Do you feel guilty when you’re not sad or grieving at the moment?

my guilt comes from an expectation of what grief should look like

My dad and I splitting wood in Alaska in 2023

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Question

Do you feel guilty when you’re having a nice time with your friend or catch yourself enjoying a movie that you’re not sad or grieving at the moment?

I started following you randomly one morning about a week after my dad passed and your videos are so relatable and gives me the feeling that I’m not alone. Keep doing what you’ve doing and thank you! :)

Answer

At times I feel guilty for not missing or thinking of him more. Most of the time I don’t feel sadness or longing. I know I miss him and wish he were here, but I often don’t feel the emotion. Sometimes when I haven’t thought of him in a while, I feel some guilt. On the surface, that guilt comes from feeling selfish. I think it feels like I’m too caught up in my own life to remember him.

On a deeper level, that guilt comes from an expectation of what grief should look like.

“If you really loved him, you’d be sad more often.”

“If you really missed him, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy a movie.”

I am new to losing a parent, but I have been told repeatedly by those wiser than myself that grief doesn’t look like any one thing. We do not need to perform grief. Grief is hard enough by itself without additional, arbitrary expectations.

It is also helpful for me to remind myself of the ways we have / are remembering my dad: holding memorials, sharing memories of him, archiving his photographs, writing about how I feel, finishing work that was important to him, etc.

There are times I feel intense grief. The sadness and longing is all consuming. Those are helpful reminders that the grief is there even if it isn’t always on the surface.

It’s okay to be kind to ourselves. :)

- Grant