It’s None of Your F****ing Business Why They Died

It’s none of your f***ing business why they died– so stop asking. 

I had to remind myself of this last weekend, at the funeral of a colleague of mine I absolutely loved. Kelly was a rising leader in communications in North Carolina. I worked with her very closely over the course of my years in public policy in state government, as she and I would work together to message complex policy ideas into bite-sized talking points. She was great at it. I loved Kelly’s dry sense of humor, her ability to get s*** done, and her persistence in a complicated and often very stressful work environment. She was a little bit younger than me. And while we didn’t chill much outside of work, inside she was a trusted person– my work friend.

The end of her life was shocking news out of nowhere a few weeks ago. Kelly was out on parental leave – a state policy she and I had worked on together– when I got a text from another colleague that she had died. The unexpected death as a young person, a new mom, was incomprehensible. 

I desperately wanted to know what happened to her. And, honestly, I still do. Because I don’t know why she died. The cause of death isn’t listed in her obituary, nor any social media posts about her death. I asked my friend and former colleague privately when we went to her funeral together if she had heard anything as to why, but she didn’t know either. 

From that moment before the funeral, through – truly – right now as I am writing this to all of you, I’ve had to check myself. I’m relying on my own training and experience in grief support work when I say this: It is absolutely none of my damn business why she died. 

It’s none of your business why anyone died. Even if it’s sudden. Even if they were young. If a survivor wants it to be known what happened, they’ll make it known. If it’s not discussed, it is not your role to pry. 

I wondered if why Kelly died might come up at the funeral, someone might mention it in a speech, or someone else might bring it up in whispered conversation. But no one did, and I stopped myself from asking. 

It’s none of my business why Kelly died. 

What is my business when I lose someone I care about? Focusing on my relationship with that person. Focusing on the survivors, and how I can be supportive to them. 

This feeling was familiar– I remember how awful it felt when my father died suddenly in 2020, and the immediate questions of why came up. For the first week, we honestly didn’t know. We wrote the obituary while we were still awaiting autopsy results, and phrased it “passed away unexpectedly,” because that’s as much as we knew at the time. He was gone. We didn’t see it coming. I could tell you now how he died, because we eventually did get the autopsy results, but does it really matter? I’d much rather tell you about how he lived. 

I do understand human curiosity: there’s something about wanting to evaluate if a death was preventable, was it an accident, was it suicide, was it disease, is there something else we could have done? When we get terrible news about a death, the curious, productive side of us wants to know more as a proxy for being able to actually do more. If we just had a little more knowledge about the death, maybe our grief won’t feel as bad. I think that’s the subconscious mental work we’re doing when we ask questions about how someone died. The feeling part is the hard part, and we want to keep avoiding that.

But, at the end of the day, do you need to know why my dad died to care about him, and to care about me? Do I need to know why Kelly died to honor that relationship? No, of course I don’t. 

Her funeral was packed with people who loved her, full of beautiful stories about her. It was a heavy, overwhelming day of grieving– seeing her baby girl, her husband, her family, all of my former colleagues coming together…it was a devastating day. 

And, that day, instead of trying to intellectualize and understand why she died, I spent my time remembering Kelly for who she was. 

My friend and colleague Kelly died. I don’t know why. But, I don’t need to know why to grieve her. 

If you’re able, please give to Kelly’s family’s GoFundMe here.