When something big happens in our lives we expect those closest in our circle, our dearest friends and family, to be the ones who support us, cheer for us, and hold our hands through whatever we are facing. Sometimes, that is what happens. However, you might find that grief support can come from unexpected places and arrive in a different form than you anticipated.

Maybe those closest to you will not or cannot provide the support that you long for and need. Sometimes the people who step up to take your hand when your mom or dad dies surprise you. You might feel sad, disappointed, or even betrayed that certain friends or family just weren’t there for you in the way that you needed.

Perhaps they had struggles brewing in their own lives that prevented them from helping. Maybe they just didn’t know what to do or how to help. Whatever the reason, I know how hard it is to look for someone and hope they will be there when you need them most, only to find out that it’s just not going to happen.

When my mom died three and a half years ago, I thought my aunts and uncles would lead me through. After all, we had spent summers, weekends, and holidays together throughout my childhood. They were often at my house, sitting around our bonfire at the river’s edge, laughing into the night with my parents, telling jokes and old stories and throwing peanut shells into the fire. I’d watch the orange sparks swirl up into the sky while my cousin and I sneaked extra potato chips. With the blazing fire in the distance, and the shadows of our adults sitting in lawn chairs in a circle around it, the world felt safe–I could dare to run barefoot in the dark grass. I could be so brave, knowing they were all nearby if I needed them. My family. My people.

I suppose I expected that circle to remain around me when my mom died. I wanted them to turn around and see my pain and grief. The intense loss. I wanted them to get up out of their chairs, to come to me, and to mother me as my own mom would have done.

As it happened, when the funeral guests descended upon my mom’s small town, when I thought my people would surround me and hold me up, they mostly sat around nearby and talked amongst themselves, as if this was just another family gathering from long ago and I was a lone kid who would occasionally run through their peripheral vision.

I needed help with funeral arrangements, flowers, feeding a crowd, death paperwork, legal stuff, bank accounts, my mom’s house and everything in it, and dozens of logistical nightmares weighing on my broken heart. One of my aunts brought a dessert. It was thoughtful of her, but a nice dessert wasn’t what I needed.

I wanted them to appear as devastated as I felt. I expected them to see the depth of my pain, but either they didn’t or they didn’t show it, and honestly I was a bit angry about it. They chatted and laughed. They left me alone. It felt like the circle of warmth had closed, and I was on the outside, running blindly through the uneven, cold grass on a dark night.

It would be nice if we could plan how we will feel and react when our parents die. How wonderful would it be to know in advance how everything will work out! Unfortunately, how you feel might surprise you, and the people who step up to offer support or love or advice may not be the faces or voices you expect.

If you are introverted, have difficulty asking for help, showing weakness or need around others, or trusting people with your inner thoughts and feelings, this process can be a roller coaster ride. When you are at your most vulnerable, in the earliest stages of raw grief, it can be so hard to let unfamiliar people in, but I encourage you, even though it might feel strange and scary, to give it a chance.

Normally this sort of thing is excruciating for me, but when my mother died I was so torn open. I sobbed openly in front of so many people, from family members to complete strangers in the grocery store. I was that woman trying to choose salad greens in the produce section with tears dripping down her face.

While I’m normally almost completely closed off to all but very few people, in raw grief I was turned inside out, held open and laid bare. I didn’t know what to do with my pain except to express it, to shout it, to cry it out, to say the words over and over. I’m guessing I scared quite a few people away. But still, despite the fact that I was clearly a sopping mess, certain people came to me and held me up.

I’m so thankful and grateful to the ones who stood by me when I was tangled and wailing with incomprehensible grief, as well as when I was so empty that no more tears or words came and all I could do was stare ahead, as fog closed in and covered my future.

They remember the lost. Take up the mantle. Step gently into your parent’s shoes.

My mother’s best friend from high school came. I remember my mom saying that they were more like sisters than friends. My mom had always wanted a sister, but she was the oldest with two younger brothers instead. She met her best friend Jeri in the early ’60s, and somehow they stayed friends for life. I called her Aunt Jeri when I was a kid, even though she wasn’t really my aunt. She had short, shiny, dark curly hair, a musical laugh, and her gentle hugs always had a clean, soft, powdery smell, which I think was a mixture of Dial soap and Love’s Baby Soft.

