David Kessler

Now, here's what goes wrong.

People think grief is like a pie.

I have my pie of grief, and all of a sudden, the 20-year-old whose wedding's postponed is taking a piece of my pie.

No, there's room in this world for all our losses.

Here's a tough thing that I work with therapists on a lot and coaches, people who run bereavement groups.

Let's say in a bereavement group, there's a woman there, her fiancee,

died after three months, and there's someone else who's been married for 40 years.

She says to a woman who had three months, oh my gosh, your grief is nothing.

Three months is nothing.

Try 50 years.

The top line, I would say, is

We don't compare griefs.

There's enough room, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'd give her that speech.

We're not going to judge each other's grief in this group.

Hopefully I've said that at the beginning.

But what I want therapists, coaches, and friends to know, the person who's saying, hey, they're getting too much, is really saying, my grief hasn't been witnessed enough.

Oh.

We got to go.

The person who's complaining that someone else is getting too much attention or doing too well is saying to us, I'm still in need and you're missing me.