No Pity Please

When it comes to my grief journey, there are two definite things that I don’t want.  I never really thought much about them specifically until my counselor pointed out that these things seem to keep coming up and asked me why I feel this way.  They are that 1) I don’t want to be pitied and 2) I don’t want to get stuck in grief.  So, I’ve spent some time pondering, reflecting, and digging deep to see why I feel like this.  Today, I am just going to talk about #1, but I will talk about #2 soon.  Promise!

Let me just say that I don’t think there is anything wrong with showing someone in a tough situation compassion, sympathy, or kindness.  I know that I try to do this for others, and I appreciate when others do this for me.  However, in my opinion, this is not the same as pity.  Showing compassion requires you to become involved or interact with someone.  Pity is when someone feels sorry for you, when someone views you as inferior, but they don’t really want to interact with you.  They just want to judge you and talk about you and your situation.  Honestly, they want to do this to make themselves feel better.  Ummmm, no thank you!

I just assume that most people don’t like pity, but there are those weird people that enjoy it.  They try to milk their bad situations.  They like for people to see them as the victim.  The term martyr comes to mind.  Again, I say no thank you!

I am not a victim.  I’m going through something that many people go through.  I need compassion and kindness, but I don’t need pity.  I need people to walk along side of me and allow me to share my journey and listen to my Jeff stories.  I  don’t need people to feel sorry for me.  I don’t need people to use my situation to make themselves feel better about their life.  Nope!

So, why do I feel this strongly about this?  While reflecting, I’ve gathered that it’s because I was raised in a family with strong women who overcame many different challenges.

My mother was raised in a large family, she is one of ten kids, with very little money and not a lot of love and affection.  She worked hard for everything she has, and she made sure to show me much love and affection.  On top of that, my father passed away rather unexpectedly at agree 60 after a lung biopsy leaving my mom a widow in her 50’s.

My grandmother’s first husband died unexpectedly when she was in her 30’s.  I believe it was a work related accident.  She was widowed with three children to take care of.

My aunt’s husband was murdered when she was in her 20’s, and the murderer wasn’t put behind bars until (too) many years later.  She was widowed with three children to take care of.

My cousin, Billy, was born with Cerebral Palsy.  He was a blessing to our family.  I watched my aunt, uncle and his brother love on him and raise him well.  They never felt bad for themselves or wanted others to feel bad for him.

As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen anyone in my family want pity.  They weren’t always dealt easy situations to go through, but they went through them with strength and dignity.  They held their heads high and did their very best.

That is what I want to do.  I want to handle everything in my life the very best way that I know how.  I will make mistakes.  I will stumble and fall, but I will get back up.  As you can see, I’m not the first person in my family to be widowed at a fairly young age or in a traumatic way.  I’ve had this modeled for me.  I know I can do this.  You can come along side me and support me, and I will welcome you.  You can’t, however, look down on me and feel sorry for me.  I am blessed.  I have known love.  What Jeffrey and I had wasn’t a sappy fairy tale romance or a predictable Hallmark relationship.  But, it was true love.  We had respect, trust, and friendship.  We even had romance.  We worked hard to keep ourselves connected.  Sometimes we were more connected than others, but I feel this is true of all marriages.  So, yes, the loss is absolutely painful, but I am blessed because I had him in my life and get to spend eternity with him.  As the famous saying goes, It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.  There is no famous saying that says, I have lost great love so you should pity me, and I’m glad for that.