Alison Sullivan
Grief can make people say and do crazy things, but this “friend” of Redditor u/Infamous_Ambassador crossed a line that she can’t step back over. The original poster came to subreddit r/AmItheA–hole to share his story because he worried he overreacted to his friend’s offensive comments.
“AITA for telling a friend that her dog dying is not the same as my kid?” he asked.
Apparently, his friend’s 16-year-old dog died, and they completely lost it. That’s actually understandable—losing a pet is super hard. They’re your constant companion and provide unconditional love. Losing them is incredibly hard. The OP says their friend group has been rallying around her, as she’s stayed in bed crying. Then, she asked for the OP specifically.
She said, “Now I know what it felt like for you. Losing a kid is so, so hard.” I’m 26M, my girlfriend got pregnant at fourteen and I was a father at fifteen. He was the best little boy ever and I was in love with him. I had a job and her parents kicked her out so she moved in with mine and by the time I was 19, I was happy and me and her moved into an apartment together.
But when the next year, when he was five years old, he got hit by a truck and passed away. It’s been six years and I still think of him every day.
I told her, maybe a little insensitively, “You didn’t lose a kid.” She looked taken aback and said she did and something about how “fur babies” were kids too. I said losing a kid is nothing like losing a dog and she started getting angry and told me she raised her dog for way longer than my son.
I got mad, and yelled at her to never talk about my son again and then I stormed out.
Apparently, the friend group is split on whether or not the OP went too far or not. They’ve told him that her grief is “fresh: and the OP has had six years to recover from his grief…but as commenters were quick to say, the grief of a child is not something that fades away.
Most of them told him immediately that his anger was totally understandable and justified:
There were a few people who could sort of see both sides, mostly because as mentioned, grief messes people up. They’re not thinking clearly and there’s no use comparing their different feelings about that grief. But those people got a lot of pushback because it’s still outrageous to compare a child and a dog:
End of the day, no one plans to bury their kid. Part of loving an animal is knowing you’ll have to say goodbye to them. It hurts, but it’s normal. Watching your child die never is.