And there she was at my mother’s pre-funeral gathering, with hair turning silver but otherwise the same. I could feel her eyes on me as she stood off to the side, likely not wanting to interrupt my family. I felt drawn to her. It was as if she came to stand in my mom’s place, to hug me and pat my back because of course my mom couldn’t be there herself.

Aunt Jeri brought several cards, a poem she wrote, and an enormous gift bag so big that it seriously could have held my five-year-old. On the outside the bag had a picture of a sunrise and sunflowers. Inside were dozens of homemade cookies in individual clear bags tied with tiny ribbons.

Even though the aching tightness in my stomach wouldn’t let me eat much that day, the cookies oddly helped. I guess it spoke to my heart that when the news of my mom’s death came, what her friend thought to do was bake a massive quantity of cookies. My mother did often say that butter makes everything better.

Less than a month after the funeral, my 40th birthday happened, and I got a card in the mail from Aunt Jeri. In it she wrote that she knew I would be looking to the mailbox for a card from my mom. She knew my heart would ache when it never arrived, and so she sent one of her own because she thought my mom would appreciate it. I cried of course, and held onto that card as if my mom herself had written it.

Three months later she sent another, this time for my mom’s birthday. Again for Christmas, and every other holiday thereafter, including Mother’s Day, she knew I would feel gutted yet again. She sends emails, too, to let me know how she is and to chat about my mom, always including the best little details of their friendship and stories she remembers.

I couldn’t respond to her because I still felt so sad and overwhelmed with grief. Eventually, I confessed and told her I was so embarrassed that I hadn’t responded to everything she had written to me. She said I didn’t need to respond and not to worry, and I knew that she meant it. Her love wasn’t going away.

It feels so good to be supported and remembered. It feels even better to know that there is someone out there who loves my mom so much, who remembers her with such love, and who thinks of her often. In a very real way it keeps her alive, with both of us holding her in our hearts.

Event planning while grieving. (Or, hey, your mom died so you’d better be ready to host a major event!)

For several years I was a U.S. army officer. I managed personnel and physical security for 117 facilities across the South Korean peninsula. I mentored and trained hundreds of soldiers and once stayed awake during a field exercise for over 30 hours to guide a brigade of tanks in a river crossing exercise using video reconnaissance. And yet, the logistics of receiving guests for my mother’s funeral stopped me in my tracks.

I panicked, because I’ve never been good at entertaining. People were coming because I asked them to be there. I put myself in the position of host. How many? Dozens? A hundred people? I have ADHD, and my neurodivergent brain just isn’t cut out for this sort of thing.

I can overload myself with stress and anxiety enough to pull off a major project with precision and flair when I need to, but socially I’m often a remarkable mess of anxiety and awkwardness. My mouth just spews out word salad that eventually becomes either oversharing or self-deprecating humor, in case making people laugh will hide my unease.

But my mom died, and I didn’t have a single brain cell to spare to focus on a guest’s experience during my mom’s funeral weekend. I was looking out from inside the grief membrane, and the world was different and wrong, full of wavy lines and uneven, like trying to see through rain spotted glasses with the wrong prescription.

I let it go and handed over the reins when my sister-in-law said not to worry, that she would handle all of the food for all of the days. It was like someone lifted a 300 pound load off my shoulders.

My sister-in-law is a no nonsense, practical, capable person. She can handle the needs of many with ease. She’s worked for many years as a nurse and clearly knows how to get stuff done.

She handled every detail. I recall hearing her say I’m making lasagna, your mom would like that, and the next thing I knew, at every event in which family members showed up, my sister-in-law had a welcome cookout planned, pans of lasagna, sides dishes, chips and snacks, drinks and ice and coolers, coffee and donuts delivered to the church and all sorts of little things that I could not possibly have fathomed or handled at all.

She cared for my brother and I, her own five children, my two kids, and every guest. In this area I hardly had to lift a finger. While my brother and I furiously sorted all of my mother’s belongings in just a few days and planned the funeral, she put food and water into our hands and generally kept us alive.

The youngest in the village.

I was the youngest in my family and often on my own. My mother was the only person in my life who noticed or took care of me, but she had to work long hours full-time to support our family. From a very young age I came home everyday to an empty house, which I unlocked with a spare key that lived on a hook under the front bay window.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but I’ve spent a majority of my life alone. I never learned to let people into my life, and so when I had children of my own I didn’t know to find myself a village or to be anything other than isolated.

