W hen I was 17, a girl in my year died suddenly, in her sleep. Natalie was beautiful and very popular. We weren’t friends and we hadn’t really spoken to each other much.
(I was a self-conscious, self-obsessed teenager and I assumed I was invisible to most of my classmates.) At the time, her death seemed like a matter for the other popular girls. Because I was self-obsessed, I was worried about being accused of using a tragedy to gain traction and social status.
I didn’t try to comfort her friends. I didn’t understand that we were going through a collective, communal grief. My shock and sadness seemed fraudulent and I believed the best gift I could give anyone was space.
Natalie’s very best friends were allowed to cry in the corridor and take time off school. If I tried it, I’d be attention-seeking, claiming emotions I had no right to feel. Now that I’m 39, I regret everything I did and didn’t do.
I wish I’d put my self-consciousness aside and let empathy lead the way. I could have gone to her friends and asked what they needed. I could have taken the time to get to know their version of Natalie, who probably wasn’t a remote goddess to them, but a sweet, funny teenage girl.
It’s taken me more than 20 years to understand that grief isn’t an emotion we need to earn. During that time I learned about “disenfranchised grief” – a term coined by bereavement expert Kenneth Doka in 1989. He explained that it “refers to a loss that’s not openly acknowle.
