Who Grieved it Best? Stop Making Grief a Competition

This was recorded from my phone while laying in the bed , so the sound you hear in the background is my fan and I don't know how to edit that out .

So even though the quality is not great , I feel like the message is and I didn't want to re-record it , because we all have those moments where we're laying in the bed thinking about life , and this is one of mine . So I hope you enjoy . I don't know why loss has to be a competition for everyone , why loss has to be compared . Loss is loss .

It's a horrible thing to go through . I don't care if you've lost a husband , if you've lost a parent , if you've lost a sibling , a cousin , grandparent , best friend or even a pet . No one knows your relationship with that person . No one knows how deep it goes or how it doesn't . No one knows the impact of the person dying that has on someone .

I've heard stories of funerals and your loved one passes away at the funeral , someone comes up and says , oh my god , I loved him so much . He was my best friend and I'm gonna miss him . And you're like what ? You weren't his best friend . Of course that's what you're thinking in your head . You're not saying it out loud , but you don't know that relationship .

You don't know that connection . You don't know the influence or the impact that your person had on someone else . Impets . Everyone's always talking about someone's pet dying and how that is not the most devastating thing that can happen , but you don't know that person's life . You don't know their situation .

You don't know their childhood , you don't know the trauma that they have been through . You don't know capacity that that person has to love . That pet could have been the only thing in the world that has ever showed that person unconditional love . Think about how you would feel If you just lost the only thing in the world that showed you unconditional love .

Doesn't matter what that thing was , doesn't matter who that person was . It matters how you feel about them . It's your experience , it's your grief , it's your journey , no one else's . And while we're talking about losses , let's talk about losses of jobs . Yeah , I know you're thinking why am I talking about a loss of a job when I've lost my husband ? Again ?

You don't know the struggles that someone has been through . You don't know what their childhood dreams were . You don't know if they ever thought that they wouldn't be anything in this world , that maybe they never have the opportunity to be educated or go to college . And they finally did .

They thought all of this stuff was out of their reach and they worked so hard to get there , or not even go to college but then have a career of their dreams doing what they feel is their definition of success .

But then to lose it , to lose it all , to lose the career , to lose the status , to lose the money , to lose the ability to provide for your family the devastation , the impact that that has on someone mentally . It's a loss and it's horrible . And another thing let's talk about the loss of friendships .

We all know what our besties mean to us , the things that we go through in our lives . We share things with our best friends that we wouldn't dare tell anyone , not even our husbands . And to lose a friend like that , to lose a relationship like that , where you can always be yourself , you never have to worry about being judged .

You never have to pretend to be anything that you're not , because we all know that we are all our most authentic , raw selves with our best friends . Let's talk about losing that relationship . I know firsthand how that feels and it's a loss . You grieve that relationship . You grieve that person even though that person is alive .

And another misconception widows and divorcees . I have a friend that has a podcast , the Heavy Pages Journal , and her name is Josie .

We're actually gonna do it interviews together here soon and , oh man , we had the best conversation comparing these two things and me and her both , even though our losses were different , we were both experiencing the same thing and talking to her and having these conversations about our feelings it felt so good .

It was just like talking to a widow , and I say that only because the only difference between us is that she wasn't a widow . The only difference between me and a pet owner losing their pet is they're not a widow . The only difference from me and someone losing their career in every dream that they ever wanted was they're not a widow .

The only difference between me and someone losing a relative other than a husband is they're not a widow .

We're always comparing our losses and I'm not downplaying our losses and I'm not saying that your loss is not meaningful or not as worse as someone else's and I hate to even say the word worse but I feel like that's the only way that I can relate this to someone .

I feel like this is the only way that I can translate what I'm saying , because even I , sometimes , when I'm talking to someone who's lost somebody and it wasn't a spouse and I think , oh my God , they have it so much worse than I do , like they are grieving so much harder than I am , like , why am I not grieving like that ?

Why am I not incapacitated like they are ? Why am I not outwardly crying and showing my emotion like they are ? Why am I not grieving like that ? Am I not grieving enough ? Did I not love Tom enough to grieve for him like that ? That's what I mean .

But then it's also on the opposite end . There may be a widow and they're like no , you can't compare that . The loss of my spouse , the loss of my person , is the most horrible loss that you will ever go through in your entire life .

It may be for you , and I've said this before and I will say it again the loss of my brother has impacted my life far worse and I'm going to use the word worse than the loss of my husband . And some people may think how can that be ? She must have not really loved her husband . But let me tell you , I fucking love Tom Johnson .

I went through some shit with him for 18 years and I loved that . So instead of us comparing who grieved it worse , let's see who can grieve it best , who can take the experiences of their losses and show some compassion for someone else who has lost another person or a thing , or a job , or a pet , or their home or their kids .

Let's take the thing that was lost out of the equation and let's just look at the grief . Let's just look at the pain that other people are feeling . Let's show compassion . Let them know that we understand how they're feeling , not what they're going through , but how they feel .

We all know what it's like when we lose something and we're just angry , we're mad at everyone , we're mad at ourselves , we're mad at God , we're mad at the world . And then we're sad and we're crying and we get depressed and we don't know what to do . We feel lost and then we all know what it's like to live without that thing that we loved so much .

We know what it's like to be scared of a life without our person . We know what it's like the first morning that you wake up and you're not thinking about them . We know what it's like when you have no choice but to move forward in life without them .

But we also know what it's like when we find happiness again , when we find joy , when we realize that moment in time that we can do it , that we can have a life without them , that we can love again , be loved again . We can have a new spouse , we can have new friendships , we can have a new job , we can get a new pet .

There comes a time when our heart opens up and we can have all of those things , because , after all , love is not dead . Just my husband .