Compounded Grief: When the Waves Won’t Stop Crashing
Updated: May 21
The "One Thing After Another" Reality
We’ve all heard the phrase, "God won't give you more than you can handle." Personally, I’d like to find whoever coined that phrase and have a very long, very unfiltered conversation with them. Because since April 2024, I have been handed a lifetime’s worth of "handling."
In the span of about two years, I’ve had to say goodbye to my father-in-law, Tom; our best friend, Stacey; my dad, Dan; my sister-in-law, LaNell; my soulmate, Greg; and most recently, my dear friend, Tiffany. It’s not just grief; it’s compounded grief.
It’s the weight of SIX different worlds ending, all stacked on top of each other.
Grief isn't a journey—it's a mugging.
It’s the unfair math of a holiday table where the subtractions outnumber the additions. And the platitudes people throw at you afterward? Those are just the insults added to the injury. I’m tired of the 'strength' narrative and the 'moving on' speeches. Let’s talk about the absolute rage of surviving when the world expects you to just 'find your peace.
But here’s the thing they don't tell you:
Sometimes it’s not just one mugging.
It’s a literal gang-up.
When you’re dealing with compounded grief, you aren't just reeling from one blow; you’re being kicked while you’re down by every other loss, transition, and 'life happens' moment that decides to pile on. It’s the weight of the primary loss combined with the secondary hits—the loss of identity, the financial stress, the shifting friendships—that makes the 'everything happens for a reason' crowd look especially punchable.
We aren't just grieving; we are navigating a minefield where the ground keeps shifting before we can even find our footing from the last explosion.
The Short-Circuit Effect
When you’re dealing with compounded grief, your brain starts to short-circuit. You don’t get the luxury of processing one blow before the next one lands. People talk about the waves of grief, but for me, the water never recedes; I’m just trying to hold my breath long enough to find a sturdy piece of driftwood and a glass of wine that doesn't taste like salt water.
My brain is officially glitching. It feels like I’m trying to run a heavy system update on a failing connection—stuck on a loading screen in a world that rebooted into a version I didn't ask for.
I’m not looking for a lifeboat; I’m just trying to keep the system from crashing.
The "Double-Grief" Burden
As if my own stack of losses isn't enough, there’s the added layer of being a mother. I’m not just navigating my own empty house; I’m watching my two adult children, Avery and Wyatt, navigate a world that suddenly has three massive, grandfather-and-father-sized holes in it.
There is a specific kind of high-functioning torture in trying to be the steady foundation for your kids while your own foundation is made of sand. You want to protect them, to fix it, to make the unfair math make sense—all while you’re secretly screaming at the universe yourself. It’s the "Double-Grief" burden: mourning the man who was my soulmate, while simultaneously mourning the father and grandpas my children and grandkids deserved to have for decades to come.
The Ebb and Flow
Life and death have this strange, rhythmic ebb and flow that we aren't supposed to understand, but we are forced to feel. Even in the middle of all this loss, I look at my kids and my grandkids, Addy and Elliott, and I see the flow. I see life insisting on happening right next to the death.
It’s exhausting to hold both at the same time—the joy of a grandchild’s laugh and the crushing weight of empty chairs. But that is the unfiltered reality of the journey. We aren't moving on from the grief; we are moving with it.
Your Turn: Writing Prompts for the Short-Circuited Brain
If you want to share, start wherever you are. No perfect words required.
The wave hitting me hardest today is...
One thing I’m “handling” today that I wish I wasn’t is...
In two sentences, my current mood is...
One small piece of “flow” I noticed today was...
As for me, if I’m being completely honest, I keep having these little chats with my 12-year-old Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier, Gilligan. I’m literally begging him to hang in there just a little longer. I know he's over 85 in dog years and can barely walk, but the mere thought of one more loss so soon seems like the worst gut-punch I could ever imagine.
That’s where I am today.
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