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What Our Parents Don’t Tell Us About Grief
Grief is a weird human experience.
Yet, grieving is a fascinating process to me, that makes no damn sense.
I’m 33 years old and I’ve experienced human death—the loss of someone near and dear to me — once in my life span thus far.
I was 15 when it happened.
Nathan was my best friend throughout our middle school years and he died from cancer. Watching someone like me, a loving Curious George, deteriorate before my eyes like a Benjamin Button, as we hop onto a yellow school bus to cram for that 8th-grade spelling test is odd. But my adult recollection of seeing youth decline before my innocent 15-year old eyes is more bizarre.
My mother picked me up from high school the day of the news of Nathan’s death. As I habitually settled in the front seat of our tan SUV, we stared at each other in silence. My mother knew I knew about Nathan, and I knew she knew.
My mother, masked by her stoic facial musculature and quivering lips — as if wanting to say something — resisted the urge to lean toward…
