A week in October where I couldn't stop thinking about a funeral I didn't go to

My neighbor passed away last fall, and I didn't attend the service because we weren't close. For the next five days, I kept seeing his old car parked on the street and it felt wrong. I realized I was avoiding the whole block just to not see it. It made me wonder why we're so bad at talking about the small, awkward grief we feel for people on the edges of our lives. Has anyone else had a similar experience with a death that wasn't a close loss but still stuck with you?

3 comments

3 Comments

loganthompson25d ago

Damn, that's a heavy week. You avoiding the whole block makes total sense, it's like your brain needed a physical thing to focus on. What do you think would've happened if you had just gone to the funeral? Would it have made the car feel less strange, or just made everything weirder?

hannah42222d ago

Totally get needing a simple chore to focus on instead.

dakotas5425d ago

Honestly going to the funeral probably would have made it worse. My brain would have short circuited trying to feel the right thing at the right time. At least with the car I had a simple, stupid problem to solve, like "don't drive past that house." My grief strategy is basically just finding weird chores to do.