"Getting over it"

I do not understand what makes one person think they can tell someone else how they should deal with personal grief. Even if the so-called "experts" disagree on how many "stages" of grief there are, or if such stages even exist, none denies that losing a loved one is a traumatic experience. If people just forgot when someone passed away, we would not have any cemeteries. The practice of erecting monuments and shrines in the memory of those who have died is nearly universal. Would you walk in to a cemetery and tell mourners they should just get over it? The idea is obscene.

Now, I realize that I am not always sensitive to what other people are going through. I can be thoughtless and oblivious, but I try extremely hard to avoid consciously hurting someone's feelings. I don't care how unusual or irrational a trigger may seem to *me*, if I care about someone, I tiptoe around their emotional landmines.

In all my life, I have never told someone to "just get over" their sadness. That you would say that to someone you profess to care about is almost beyond my comprehension. So, when a person that you claim to care about tries to explain to you exactly why they are feeling sad about something as "inconsequential" as the upcoming day their child should have turned two, had he lived? That is probably the worse possible time to say "get over it."

If you ever find yourself in this situation and it just bothers you so much, bite your tongue or walk away, or - hell - act like a human and hand over a tissue and *then* walk away. But do not ever presume that you have the right to tell another person to forget.