Opening Reflection — The WhatsApp Posts
In the days after Angé died, the WhatsApp messages began to pour in.
The screen would light up with her name in group chats, now frozen in time, and in direct messages from people I hadn’t spoken to in months. Photos started appearing — snapshots from coffee dates, hiking trails, birthdays, and ordinary afternoons. Some of them made me smile. Others made me ache. And then there were the words — paragraphs and paragraphs of tributes.
Some were beautiful. Thoughtful. They carried the kind of warmth that comes from a genuine, long-standing connection. I read those slowly, letting each one settle.
But a few — a few hit me like a cold wind.
They came from people who hadn’t been close to her in years. People who had never sat by her hospital bed. People who had quietly disappeared during the chemo rounds and the sleepless nights. And yet here they were, describing her as “the one who made them feel most seen” or “my greatest friend and guiding light.”
Someone even wrote about “all the time we spent talking,” and my body reacted instantly because I knew they hadn’t spoken to her in months.
I wanted to throw my phone across the room.
She was mine. She was ours. And now everyone seemed to want a piece. It felt like they were carving her memory into little bite-sized portions so they could claim them — as if she had belonged to them in the same way she belonged to me.
I knew — deep down — they weren’t doing it to hurt me. It came from love, nostalgia, or maybe the desire to be connected to a moment that mattered. But in those early days, their claims felt intrusive. Almost offensive.
Because I didn’t want to share.
And in that moment, I realised something I hadn’t expected: mourning can make you jealous.
⸻
1. Grief Can Feel Like Possession — And That’s Normal
When someone you love deeply dies, it’s not just grief that arrives. It’s territorial grief.
Suddenly, their memory feels like sacred ground — and you’ve been living there for years. You were the one who knew the small things: the way they stirred their coffee twice before drinking it, the songs they skipped halfway through because the lyrics were too close to the bone, the way their left foot pointed out slightly when they walked.
You were the one who heard their midnight fears. Who laughed with them until your ribs hurt. Who sat on the bathroom floor passing them a damp cloth after the vomiting. Who whispered “It’s okay” when it wasn’t.
So when someone else steps in and says, “She meant everything to me,” there’s a reflex that kicks in — part love, part defence.
Inside, a voice mutters:
“You didn’t know her like I did.”
And here’s the truth: that voice isn’t ugly. It’s human. Possessiveness in grief isn’t about being petty; it’s about protecting the intimacy you built, the love you nurtured, and the life you shared.
It’s rooted in a love that had daily habits and inside jokes. A love that cannot be replicated. And when that love is torn from your life, part of you clings to what’s left — even if that means holding it tightly away from others.
⸻
2. The Struggle: Everyone Wants a Piece of the Mourning
When someone dies, it’s as though their life is suddenly thrown open like a public exhibition. Their story becomes communal property — free for interpretation, hashtags, and heartfelt speeches.
And you, the one who lived in their daily world, now find yourself watching people you barely saw around them step up with the loudest grief. The most dramatic tears. The longest social media posts.
You notice who’s organising memorials, who’s framing photographs, who’s telling stories that make you think, “That’s not exactly how it happened…”
And then comes the guilt — because you know they mean well. You know they’re also hurting. But the question still lingers:
“Where were you when the pain was here every day?”
It’s not that you want to exclude people from mourning. But in those raw first weeks, their claims can feel like they’re stepping into a private space without knocking.
Even when it isn’t theft, it feels like it.
⸻
3. But Some People Do Have a Right to Claim Their Piece
This is where grief demands a balancing act.
Because while your jealousy is real and valid, it’s also true that some people have earned the right to their own fierce grief.
If it’s your partner who’s died, their parents, siblings, and children carry their own grief — not less than yours, just different. They knew sides of your person that you never did. They shared childhood holidays, family milestones, and private conversations you were never part of.
Their grief is stitched from different fabric — but it’s just as heavy to carry.
After Angé died, I had to remind myself — sometimes daily — that I wasn’t the only one who had lost her. Her mother, who had raised her. Her children, who had grown under her care. Her closest friends, who had weathered storms long before I arrived in her life.
They didn’t need my permission to feel devastated. And I didn’t need to measure my love against theirs.
⸻
4. Sharing the Person Doesn’t Mean Losing Your Place
This is one of grief’s hardest lessons: letting others grieve doesn’t push you out of the story.
Just because someone else speaks about the person you love doesn’t mean your place is erased or reduced. You were there for your part of the story — and that part can never be taken away.
Your seat in their life is carved into the wood.
