Feeling Invisible in a Crowded Room

Here’s the reality about grief and mourning…as you grieve, life goes on around you. Life goes on everyday despite your pain and suffering. Your friends and family who rallied around you in the first days and weeks and who comforted you during the memorial or funeral, go back to living their life. They must, they have no choice – bills must be paid and life has to be lived. Life cannot stand still after your loss, even though you may want it to.

However, what I experienced is many people expect, either consciously or unconsciously, you to do the same. To go back to living your life, including all the things you used to do together. Like going out to dinner, to a movie, for a hike or walk or whatever you did together before your loss. They expect you to talk about the present, the future and all the usual day-to-day experiences you talked about before. Those that are in acute grief know that this is impossible.

So, in their effort to get back to life, many of your friends and family don’t really ask how you are doing, they don’t mention your loved one or consider how hard earlier life activities like going out to dinner can be. In these moments, I felt invisible. I felt isolated.

When I went back to work after my husband died, I was shocked at the few people who even acknowledged my loss, offered sympathy, or even asked how I was doing. As if by ignoring it, I wouldn’t remember it or feel sad about it. I heard the usual statements, “I didn’t want to make you upset” or “I just didn’t know what to say”.

The reality is there is nothing anyone can do or say to make you feel better during this time. When we are grieving, we are not asking for someone to fix it. We are simply asking to be acknowledged. For those around us to acknowledge our pain, our sorrow and our lost loved one. The one we lost is always on our mind and I would have never wanted to forget my husband by not talking about him and the life we lived together.

Grief is a difficult journey and it is a universal journey that, if we have loved, we will experience. Grief has no ending; it ebbs and flows like the tide. I found that people who took the time to acknowledge my grief, to offer condolences and to remember memories of my husband brought me the most comfort. We never forget and feeling like others around us are forgetting it isolating and lonely.
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