While grief has become something all too familiar with each of us in its own way over the past couple of years, another phenomenon which has occured is that of grief comparison. In an age in which comparing oneself to others on social media is second-nature to many, comparing or contrasting one’s grief to another’s can be a detriment to the healing process.

Personally, I feel fairly acquainted with grief after losing three of my closest family members in six months’ time. This has felt at times like a boulder on my chest holding me down, and like a knife in the side at other times. Despite the intensity of my own grief, this does not subtract from the validity of other people’s suffering. As such, we must remember that comparing our grief to others’, and vice versa, is an altogether futile mission, as grief is unquantifiable. The loss of a son, grandfather, best friend, etc. is not equal to “x,” as everyone who loved that person had their own thoughts and feelings toward them that are uniquely their own, and their grief toward the loss of that person is no less unique.

At its core, grief is a combination of what the person we’ve lost meant to us, and our own individual method of coping with said loss. All of the emotions surrounding the loss, as well as the aftermath all of those involved are now dealing with leads us to this compound we know as “grief.” This combination is unquantified, raw, and truly incomparable to that of someone else dealing with the same loss, even. As such, trying to compare one’s own grief to that of another is only compounding on an already heartbreaking challenge, and can lengthen the road to recovery. When I recall my conversations with my cousin about my grandfather’s(her great uncle) and her grandmother’s(my great aunt) passing, we could only be there for one another, as we didn’t truly know what the other was going through, but we understood it hurt on a level deeper than anything we’d ever known. We both loved these people, and now they were gone. To have that level of empathy toward another is the standard toward which we should strive, as we don’t have to add “well i’ve been through…” to it.

In all, grief is to be treated as something personal, as each of us deals with it in our own way, and must reach out for help in our own way, as well. However, it is, at best, unhelpful to compare the grief of others to our own, and vice versa, as this only adds to the suffering of others, and to that of our own. In closing, remember to empathize with those around you, and that we don’t have to understand something another is going through to do so.

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An Exercise in Futility: Comparisons of Grief