I’m having a particularly angry five minutes, so bear with me.

I just want to lay out a few rules for contacting me/someone who has recently lost a close loved one.

1. DO NOT send me any text, chat message, snap, tweet, whatever containing an exclamation point. I’m not fucking happy, I don’t need to know that you are. You would think people who have lost loved ones would know this, but if the death was awhile ago, they can forget how hellish the first weeks of grief are.
2. Going along with number one, again, I don’t need to be reminded that you are happy when I am in hell every day. Don’t send me texts, messages, etc. that remind me how well life is going for you right now.
3. I don’t want to get drinks with you, go to lunch or dinner with you or do whatever mindless activity you think will help me. I am literally only consistently speaking to four people right now. If you’re not on this very short list, some days I’m willing to speak to you and some days I’m not. If you contact me and I don’t respond, leave it at that. It means I don’t want to talk to you.
4. The reason I’m talking to these four people is they know what it’s like to have the most important, or close to it, person in their life die. They stood over the body of the person they love most in the world and lived to tell about it. You may also have done that, but if I haven’t come to you to ask for your grief advice, keep it to yourself.

That’s all I have for now, but I reserve the right to add to this list at a later date.