Grief For Those You Did Not Know

Some grief doesn’t get “approved” by the people around you. It shows up when someone says you didn’t know them, didn’t have them long enough, or shouldn’t still be thinking about it. 

I share a personal, tender look at that kind of invisible grief, starting with my father-in-law who died just eight months into my marriage, and the ache of knowing my children never got to meet the grandpa who should have been part of their lives.

From there, I move into an even quieter kind of mourning: grieving a sibling lost to stillbirth, and the complicated thoughts that can follow you for years. We talk about survivor guilt and the haunting question of why one life continues while another ends. This is an honest conversation about pregnancy loss, stillbirth, miscarriage, and the way our culture often avoids naming these deaths as worthy of grief. 

I also challenge the idea that grief can be ranked, like it “hurts less” if someone already has children or “counts less” if you never held the baby. 

Every death carries meaning, attachment, and love.

 If you’ve ever felt dismissed while grieving, I offer a moment of silence, witnessing, and holding space, and the reminder that your feelings make sense. You are supported. You are seen. 

If this episode resonated, subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people looking for grief support can find this podcast. 

If it feels safe to, would you share with me?  What kind of grief has felt hardest to explain in your life?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello and welcome back. Thank you for joining me today. I would like to discuss just a personal experience that I've had with grief. When you don't really know someone and they die, often people think you didn't really know them, or you didn't know them as long as I did, or you know, whatever they may be thinking, they don't think that you would grieve that person, or that you would continue to grieve that person, or that you would miss that person. You know, I'm I'm thinking

Why Grief Can Feel Unallowed

SPEAKER_01 0:42

of my my father-in-law, he died eight months into my marriage. And no, I I didn't really know him that well, hadn't spent a lot of time with him, and he'd been he'd been sick uh before he died, but he never knew any of his grandchildren from his youngest son. And so at times that still does come up when you think that they

Mourning A Father-In-Law You Lost

SPEAKER_01 1:21

didn't know their grandpa Warren. They didn't have the chance to have a relationship with him. They didn't know him, he didn't know them, they didn't get to see what a wonderful man he was. He didn't get to see how amazing his grandchildren are, to see their personalities, see their their gifts and their potential. He wasn't there to to help influence or mold them in any way. And I do grieve him. I grieve the loss of that chance of a relationship, of that life that wasn't lived, that the life that wasn't developed, the relationship. And you know, it's it's just amazing that people don't give you that, they don't allow you to have that. But yet there's still something missing because you know there's a space in your heart, there's a space in your life where this person should have been, could have been. And how different your life would be, or how different your children's lives would be. So if anyone is dealing with this kind of loss, if it if it just hits you every once in a while, not maybe not as strong of a crying emotional grief, but just that I wonder what it would have been like. You know, my parents had a stillborn before me, a brother. And I I don't know if I've mentioned this on any of my episodes, but you know, I grieve him, but I obviously didn't know him. I have a name, you know, and I know he was a brother. But it's just really amazing to me how can it how it can affect you. Because I often wondered, and I haven't really asked my mom

Grieving An Unborn Sibling

SPEAKER_01 4:18

exactly how far along she was when it happened, because I don't really want to know, but I fear it. And so there's always been a little bit of guilt, I guess I would call it, in the fact that perhaps if he would have lived, I wouldn't have been conceived, and I wouldn't be here. And what makes my life have more value that he was stillborn than I was born, and I was given this opportunity to have a life and have relationships and experiences that he didn't get to. You know, and and it's a touchy subject. It's not something that we don't talk about. So many couples out there, so many women have miscarriages or stillborns, or even lose their baby within the first days, weeks, before they've really had a chance to get to know him or her. And it's just, it's so hard. Whether you got to hold the little one or not, it's a life. There's value, it's preciousness. And I and I realize some people out there might think that I'm,

Miscarriage And Stillbirth Deserve Care

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I don't know, crazy or wrong, or you know, I don't know what label they would put on me for always thinking of my older brother and missing that opportunity to have a relationship with him. You know, I had a have a friend that she has had six miscarriages. She always lost the the little one that was the odd pregnancy. So she has six here that she was able to raise and see grow and get to know them and hold them and all that, and then she has six that she didn't. There was a friend of my husband's who he had a sister who had two or three children.

Why Comparing Loss Misses The Point

SPEAKER_01 6:45

He had another sister that had a hard time getting pregnant. She just couldn't get pregnant. And she got pregnant, and so did the other sister. And he made a comment to me, and this is years ago, that has always stuck in my head. He said it would be better if the sister that had children would lose the baby than the one that hasn't had a child yet. And I understand what he was saying, but he obviously didn't understand the value of each child, the connection that a mother, and I can only speak from you know a mother's point of view, the the the connection that we have. And it doesn't matter if you have three at home, if you lose one, it's still a loss. And yes, this other sister hadn't had didn't have a child here present with her, didn't yet have a child to hold. She didn't know what that was like. So, yes, it would be very hard for her to lose this pregnancy. But to say that it would be harder on her than the mother who got to experience the newborn and all the beauty that's wrapped up in that? To say that because she has three children, that her loss would not be as great as the other. I don't know if we can say that. I don't know, Kmart, one of those kind of stores. And we got up to the cash register, and of course, she saw the little twins, and she's like, Oh, I was a twin. And this woman was probably in her early twenties. She goes, I was a twin. She goes, but my twin died in the womb. And I could tell from her face, from her voice, that this is something that haunts her. This is something that she carries and she will carry. And she probably questions why her? Why was she given

The Twin Who Lived With Questions

SPEAKER_01 9:25

life when her sibling was taken? When her sibling died, why didn't she die? Or why didn't she die and her twin sibling live? And there's no reason to have the guilt or maybe even the shame of it, but it's there. It's it's part of our humanness, and it's okay. It's okay. So for any of you that have dealt with any of these kind of situations, I want to have a moment of just silence. Know that I am witnessing you. I'm holding space for you. Your loss is real. Your grief is real. All the feelings that you are feeling over your situation are real. And I know our society doesn't put any value

Silence Witnessing And Holding Space

SPEAKER_01 10:39

or any acknowledgement to these type of situations.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

But I see you. I am the caring death, doula, and I am here for you.