Rationalizing loss

The are so many ways that we try to make sense of loss, try to rationalize it, try to minimize it in ways that can become so very logical as to become cold and void of sensitivity and of the magnitude of legitimate feeling.

These are a few comments that I have heard from well meaning people trying to help:

To someone who has just lost a job…….well at least you are young and have your health or its probably the best and something will come along.

To someone who has suffered an injury……well it could be worse.

To an aging person who is suffering physical aliments…..well at least your mind is well and it could be worse or like ".....".

To the parent who has lost a child….well at least you have the two others. (yes I actually heard someone tell my parents this one)

To a family who has lost everything in a natural disaster……at least no one was killed.

To the child or spouse of a deceased person…..well now they are at peace or to a child who has lost their last parent……well at least now you don’t have to worry about them anymore.

In response to someone suffering a permanent injury following an accident….at least you are alive.

To someone who has broken up a relationship…..well it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.


All of these comments and responses to someone’s loss are very accurate even if some are totally crass and insensitive and believe me I have heard them all and not made any of these up.

In trying to make people feel better about their loss we sometimes don’t allow them to grieve what they have really lost; to allow them to go for a time to that painful and uncomfortable place to feel bad without restraint and process what has occurred.

In my way of thinking it is completely ok to be grateful that something is not worse or could have been worse while at the very same time truly and deeply mourn the loss that has occurred and of something that will never return.

Yes of course it could always be worse and on some totally rational level we know that and though that clarity of perspective is not easy and can take quite a while to get to. Though in the same way it could have also been better not to have happened at all. It is ok to grieve that loss for what it is independently of any qualifications.

The loss is bad enough without needing to feel guilty for the pain we feel and express. In our discomfort with the uncomfortable we sometimes want to lessen it when sometimes the best thing to do is to just let it be and let it work itself through.