Grief Should not be a Competitive Sport
Service-Connected Death Is Service-Connected Death
I understand that every military loss is different.
I understand that the circumstances surrounding a death matter. They shape how we receive the news, how we grieve, what questions we are left with, and what battles we may spend years fighting afterward.
But somewhere along the way, parts of the military surviving-family community developed an unhealthy habit of measuring loss against loss.
And I have been on the receiving end of it.
About eight months after Jay died, I was attending a surviving-family event.
I was at the bar (dont judge me) when I was approached, and I am using that word rather generously, by a Gold Star wife who began yelling at me that I would never understand "The Knock."
The knock at the door.
The uniformed casualty notification officers.
That moment when the military arrives at your home and your entire life changes.
She was right about one thing.
I did not get the knock.
My response was:
"No. I was the one who had to call the chaplain."
My husband didn't die somewhere far away while I waited at home for news.
I was there.
I had spent 2 years watching him get sicker. I became his caregiver. I watched cancer slowly destroy the man I loved.
And when he died, I was the person who had to make the calls.
There was no knock at my door because I already knew.
That doesn't make my experience worse.
It doesn't make hers worse.
It makes them different.
And different should not be confused with more legitimate.
Grief Is Not a Competitive Sport
There is a strange tendency in some corners of the military community to establish hierarchies.
Combat versus noncombat.
Killed in action versus service-connected illness.
Active duty versus veteran.
Sudden death versus prolonged illness.
Widow versus spouse.
Gold Star versus surviving family.
As if somewhere there is a giant scoreboard keeping track of whose loss, sacrifice or service counts the most.
There isn't.
And there shouldn't be.
I can acknowledge that someone whose spouse was killed in combat experienced something I did not experience.
I can listen to her story.
I can respect what "the knock" means to her.
I can recognize the particular trauma that comes with suddenly seeing uniformed officers standing outside your door.
None of that requires diminishing what happened to my family.
And acknowledging my experience does not diminish hers.
That is the part we sometimes seem to forget.
Someone else's grief does not steal yours.
Some of Us Got the Knock. Some of Us Made the Call.
Military death doesn't happen one way.
Some surviving spouses answered the door.
Some answered the telephone.
Some received notification while their loved one was deployed.
Some received word via Facebook due to a breakdown of OpSec.
Some were sitting beside a hospital bed.
Some spent months or years as caregivers before becoming surviving spouses.
Some watched service-connected illnesses slowly take the person they loved.
Some lost someone immediately.
Others lost them one piece at a time.
Some knew death might be coming.
Others had absolutely no warning.
Every one of those experiences creates its own scars.
There is no need to compare scars.
Service-Connected Death Is Service-Connected Death
This is where I tend to become rather stubborn.
If military service caused or contributed to someone's death, their surviving family belongs in the conversation.
Period.
We can recognize distinctions when those distinctions are relevant. They matter for benefits, programs, terminology, history, and understanding someone's individual experience.
But those distinctions should never become weapons we use against one another.
A spouse whose service member died from toxic exposure should not need to compete with a spouse whose service member died in combat.
A family whose veteran died years after leaving service from a service-connected disease should not have to prove that their grief is sufficiently military.
A caregiver who watched a service-connected illness slowly kill someone shouldn't be told she cannot understand military loss because nobody knocked on her door.
We don't have to pretend our experiences are identical.
They aren't.
We simply have to stop acting as though different means less than.
We Have Enough Battles Already
Military surviving families already spend enormous amounts of energy navigating benefits, bureaucracy, paperwork, eligibility rules, legislation, healthcare systems, financial problems, employment challenges, and the simple task of figuring out how to build a life that wasn't supposed to look like this.
Why on earth would we waste what little energy we have left fighting each other?
There are enough people who don't understand military survivors.
There are enough bureaucratic systems drawing lines between us.
There are enough eligibility requirements telling families which box they do or do not fit into.
We don't need to recreate those divisions ourselves.
And we certainly don't need to stand at a bar comparing whose dead spouse gives them the better grief credentials.
That may be one competition where everyone should be perfectly happy not to win.
Shoulder to Shoulder, Not Squaring Off
I will never know exactly what another surviving spouse experienced.
She will never completely understand mine.
That's okay.
Empathy does not require identical experiences.
Community doesn't require identical stories.
And solidarity certainly doesn't require us to determine who suffered the most before deciding who deserves support.
Some got the knock.
Some made the call.
Some held a hand.
Some received a folded flag.
Some spent years fighting an illness that followed their loved one home from military service.
Our stories are different.
Our grief is different.
Our titles may even be different.
But when military service contributed to the death of the person we loved, we have far more reason to stand together than to square off against one another.
Service-connected death is service-connected death.
We should be standing shoulder to shoulder, helping each other carry what comes afterward.
Not measuring whose burden is heavier.
