Terrible, Thanks for Asking

“So how ya doin’?”

I was never sure how to answer that question. Should I tell the truth, or should I tell whoever asked it what they wanted to hear? One of the most difficult things among so many terribly difficult things about grief is that the person who grieves—the person in pain, particularly the person in the worst type of pain (and really, any pain is the worst kind of pain when it’s your pain)—almost always has to wear a mask.

I’m not talking about when you’re freshly bereaved and no one expects you to disguise your despair. During those first few days and weeks, you have no control of your emotions and you couldn’t hide them even if you wanted to. Early on, people couldn’t be kinder and more empathetic, not just your friends, but almost everyone you encounter. Total strangers are understanding and supportive. Early on, you see the very best in people.

Every book on grief stresses the importance of community and having a support system, and every book is right, but that community often comes with an expiration date. As time wears on, the griever (you) is still in severe pain but increasingly reluctant to dump his or her heartache on friends and loved ones. So we tend to shut up or, even worse, pretend we’re getting along just fine. Cut to Dick Van Dyke singing, “Gray skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face!”

And for the most part, your friends and relatives are more than happy to go along with this duplicity. They’re relieved to hear this hopeful news because they love you and only want the best for you, and also because talking about depressing things is incredibly uncomfortable and nobody is any good at it. It’s easier to just talk about whatever you usually talk about—“Are you watching [fill in your favorite show]?” “Did you catch the [some team that you love] game?” “You must see the new [you get the idea] movie!” And let’s just say that talking about your dead kid doesn’t fall into any of these categories.

It’s also important to note that our friends have, more or less, moved on from our tragedies, and rightfully so! That’s just the way life works; everyone has their own stuff to contend with. Yet at the same time, they’re also aware and respectful that we’re still grieving. So we tacitly make a deal.

This is when we slip on our mask of normalcy and enter the world of make-believe. We say we’re hanging in there. We say we’re doing the best we can. We say that we’re taking it one day at a time and that we’re not crying as much as we used to. My go-to was “I’m not terrible,” and that was on a good day.

So yes, I was hanging in there, but only by a thread. I was doing the best I could, but that didn’t alleviate the sorrow. I was taking it one day at a time, but many of those days were a nightmare. I wasn’t crying as much, but when I did it still hurt like a motherfucker. I was “not terrible,” but I was miserable and had hardly any good days in the weeks and months after we lost Rob.

I had to wear an extra-special mask with Zach, Caryn, and Maura. The last thing I wanted to do was to make any of them feel worse than they already felt. Sure, we talked about Rob sometimes, but we mainly kept it on the surface because we knew the scary grief beast could pounce at any moment.

After some time (let’s say months), the griever (that would be you again) really has no one to talk to about his or her loss (present company excluded). You can maybe get a few words in edgewise at grief group, and you could chat about it with your therapist for fifty minutes a week, and that’s if you don’t have any other more pressing problems to discuss, which seems crazy, but it’s true, because life has to go on for us too.

This led me to the realization that we all must go through grief alone. It’s a solitary act, like praying, the ultimate free solo. It’s the dark night of the soul 24/7, especially during the early days, because grief never closes. At the end of those days, when I took off my superhero mask and no longer felt particularly extraordinary, I just closed my eyes so I could be with my thoughts.

“So how ya doin’?” Rob would ask, in a little-boy voice from a long time ago.

“Just fine now,” I’d reply.

Larry Carlat is the author of A Space in the Heart: A Survival Guide for Grieving Parents.