The danger of jealousy is that it can turn into isolation. You start to pull back from gatherings, avoid conversations, and shield yourself from hearing anyone else’s stories — because it feels like defending territory.
But grief isn’t a competition. It’s a chorus.
And in a chorus, you don’t lose your voice by letting others sing; you make the song richer.
⸻
5. When Mourning Alone Feels Safer — And When Shared Mourning Matters
There will be days when you cannot bear to hear anyone else’s version of events.
When the thought of someone else describing “what she meant to them” feels like an invasion. On those days, it’s okay to close the door and sit with your own memories.
Sacred mourning in solitude has its own power. Walking alone, bathing in silence, revisiting places that hold your private moments — all of these give space for your grief to breathe without interference.
But shared mourning can also be unexpectedly grounding.
For example, I remember sitting with one of her oldest friends months after she died. She told me a story about a camping trip they’d taken in their twenties. Angé had burned the dinner, and instead of panicking, she’d laughed and served it with peanut butter to make it edible. I’d never heard that story before. It was so completely her — resourceful, irreverent, and joyful. Or the friend that tells the story of stopping ange from getting into a strangers car and by doing so most likely prevented her from being abducted.
That story didn’t take anything from me. It gave me something I didn’t know I was missing.
Shared mourning can do that — fill in the corners of the person you love, paint in colours you hadn’t seen before.
⸻
6. What to Do When Jealousy Hits Hard
There will be moments when jealousy flares without warning. You’ll read a tribute, see a photograph, or hear someone tell a story, and your body will react before your mind catches up.
When that happens, try this:
1. Pause. Before reacting — to them or to yourself — give your feelings a moment to settle.
2. Name it. Quietly acknowledge: “I’m feeling protective right now.”
3. Separate fact from feeling. Are they actually overstepping, or is it simply that their closeness feels unfamiliar to you?
4. Choose your next step. You might decide to walk away from the conversation, keep your thoughts private, or even gently join in.
5. Return to your core truth. Remind yourself: “I was there. My place in her life is not in question.”
This isn’t about suppressing jealousy — it’s about making sure it doesn’t become the architect of your grief.
⸻
7. Letting Go Because You Can’t Change It
One of the hardest truths about jealousy in grief is that you can’t rewrite the past.
You can’t go back and decide who was close enough to your person, who should or shouldn’t have been there, or how they chose to speak about them once they were gone.
The reality is — people will say what they want to say, post what they want to post, and remember in the way that makes sense to them.
You can’t stop that.
What you can do is decide how much energy you’ll give it.
Holding onto the anger or possessiveness every single time someone says something you don’t like is exhausting. It’s like carrying around an overstuffed bag of bricks that no one else can see.
Letting go doesn’t mean you approve of what they said or did. It simply means you’ve chosen not to let it take up space in your already heavy heart.
Sometimes letting go is as small as scrolling past the post without reading it. Sometimes it’s changing the subject when a certain name comes up. And sometimes it’s quietly saying to yourself:
“That’s their memory. Mine is different — and mine is enough.”
It’s not about winning. It’s about freeing yourself from a battle that can’t be won.
⸻
Conclusion: Jealousy Isn’t a Flaw — It’s a Marker of Love
Jealousy in grief is not a weakness. It’s a sign that you loved fiercely enough to want to guard what was yours.
The danger isn’t in feeling it — it’s in letting it cut you off from the very connections that could carry you through.
Remember: you don’t lose them by letting others remember them too.
Your quiet ache — your private knowing — will always belong to you. No one can touch it. No one can take it away.
⸻
Because of Angé
Because of Angé, I learned that grief is layered, and jealousy is one of those layers. I used to bristle when others shared their version of her, especially when it felt incomplete or unearned.
But I can hear her voice now, soft but certain:
“Let them speak. I gave them something, too.”
She was right. She always was.
Now, when I hear someone tell a story I wasn’t part of, I try to imagine her in that moment — smiling, laughing, loving. Sometimes I even picture her looking over at me and saying, “See? I wasn’t just yours. I was everyone’s in my own way.”
And instead of feeling like I’ve lost something, I realise I’ve gained another version of her to carry with me.
⸻
Reflection Questions
1. Have you ever felt protective or possessive of someone who died? What triggered it?
2. Which people do you feel have an equal claim to grief? How do you balance your own mourning with theirs?
3. What helps you make space for others without losing your own connection?
4. How could shared rituals (planting, storytelling, gatherings) become part of your mourning process?
5. What private memories are you not ready to share — and is it okay for them to stay yours?
