When the first few weeks had passed after losing our daughter, I wanted to be able to have some semblance of a normal life outside of my house--ANYTHING that wasn't about my loss. I wanted to be able to say hi to friends in the grocery store, or shoot the breeze at the post office without it turning into some painful delving into my loss. I needed something easy like talking about the weather, their kids, what they were up to. When people pressed me about how I was doing, it hurt me and I went home feeling worse than when I'd left the house. What helped was people treating me as if I was normal, even though we both knew I wasn't in those moment. That buoyed me up, made me feel likeable again, gave me hope that I wouldn't feel broken forever.