Small Talk, Big Pain: How Casual Questions Sometimes Touch the Raw Edges of Grief

Grief doesn’t just live in the big moments—it lingers in the everyday: polite introductions, school assignments, and well-meaning small talk. These seemingly simple interactions can carry the weight of everything we've lost.

The Emotional Landmines of Everyday Conversation

“How many kids do you have?” A simple question—until it isn’t.

Since losing my 15-year-old son Caleb to suicide, questions like this have become emotional landmines. I always answer that I have four kids—because how could I not acknowledge the son I raised and love? But when someone follows with “How old are they?” or “What are their names?,” the grief calculations begin.

In those moments, I weigh: Who’s asking? Do I have the energy to explain? Will they get uncomfortable? Sometimes I say Caleb died. Sometimes I say he died by suicide. Sometimes, simply: “That’s a complicated question for me.” And all of it is true.

Responses range from awkward silence to tears—even stories of their own losses. I’m often emotionally unprepared to carry on in the conversation.

When Grief Interrupts the Ordinary

Some ordinary scenes stay vivid.

At the Service Ontario office, returning Caleb’s Social Insurance Number card, my husband and I stood there while the teller, not fully grasping why we were submitting it, told us it doesn’t expire. We said that he died. And then she repeated it back – “He died?” as if it didn’t register. We just nodded. There was nothing else to say.

At cheer tryouts for my youngest daughter, on what would have been Caleb’s 16th birthday: I showed up because it mattered to her, but I barely felt in my body. A mother asked how I was. I said something, but I can’t recall what. Grief had hollowed me out.

The air often shifts when I answer honestly, and when I choose not to. Sometimes I sidestep with a simpler version to avoid witnessing someone else’s discomfort on top of my own. That constant calculation – how much to say, what to protect, what to carry – is exhausting.

I’m walking through the world with a story too heavy to hold out loud, yet too important not to.

Reclaiming My Identity

Navigating identity after loss is hard. Though I have many hobbies (I’m an avid reader and gym-goer), and play different roles to different people (wife, daughter, friend, boss), my identity is rooted in being a mom. Being a mom is the part of me I cherish most and have always felt particularly good at.

I used to say with pride, “I’m a mom of four,” when meeting new people, often followed by gushing about each of my kids. After Caleb died, that once-clear sense of who I was – and how I introduced myself – became complicated. I began avoiding situations that might lead to small talk.

I’d been there before: when I had my first child young, even basic questions felt loaded. People didn’t mean to pry, but their curiosity left me feeling exposed and defensive. Over time, I learned to own my story – not for others, but for myself. So, I stopped overexplaining. I set boundaries. I shared what I needed to, without apology or avoidance.

After Caleb died, I had to relearn that process all over again. The stakes felt higher, the pain deeper. But again, isolation was unsustainable. It restricted my ability to connect, grow and – if it could even be possible again – feel fulfillment. I didn’t need to overshare or disappear, just speak the truth as it is.

The Challenge of Owning a Nightmare

With early motherhood, the story was mine to shape. Even with its challenges, it held joy and pride in my bright, caring daughter. But how do you own a nightmare? How do you accept something you had no control over – something that broke you?

The worst day of my life began like any other: a quiet, pancake-breakfast kind of Sunday. But that morning, my husband found Caleb dead in the basement. I remember repeating “no” for what felt like hours – or even days – out loud and in my mind.

No, this wasn’t who he was.

No, this wouldn't become who I was either: a mother who lost a child to suicide.

Context Shapes the Conversation

What I share depends on who’s asking, and where.

The old neighbors knew Caleb. They saw him grow up: walking to school, delivering papers, playing in the yard. They saw the paramedics arrive that Sunday morning, an image that became part of the street’s memory. They came to the celebration of life. His story lived, in part, on that street.

Then we moved, and the neighbors became strangers. At work, turnover meant some colleagues knew, others didn’t. My husband changed jobs. The younger kids switched schools, where no one knew Caleb because he’d never attended there. I still avoid the gym’s jacuzzi because the one time I used it, a woman asked if I have kids, then how many, then how old they are.

Too Much to Ask – At Any Age

Even at home, unexpected questions still find their way in. When other kids visit, they notice Caleb in photos and ask questions. At my youngest son’s 7th birthday party, he quietly said that his brother had died. The group of first graders grew curious and began guessing how, relentlessly. We didn’t share any details, and when the questions continued, we gently but firmly shut them down.

I once overheard my youngest daughter’s friends asking about Caleb. My daughter has three separate photos of him framed in her room, so it’s no surprise they noticed. She simply pointed upwards – to a heaven I hadn’t known she believed in – and said she didn’t want to talk about it. Her quiet gesture spoke what her voice couldn’t.

At their new schools, each child was asked to bring a photo of their immediate family and answer small talk-style questions: How many siblings do you have? What are their names? What are their hobbies? Simple on the surface—but not for us. I met with their teachers and arranged alternate topics. They chose those alternatives, sparing them from questions that feel anything but simple.

This year, my 12-year-old is starting a new school again for seventh grade. She’ll keep deciding what parts of her story to share, and with whom. I can’t always be there for her to lean on me. None of this is easy.

As for my oldest, who’s now 25, I leave her story private. Her story is hers to carry and shape in her own way. Maybe one day, she’ll write her own blog about the special relationship she had with her brother, seven years her junior, and how loss has shaped her. I hope she does.

There’s a lot she could teach the world about love, and about grief.

Building Bridges Through Truth

We carry people who have died into conversations never meant to hold them. Silence can feel easier in the moment, but it comes at a cost: of connection, of truth, of being fully seen. And speaking truth in a world that favours simplicity is tender and complex.

Grief shows up in many forms. I’ve heard from people whose wounds were reopened by casual, well-meaning questions. Like the woman who delivered a stillborn baby and was still asked about the baby months – even years – later by people who remembered her pregnancy. The intent was kind; the impact, gutting.

These moments remind me that small talk isn’t always small. A single question can carry weight. And while we can’t control how others respond, we can choose how we show up.

For me, that means being direct with any connection that can potentially be meaningful: “I have four kids, one of whom died by suicide.” I share this, with difficulty, because I can’t be my full self without naming it. This loss is part of me now; as much a part as being a mother. To leave it out would be to leave myself out. It took me a few years to get here, but that’s okay.

By speaking our truths – imperfectly, honestly – we make it safer for others to do the same. That’s how we carry grief: with each other.