On the evening of February 17, 1996 my mother died of breast cancer. It was my younger sister’s 10th birthday, and she was at a friend’s house having a sleepover. In retrospect, I should have known what was going on when, despite my grandmother and my aunt being in town, I was shipped off to a friend’s house as well for a sleep over. It should have been as clear as a flashing neon sign that stood 50 feet tall and illuminated the entire neighborhood in a haunting glow of the specter of death that would be visiting soon.

My mother and I, when I was a baby.

Part of me knows that even if I had known my mother was going to die that evening, I still wouldn’t have handled the grief any better than I did. Another part of me questions how I could know something like that for certain. The feeling lingers. A nagging uncertainty of how my world would be different today if I had just had one more piece of information. Could I have handled the loss of my mother any better? It’s illogical, yet the grieving mind doesn’t follow things like logic. I allows uncertainty and doubt to grow and flourish like weeds in an abandoned garden.

As part of the celebration surrounding the wedding of one of my cousins, there was a softball game. My cousin’s fiancee worked in sports broadcasting, and this was Connecticut so there were baseball fields everywhere. I was a child but I was playing on the same field as adults. I recall this only because at one point in the game I was attempting to make an out and an adult ran into me at full speed and knocked me down. I don’t remember the hit. I don’t remember getting up. But I remember I didn’t cry because it was all anyone was talking about. I put those skills to great use after my mother died.

The idea had been reinforced in my head throughout my entire life. “Boys don’t cry” was something I was told regularly throughout my childhood. The idea of being emotional in a negative way was discouraged, so when the single saddest thing that has happened to me in my life happened to me at 11-years and eight months of age, I did one of the worst things someone in grief can do: I shut down all of my emotions.

My mother, holding me after my birth

I don’t have many vivid memories of my childhood, but I have two crystal clear memories of the day of my mother’s funeral. In the years since her death, I have read a number of papers about grief and memory and I have unsurprisingly discovered that emotion and memory are deeply connected. These studies conclude that emotions help us recall memories longer and vivider. I don’t know if this is why I have very few memories of my mother or my childhood, or if why the memories I do have are fragments — pieces of a larger life I’ll never recall.

The first thing I remember about the day of my mother’s showing was being called to get in the car to leave. I was already dressed for the event, and I was sitting in the basement of our house playing a video game. I don’t remember the game, or even the system I was playing on. I don’t recall the time of day or even what I was wearing. The only thing I remember is this overwhelming feeling of shame when the contrast of everyone else preparing for this showing, and me sitting alone playing a video game. The shame was deep but fleeting.

The other memory I possess of that day was her body at the showing. I remember walking up and touching her hand. I remember how cold it felt. I remember the reality of the situation sinking into me and for a moment the awfulness of everything came flooding into me. I remember instinctively pulling my arm away and standing still for a moment. I remember an small outburst of quickly covered laughter as someone had watched as I reacted to the cold touch of my mother’s body. This was the only moment of relief I took from the entire process, which spanned two states and several days.

I still didn’t cry.

In fact, it would be months before I would cry from grief. By that time, my father and my teachers had realized there was something wrong and had taken steps to get me help. We finally found Erin’s House for Grieving Children, a group therapy program for children in a similar situation to my own. Sometime during my time at Erin’s House I learned the most important thing for anyone to know about grief: There is no right way to grieve. It took me years to advance and finally move on from the program, and that’s okay. My three younger siblings all finished before I did — I was well into high school before I moved on, and that’s okay.

Sometime during my time at Erin’s House I learned the most important thing for anyone to know about grief: There is no right way to grieve.

When I left they gave me a bag containing four polished stones, to represent the growth and the pain I had smoothed out, and one rigid rock to acknowledge the pain and the grief I still carried — and will always carry.

Everyone progresses through grief differently. Some people process grief through creative outlets or through humor. Others direct the anger and sadness into exercise or work. Recently we’ve seen people harness grief in the name of activism for a cause on a massive scale. These are all healthy ways to process grief. When my relative laughed at me at my mother’s showing, they weren’t grieving any less than I was, they were grieving more. They had allowed themselves to be open emotionally, and that means both joy and sadness, which are more often linked together in the world of grief.

People who are grieving will smile and laugh just as they will cry and frown. Laughing during the grieving process is as normal as any other form of emotional display during grief. (This is not to say that everyone grieving will laugh, we all process grief differently and some people may just generally laugh less than others). Anyone who suggests that someone who is showing signs of happiness cannot be grieving does not have a fundamental understanding of grief. I — while admittedly not the happiest guy in the world — have had many moments of joy despite still being in grief for the loss of my mother.

Anyone who suggests that someone who is showing signs of happiness cannot be grieving does not have a fundamental understanding of grief.

My family was unfortunately gathered together for another funeral a couple years ago. My grandmother — who had outlived my mother by decades — had died and we all again trekked to Connecticut. I can proudly report that I cried at her funeral multiple times.

But then an amazing thing happened. We went back to the cottage — the cottage I had spent so many summers with my grandmother in my youth — a place where every object was a reminder of her presence and her influence in our lives. We had a large meal on the giant dinner table that still didn’t have enough room for everyone gathered. And all of my aunts and uncles and cousins and family friends sat around the table and we started telling stories of my grandmother. Which of course led to stories about my grandfather, my mother and other family members who were no longer with us. There was laughter and joy all around that table as each person chimed in with another memory or story. After the pain of the day, here my entire extended family was in one room having what amounted to a giant party.

That’s not going to be the right choice for every person or every situation. Everyone is going to grieve differently, and as long as they are not hurting themselves or others, there’s no wrong way to grieve. It seems obvious to state that the celebration of my grandmother’s life that occurs that evening was a lot better than feeling nothing at all.

My grandfather, my other and I

That’s not going to be the right choice for every person or every situation. Everyone is going to grieve differently. As long as they are not hurting themselves or others, there’s no wrong way to grieve. It seems obvious to state that the celebration of my grandmother’s life that occurs that evening was a lot better than feeling nothing at all.

But I wasn’t, I wasn’t processing it at all.

And I still wonder if I had processed my mother’s death younger, faster, earlier what kind of person I would be today.