My WTF moment – by Simone

by Recover the gift

On this journey of grief, you are thrown curve balls along the way that leave you speechless. I had one of those yesterday. I have written on here about my social anxiety, especially when it comes to social situations where I know I will be surrounded by people that I don’t know well and who may not know our story – where I have to manage peoples reactions and discomfort and how they generally have no idea what to “do” with me.

I did some lifting yesterday for a school outing of Murray’s where some other moms were also helping out. At the end of the outing we were waiting for the kids to come out, and I was talking to one of the moms. She also works full time and we were discussing balancing work and mom duties. The conversation unfolded as follows:

Her – “You have 2 kids don’t you?”

Me – “No, just one” and already feeling riddled with guilt as I said it for denying my other children

Her – “Oh yes, your daughter died.”

Me – “yes”

Her – “Well at least you don’t have to split your time across more than one child now.”

Speechless…I mean WTF??? Yes, I am lucky my son and daughter died, because now I don’t have to split my time across more than one child??? It’s times like these you wish somebody had a mute or undo button or muzzle that you could put on them. I had no idea how to respond to her (although of course afterwards I thought of all the things I wish I had said) but it’s really sat with me since then. That somebody can be so clueless about loss and grief that this is the comment blows me away.

I have had some friends asking me recently about how they can help friends of theirs that have recently been thrown into this grief journey and I have sent them some of the blog entries I have done in terms of how to help those that are grieving. It is the hardest journey that any person is ever going to have to go through, and I really hope that in continuing to share my experiences and thoughts I can educate people on how to help the grieving better, what to say and not to say, how not to panic when you don’t know what to say, and how to avoid some of these “WTF moments”.

 

If you want to specifically tap into some of these articles I have written you can find them under this category: https://isabella1509.com/category/grief-and-resilience-help/