There's no wrong way to grieve.

In and of itself, grieving over the loss of a loved one is a terribly painful thing to handle. But sometimes such a loss brings an additional set of burdens in the expectations that other people lay on us about how we should handle our grief.

For instance, one friend of mine recently lost a parent who was actually a real source of trouble in his life. Although he loved her and is pained by the loss, there is also a part of him that feels relieved. But he hates to admit this because he thinks it makes him look like a monster, and so he feels guilty about not feeling more sad.

Another friend of mine lost a parent not too long ago, and his concerns had more to do with people implying he was taking it too hard. They seemed to think that his “reasonable period of mourning” had passed and he should get on with his life.

I gave them both the same advice: “When you lose a loved one, you are free to grieve any way you need to, for as long or as short, for as intensely or as meagerly as you like. And if you need to distract yourself by activity or if you need to sit and cry, you do whatever you need to do. Your relationship with this person was exactly that: your relationship. Therefore your grief over losing them is also that: your grief. Someone else telling you how to feel it is as ridiculous as them trying to tell you that they know better than you what this person meant to you.”