Precious Breakable Things

When you’re the only one left who remembers

You’ll always have your memories.

Just remember all the good times you had with them.

At least you have good memories.

When someone you love dies, this is the kind of thing you hear.

I would know because I’ve experienced a lot of death. Way too much, in fact. I lost my dad when I was a child, followed by my teenage sister ten years later.

And last year, I suddenly became a widow.

A parent, a sibling, a spouse—all taken far, far too soon.

So yeah, I’ve heard more than my share of banal platitudes that masquerade as support.

I know grief is hard to watch. I’ve been gracious and patient with the people I once trusted even as I watched them break their promises and turn into slippery, disappointing versions of themselves.

Of all the thoughtless and invalidating comments, it was always the things others said about memories that cut me wide open.

Well, whenever you’re sad, you just need to think of all the good memories!

People say this kind of thing and they pretend it’s empathy (it isn’t). They offer up memories as some kind of solution to grief. As if it were that simple. As if memories were a salve—a gob of medicine to smooth over a death. After all, dead people are still alive in the memories we have of them, so this…