for context, I lost my grandad approx 10 years ago (when I was in my teens). He was my best friend and he and my grandma practically raised me due to my rubbish parents! Everyone used to say that we were peas in a pod, I’d go anywhere and do anything if he was attending.
Recently, I mentioned taking some flowers to him for Father’s Day and said I find it quite hard as I miss him.
A colleague piped up and said “really? Wow! I’d have thought you’d be over it by 10 years passing. My grandad died when I was 6 and I was never really bothered. It’s not like when you lose a parent”
My first issue with this was that she arguably did not know her grandad as well as I did, as I spent more time with him to have such a close relationship.
Secondly, I appreciate we probably had a more typical father-daughter bond, but I don’t see how that’s anyone’s business really.
My main issue though is that I don't see the need to compare grief in such a way? I’ve had similar comments before about how losing grandparents is not a big deal, and I just think it’s cruel.
A friend of mine was widowed very young. She married her husband as he was terminally ill but they had been together since high school. She told me that a person had once suggested that she was clearly over the loss as she had recently started to date again.
When I moved out on my own I got a pet cat, she was my whole entire world. It was just me and her. She died of a heart attack last year and I still have an ache in my chest when I think of her. Someone recently told me “she’s only a cat, how can you still be bothered?”
i just feel that whilst YOU may have gotten over something, who is to say that someone else should have done? Why must people insist that certain grief is harder or not? Can’t we all console and support each other in our own feelings?
why do we feel the need to have a race to who has it the worst? And why do we need to compare who’s grief is somehow more valid?
aibu to be annoyed by how rude people can be about grief?