t bear to look at that (terrible) giant photo of my late sister every day, they muttered under their breath that I must not have loved her.
Don’t even mention it…
My dad died suddenly at 64 last November. It shook me, especially so close to the holidays. I was just trying to get through Christmas Eve when my sister-in-law called from England to ask how we were. I said it was really hard—the first Christmas without dad. She said, "Don’t even mention it, I broke up with my boyfriend a week ago, so I totally get it—I’m a wreck too!" Then she launched into a half-hour monologue about their breakup. Definitely not what I needed at that moment.
The grief Olympics
When my coworkers found out my brother died, they spent the entire lunch comparing whose loss was worse and who was more affected. They literally competed over who had it worse, while I just sat there thinking how surreal this grief Olympics was.
Two months
"But it’s already been two months..." my uncle said when I told him I was feeling down because of my husband’s death. He was genuinely surprised I hadn’t processed losing my partner in that time.
