Grief doesn't have to match

In my own journey through grief, and in observing the grieving of others, I’ve noticed a desire for matching. People often want things to match up in some way that helps us make sense of grief, or predict how it will behave, or feel less alone in it. For example, if a person’s grief reaction looks like someone else’s (or if they imply that someone else’s grief should look like theirs), that might help them feel that they are normal. If a person believes their grief will always look and feel the same over time, that could make it seem more predictable. If a person reads something about grief that makes sense to them, they may hope it will apply to them. In all of this, I see a hope that there can be some control over grief.

But in my experience, almost nothing matches. My grief one day doesn’t necessarily match another day, and a year might not match another year. It certainly doesn’t match what I thought it would look like; to be honest, I had a limited understanding of grief before my brother died. When I talk with other grieving people I find we have a lot in common, especially those who have lost siblings, but there are always elements that don’t match at all. And my grief for different people in my life doesn’t match either. See this photo of my grandfather (Frank Sr.) and my brother (Frank III) preparing to share one of our countless family dinners? These men are both gone. I miss them both terribly, and very differently.

My message for you today is that it’s OK for your grief not to match. Your grief one day doesn’t have to match another day. It doesn’t have to match another person’s experience, even if you are grieving the same loved one. Doesn’t have to match what you thought it was going to be, what some famous author said it was like, how you have grieved someone else. It doesn’t have to match. And if you’re uncomfortable with not being certain, and not being able to predict, get comfortable with that discomfort. It can create a lot of extra pain to try to shoehorn your grief into someone else’s plan, a cultural or religious structure, even your very own plan or structure, literally anything other than its own form. Let it be what it is. Show up to it, be curious, and see what it has to tell you.