Grief can take many forms. While there’s certainly no wrong way for one to process their grief (particularly in public), according to TikTok there is a right way and it looks like Emilie Kiser.
In May of this year, the 26-year-old influencer tragically lost her three-year-old son, Trigg, whom she shares with husband, Brady.
The toddler was found unconscious in the swimming pool of their family home in Phoenix, Arizona.
Following the tragedy, Kiser stepped back from her posting to her 7million+ audience, returning only recently in late September to again share small glimpses into her life.
Returning to her platform, the mother, who welcomed her second son, Theodore, just weeks before Trigg’s passing, told followers she was taking her filming “day by day” and was unsure “how much she was willing to share.”
Some clips show Kiser just going through her typical night time routine while others – like one originally intended as a Halloween decorating clip until she discovered Trigg’s old holiday accessories – speak to the influencer navigating her grief.
“I am very much grieving and very much going through a lot right now, I just want to say you are seeing such a small, small, small sliver of my life right now,” Kiser said in response to some followers criticising the return to social media.
“I’m not sharing my kids right now, I’m not sharing Teddy and I’m not sharing Trigg. I’m not ready to talk about other things, and that is okay, those are the things I am unpacking in my therapy sessions and with my family.”
Kiser isn’t using her platform to openly grieve, but she isn’t hiding from it either. In fact, it’s the small, raw moments that feel far more intimate and real than doing the former.
“While I feel ready to return to work and some sense of normalcy, I am not ready to talk about anything about what happened to him. I’m very much processing the loss of my son but I still think it’s important to share this.”
This sharing of the everyday – setting up holiday decorations, cooking, cleaning – interspersed with moments over crushing heartache has now garnered overwhelming support and admiration from many followers.
“I feel a sense of gratitude that there’s a face to grief and active grief,” creator horacegold says on TikTok before noting it’s not something he’s seen within his own family or community.
“My mother lost her dad before I was born, she cannot have one conversation about him without crying, those feelings are still there. But we as a culture pretend that they shouldn’t be. So for Emilie Kiser to generously share what it really looks like to be like ‘I need to clean my house, I’m going to make a pumpkin coffee, I’m going to live a life that is multi-dimensional but also I’m not going to pretend that I’m not moving through this’, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.”
As he notes, it’s not a show of grieving but the complexities that come with losing a loved one and trying to both move through that emotion while also continuing to live that proves so powerful.
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