My kids’ health, well being, education, nutrition, safety, and emotional stability is on me. Our home is my responsibility. The weight is always on my shoulders. When my mother was alive I couldn’t wait for her to visit, to have someone with me, nearby, witnessing life, supporting and laughing during the exasperating parts, and holding my hand in difficult moments. When she died, I felt like I truly had no one anymore. No one to lean on. No one in whom I could confide.

My daughter watched the movie Encanto when it came out, and I was surprised to find myself beginning to cry during Surface Pressure, a song sung by the character called Luisa, who was given the magical gift of super strength. Luisa does all of the heavy lifting for her family and the nearby town. They depend on her completely, which creates immense pressure. She is constantly on alert, working to protect those around her, which leaves no room for any joy of her own.

Her song deeply resonated with me–the one who manages it all and holds everybody up, while secretly trying not to break. I imagine many moms cried a little during that song! (I enjoyed this post about the connections between Surface Pressure and mom pressure and think you might, too, if you are a primary caregiver.)

Except when my mom died, I couldn’t hold anyone. I couldn’t even hold up myself. There were many times I actually slid to the floor crying and pressed my forehead down, letting it all go.

When I couldn’t take any more weight, the day before my mother’s funeral, my five-year-old spiked a fever and got sick. Any other time in my life I would have dropped anything to be with my little one and take care of him. But this time I couldn’t be there. I struggled when I couldn’t be a mother because I had to bury my mother.

As if she knew she was needed, as if it was her time to shine, my littlest niece, who was just barely seven years old herself, stepped in to mother my baby when he was sick.

Never in my life have I seen a seven-year-old behave the way she did. She stayed with him. She kept a cold cloth on his forehead. She kept her hand on his arm, talked to him, told him stories, and put on funny little skits for entertainment. She and my son watched a movie on the couch together, and she cuddled up next to him, keeping him company and helping him get well.

She cared for him without being asked or guided. While I stuffed down my disappointment that my older family members did not weave themselves into my safety net, it turned out to be one of the youngest members of my village who stepped in to help. She was an absolute angel that I never expected to appear.

Out of the blue.

My college roommate from years ago texted when my mom died. At first I assumed it would be the usual perfunctory I’m so sorry that long lost friends express in Facebook comments.

We all know that they are not actually, truly sorry. It’s just what people say in the moment, like when someone asks ‘how are you?‘ and we almost always involuntarily respond ‘oh, I’m fine’ when we actually are overwhelmed, confused, and aching on the inside.

She and I connected long ago over late night dorm room pizza, our love of the Indigo Girls, and the fact that we were the same size and could borrow one another’s clothing. We drifted apart after college, for the usual reasons of life, jobs, and family. But her text was different. Her mom had died before mine. She got it. She understood. She knew what I was feeling.

Even though we hadn’t talked in forever, her words broke through, opened the door, and let me into the club. The motherless mothers. Neither of us wanted to be there, but we were together, and had more in common than ever.

It is dramatically different talking with people who have lost a parent versus those who haven’t yet. I was surprised by the people from my past who surfaced to message me and connect. You might find this happens to you, too, after you lose your mom or dad.

I found meaningful and almost instant bonds with people I barely knew, because we had been through similar tragedies. We had a shared experience.

They read and responded to my rambling, garbled, despairing text messages. They nodded in all the right places because they truly understood.

I climbed into their lifeboat, where we all could sit, stunned and saddened, reaching out to talk when we needed comfort and support.

Really truly alone.

I hope that you have or had people around you, dear grieving friend, when your mom or dad died. I hope you still have that village.

But I know that some of you won’t. Some of you are truly alone, living away from your family, or separated from friends or relatives for other reasons. Some of you are surrounded by people, yet still feel separate and apart as your heart aches with a loneliness they can’t understand. You still might not be able to get a deep breath when you think about all you have lost.

If this is you, I’m glad that you have found me here. Now you are not alone anymore. Sometimes grief can feel so isolating, but the truth is so many of us are feeling these heavy thoughts and slogging along through life, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to keep a brave face and make it through while we also shoulder this incredible weight.

There are so many of us grieving. When I pass people on the street, I don’t know the grief they hold inside. But you know a little bit about mine now.

I hope you will come back and read more. Please leave a comment below so that we can connect. Come sit by the fire, my friend, and we can tell each other the old stories.