I heard the terrible news recently: my old colleague and friend lost her son. I won’t give many details, but his killing was in the news, and I’d heard through our mutual friends.
I texted my friend my thoughts and prayers. She’d done the same for me in the past during hard days at work, and although you’re not supposed to discuss religion with people at work, we knew we both believed and both relied on the grace of God to just make it through the day.
It probably makes me feel like a terrible person to say I thought “wow, that’s really awful” and I didn’t really feel much else. I felt really bad for my friend. I was sad to hear about her son, but there was a simple reason why I felt it was inappropriate to grieve.
I didn’t know her son. I’d never met her son. I didn’t want to make it about me in the slightest, but I didn’t feel a right to grieve someone I didn’t know. Yes, I grieved for his mother, who has been a good friend and mentor. But I felt like saying I grieved her son would have been disingenuous and attention-seeking for those reasons.
That led me to a deeper question — do we have a right to grieve people we don’t know? Is there a such thing as a “right to grieve” anyway?
A lot of me knows comparison is wrong. A lot of me knows this is the wrong conversation to have when someone dies. A lot of me knows that closeness with the dead is not a competition.
But it’s just different to insert yourself in a situation when you know the bereaved, but you don’t know the departed at all.
Social worker Jill Daino writes about grief is complicated, particularly in the wake of public tragedy. A lot of us grieve the deaths of people in the news, whether it’s celebrities, people killed in high-profile episodes of police violence, kids killed in school shootings, or more.
Did we know them? No. But there’s always the thought that “that could have been my son” or “that could have been my friend.” We relate to the victims and people impacted because we either have been or anticipate we will be in similar situations of grief and loss.
At the end of the day, no matter if you knew the deceased or not, Daino emphasizes that whatever you feel is valid.
Jo Hamer, a bereavement counselor, also talks about the perils of comparison. Grief is not a comparison. Grief can affect everyone, no matter how close they are to the deceased. No matter your place on the grief hierarchy, you have a right to feel it.
In my opinion, everyone has a right to feel grief. But I feel much more conflicted over public displays of grief for someone you didn’t know. Of course, I won’t be trying to talk over my friend at her son’s funeral, nor ever would I. In terms of social conventions, I think there is a hierarchy in terms of public displays and what can be seen as yearnings for attention.
When I went to see my friend and deliver a card, flowers, food, tea, and candles, I felt my heart heavy. How could God let someone so young die so tragically? I’m not a crier — when I do, it is profuse. As a man who grew up with topically masculine standards around crying, that’s just how I was conditioned and will always feel suppressed.
But I did almost break down in tears over his death. I couldn’t imagine what my friend was going through. We’re both regular churchgoers who believe in God, so I wrote in the card that her son is with God now in the next life. I wasn’t sure if that was callous or not.
But I did grieve, and all my friend’s friends who didn’t know her son grieved as well. Grief does not mean posting on social media about how sad and sorry you are over a tragedy — so perhaps that’s the reality in this day and age I found off-putting at least for someone like myself in that situation.
To grieve in community means giving support when people need it most, to pray and offer not only words and gifts, but a listening ear. To let people know they are not alone in their pain and suffering is a gift that is at best a lifesaver, and at worst support someone can just say no.
Everyone has a right to grieve.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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