Grief is Not a Competition

Grief is not a competition

“Well I was married for 30 years!” the woman cried, eyes indignant, almost challenging me.

This was the reaction of a friend’s grandmother when she found out I was widowed too.

She clearly thought her pain of loss was much worse.

I didn’t realize grief was a competition. But it seems some people think it is. It had been two years since I lost my young husband of five years and this was by no means the first time that someone had compared pain.

Comments like:

“Well, you lost your dad and your husband. I just lost one.”

“Well, at least your husband wasn’t sick like mine.”

“You’ll find someone else. I lost a child, that can’t be replaced.”

“I was devastated when my dog died but I know your loss is much more devastating.”

I’ve never been much into competitive sports. In fact, I hate competing with others. Did I really need to participate in a grief competition?

I’m out. To me, grief is grief. Pain is pain. We all experience it differently. I don’t know if mine is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than yours. And I don’t care.

What I do know is it hurts.

And hurting is not fun.

What if we honored what we lost and what others lost, whether it was a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend, or even an enemy?

What if we honored the loss of others even if it wasn’t a death, but a divorce or the loss of one’s health?

Isn’t that grief too?

What if we let go of trying to compete with our pain and just honored ourselves and others by showing some empathy, or sympathy, or both?

Maybe our grief would begin to give way to something greater.

When people simply acknowledged my grief and the pain I must be going through, I could breathe again.

I no longer needed to search for a response to the accusation that my pain wasn’t ‘as bad’ or ‘worse’.

And it helped me heal.

What if we all just helped each other heal? What would happen?

If you like competing, go play competitive sports.

Grief is not a competition.

Honor your grief and others by acknowledging the pain and sharing something else that is universal. Love.