06/01/2026
It will always be strange to me how comfortable people are judging the way a parent grieves their child.
Imagine watching a parent survive the worst thing imaginable and deciding they’re not doing it right?
As if there’s a rulebook for parents burying their children.
As if there’s a timeline to get over it.
As if there’s a “correct” way to deal with walking out of a hospital room with empty arms.
What’s strange is not the way we grieve.
What’s strange is the way people felt entitled to talk about it like they would do it all differently.
“I would never post that”
“I can’t believe she did that”
“I wouldn’t handle it that way”
You don’t know what you would do.
And I pray you never have to find out.
You do not get to critique the way someone crawled out of hell.
You do not get to decide it was “too much” or “not enough.”
Too public.
Too quiet.
Too angry.
Too emotional.
Too fast.
Too slow.
When someone is walking through the worst season of their life, they are not wondering if they’re doing it right. They are thinking about survival. About making it to tomorrow. About holding themselves together with whatever thread they can find.
And it is so insanely arrogant to stand at a distance and analyze the way they did it when you have no idea what it costs someone to get out of bed after their world falls apart. You don’t know what it took for them to post that photo. Or show up to that event. Or smile in that room. Or avoid that party. You don’t know what their nights look like. You don’t hear the silence they sit in.
You are seeing a fraction. And if you have never stood in their exact fire, you do not get to critique how they walked through it.
There is something deeply human about coping imperfectly. About grasping for light in ways that don’t always make sense to other people. About surviving in ways that are messy and visible or messy and invisible.
What’s not human is turning someone else’s tragedy into a topic of conversation.
If you don’t understand how someone is grieving, that’s okay. But judging it says more about you than it ever will about them.
Some people are just trying to stay alive.
Help them or leave them alone
