Grief makes people weird.
Not poetic weird. Not “grief comes in waves” weird.
Just… say-something-fully-unhinged-in-the-worst-possible-moment weird.
One of my best friend’s moms had just died.
I was at her house. Everyone was in that quiet, stunned, heavy space where no one knows what to do with themselves. You’re just existing next to loss, hoping someone else has a script.
Someone walked in with pizza and stromboli from one of my favorite places.
And before a single thoughtful, appropriate, socially acceptable word could exit my body, I yelled:
“BEST DAY EVER!”
Silence.
My best friend heard me.
Her daughter heard me.
My best friend just looked at me with her signature crazy side-eye.
The one where she doesn’t have to say a word and you still understand everything she’s thinking.
Half “I know you did not the fuck just say that,” half “I needed that more than I’m willing to admit.”
Nobody else heard me.
Thank god.
A few moments later I went to switch some laundry and my friend’s daughter walked up to me in the basement and slapped my arm and grabbed my shoulders and we started laughing like absolute lunatics. Falling into walls. We couldn’t even catch our breath. The kind of laugh where you know it’s inappropriate, which makes it worse, but also makes it better.
And then we walked back upstairs like nothing had ever happened.
Later, when another group of friends went through a brutal loss, we started calling it the “Best Day Ever.”
Not because it was.
Because it obviously wasn’t.
But because grief is so absurd, so overwhelming, and so completely out of our control, that sometimes the only thing your brain can do is flip the script and say something wildly inappropriate just to survive the moment.
And honestly?
Those are the moments that get you through.
Not the perfect words.
Not the casseroles.
Not the “let me know if you need anything” texts.
It’s the accidental, unfiltered, probably-shouldn’t-have-said-that-out-loud mishaps that crack something open just enough to let you breathe – even for a split second.
People love to judge grief.
They love to decide what’s respectful. What’s appropriate. What’s “too much.”
But unless you’ve been in it – like really fucking in it – you don’t get to critique how someone survives it.
If you’ve lived it?
You get to joke about it all you want.
You get to laugh at the worst possible moments.
You get to say the wrong thing.
You get to be a little unhinged.
Because grief is a little crazy… hysterical, some might say.
And sometimes a “Best Day Ever” is the only thing keeping you from going completely mad.
🖤 Hag