A Smiling Young Widow

I wrote about taking hustle culture out of grief here. This is me reflecting more on the challenge of slowing down to lean into the grieving process, and what might shake our ability to do that. 

I’ve learnt a helpful new term – “grief thief” (I first learnt the expression from reading Grief is a Sneaky Bitch). Grief thieves might snatch away grief support or make you question yourself and how you’re doing this. They can be pickpockets (sneaky or in disguise – they can come with good intentions) or daylight bank robbers (ok you must realize what you’re doing here). Grief thieves are not actually stealing your grief, like Lisa says in her book – yeah no one actually wants to take that on, you can keep it.

Grief thieves can come from outside comments or voices in our own heads. These can attack many different kinds of grief – I’m going to share what these can do from my lens, but that is not meant to thief away anyone else’s grief!

Shaming Grief:

Suggestions you are doing it wrong can come through loud and clear from other people’s comments (I wrote previously about all opinions and judgment that comes along with widowhood). Or these can be subtle and just infiltrate what we think grief might look like… perhaps the Hallmark movies that love to profile a widow moving to a quaint town & getting remarried for her first Christmas alone ­– spoiler, that has not exactly been my journey!

Offering up advice that hasn’t been asked for fits here too – the line between advice and judgment is very skewed, friends. 

In my own head, the shaming grief thief is all the comparisons and the “shoulds” that get pulled out. I was fine with making my healing a priority, for awhile. That could be my focus, my purpose. Then time marches on and I question, am I doing enough?

Minimizing Grief:

I’m thinking of grief math here! This could be big too if maybe you don’t have the “right label” for people to think your level of grief is appropriate – oh they were “just” an in-law or a friend, or you didn’t know each other for all that long, or you’re so young you’ll find someone else. As if any label is supposed to determine how much a death disrupts your life.

People try to nicely suggest to get “back” to regular routines. Maybe that will help. What a luxury that would be for my routines to still be intact, for me to be the same person. I can be so jealous other people have the ability to retreat to normal life.

Absolutely I have my own judgemental narratives that circle in my own thoughts too, being hard on myself with messages like “other people go through terrible things all the time,” and “I have so much to be grateful for, life has also been really kind to me so focus on that instead”. Why am I letting my own little grief thief try to minimize the massive loss this is?

Hijacking Grief:

Someone can easily take over your grief experience with comments like the, “Oh yeah I totally understand because I did X when my Y died,” and launch into their own stories. Or I reflect back on moments where I found myself thinking wait, what happened that I’m now the one doing the consoling here?

Grief is lonely. We need community but at the same time it is important to acknowledge every person has their own personal grieving experience and needs to be allowed that.

The loneliness can absolutely set-off a wild internal grief thief if I don’t catch it. I try to be conscious of this one, while at the same time acknowledging how valid my experience is ­– I don’t get to hijack that for myself either. There are for sure other people that miss Tom, yet I am the only person feeling the gigantic gaps in my own day-to-day life. It’s my body here feeling reminders at such a deep level that Tom should be coming home for his big chunk of time off. It’s me decorating our Christmas tree alone (something I couldn’t do last year). It’s me shovelling the heavy snow that slides off the roof when it warms up, giving myself heck that I still struggle with not being used to this being just my job alone now.

Silencing Grief:

I struggle hearing comments like, “I’m glad to see you doing so well”. I appreciate that so many people care and want the best for me, but this doesn’t necessarily leave much space for the authentic experience and can leave me questioning how I’m showing up. I do a LOT of work to keep myself remotely ok, but my world is still about as stable as a house of cards with the breeze threatening to gust at anytime.

This quieting of grief can apply to emotions too – are we letting people feel the horrible raw grief? Are we letting any and all emotions make an appearance? I know, we want to help and fix. I was guilty of this before too and still struggle with this one. Grief can’t be fixed. At my retreat last month there was a rule to not interrupt someone else’s emotional experience. Just hold space and let those emotions complete the cycle, then you can offer up a hug or some comfort if that feels right for you. This makes a lot of sense. When we immediately go to comfort, that’s a thief. A very, very well-intentioned thief. But still the subconscious message is to shut down those tears and pull it together so we can be comfortable.

I’ve been working against a thief that was busy telling me what I was allowed to grieve for. I look at our old pictures together and of course I’m still so sad to have lost Tom, but I also look at the me in those pictures and am so sad to have lost her too – the version of me that will never exist again. I used to feel a sort of guilt for thinking about losing me in all this. I’m learning to give myself that though, I absolutely deserve the attention and love. It’s another huge loss to work through and one I face everyday.

“People ask me what is the worst grief.
I always say your grief. Your grief is the worst grief. ”
– David Kessler

So, grief thieves. I’m learning to spot them.

I think of it like a mindfulness exercise where you notice thoughts coming and going just like clouds in the sky. Rather than really engaging with them, you label them as they pass by – like oh that’s planning or there’s a worry. Grief thieves can be thought of just like that – they’re definitely going to come by, but the goal is to just observe them without letting them take over.

And I’m also learning to value whatever the opposite of a grief thief is. I’m thinking these can be called grief angels (other suggestions welcome! grief enablers? grief guides? grief villagers?) The people that show-up as such incredible support. The comments that can be so reassuring or uplifting just when you need them. I have LOTS of grief angels to appreciate. People that were in my life before and haven’t disappeared as a bit of time has passed. People I’ve met since Tom died who have become such a light on this journey.

I’ll tell you one story of a recent grief angel that came across my path. I’ve been working through some tough moments where it can feel like everyone else’s lives are carrying on while time is standing still for me (I wanted to be over this, remember). As December began I found myself dreading the calendar turning. It will be 2025 and Tom died in 2023, how is that possible? When the calendar turned to 2024 I remember also feeling this sense of dread that I could no longer say “my husband died earlier this year”. I figured it out and changed to say “my husband died this year”. Until I passed the one year mark, then I switched to “my husband died last year”. Now, what? I was thinking I need a way to communicate the total upheaval I’m still living and how this can still feel so fresh. 

It’s hard to put myself out there where others might not know my story. I brace myself as I know it will inevitability come up that my husband died, and I don’t know how they’ll take it. Recently I met someone for the first time. Well this person was an absolute grief angel! She validated how hard it must be for me to carry-on doing our life alone, then said she’d love to learn more about what my husband was like if I was comfortable talking about him. She offered up that, even though it was a totally different experience, she had been having her own grief experience after losing her dad “not so long ago”.

Not so long ago.
My husband and best friend died not so long ago.

So the goal – can we all be grief angels?
Especially during the holiday season we all need a bit more softness, a bit more light.