Who Gets To Grieve?
I gave you the first thought yesterday from the Substack. The second was the idea that we need to get better at suffering and acknowledge that grief extends beyond the people closest to the situation as a society.
Only a handful of people “get” to fully grieve the loss of someone close to them, but how many others are acutely sharing that grief? I’m thinking about how beloved friends of the deceased don’t necessarily get to take their three allotted bereavement days from work because they’re not family members. I’m thinking about the pals who don’t get updates on a buddy’s medical condition because the friends haven’t passed some sort of closeness test.
It’s such a deeply profound thought because, as a society, we almost need to prove that we’re allowed to grieve. We have to state our relationship to the deceased or ill — and we’re judged whether we’re close enough to the situation to warrant the space to hold our feelings. And yet, our emotions don’t get that message. Our feelings ask us to stop. Society, work, and relationships ask us to go on.
There is a difference, of course, in inserting your grief. Of asking someone else impacted by the situation to hold your grief for you. But Mari’s point is that we should expand the idea of who is “allowed” to grieve, to have their feelings acknowledged and honoured when they need space to explore them.
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With all of losses during the 2020-2022 period, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. We’ve lost so many friends and family that I didn’t get the time or space to grieve. In part, subconsciously, I didn’t even think I “deserved” that time and space. There’s something very wrong with that in our society.
I got quite a few downvotes on Reddit when I mentioned that I let my husband’s mother arrange a funeral for him, though he said he didn’t want any services. The manner of his death meant that his family was left sort of floundering, and I felt it was necessary, especially for his mother, to give them a ritual for their grief. It wouldn’t help them understand. It wouldn’t erase their guilt for attributing his issues to being a jerk and drawing away from him. But it would give them a chance to gather and be sad together. My daughter and I were…somewhat outside their group. That was fine – I had my family and friends. If I hadn’t, they probably would have stepped in more.
On the other hand, one of my husband’s sisters said something really offensive to me (via text), and when I called her on it, she justified it by saying that other people were hurting too. She made me regret giving her any opportunity to mourn the brother that she took for granted.