Grief Brings Visitors—Not All of Them Come to Mourn

Many moons ago, my partner died.

I can still recall letting myself in. It was quiet. I found him lying on the bed, dead.

I was distraught, and I ran outside screaming and asking for help. Help came, but I had already gone into shock. By the time all was said and done, he was gone.

Then I noticed that his jewelry was gone too.

I had not thought to secure anything. Why would I have? I had just found my partner dead. My mind was not on jewelry, open doors or the intentions of people entering the room. I was trying to comprehend something my mind could not yet hold.

I cannot say who took the jewelry or exactly when it disappeared. I only know that it was there, people entered, and then it was gone.

What happened to me was not without precedent. Funeral workers have been convicted of stealing jewelry from the dead. In Philadelphia, an EMT was arrested in December 2025 and charged after home-security footage allegedly showed him taking cash from a deceased woman's wallet while responding to an emergency call that October. Burglars have used obituaries to identify homes that would be empty during funerals.

These cases do not tell me who took my partner's jewelry. They establish that death can create opportunities for people willing to exploit confusion, access and trust.

Grief interrupts ordinary thought

Nobody tells you that grief can leave things unguarded—not because the grieving are careless, but because death interrupts ordinary thought.

Research published in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing found that bereavement can impair decision-making precisely when survivors must undertake unfamiliar financial and legal responsibilities. Grieving people may have less awareness of what occurred during transactions and may want to withdraw from decisions altogether.

Those without good intentions may not have read the research, but some appear to understand the opportunity.

They may be relatives, friends, acquaintances or strangers. The danger is not determined by what title someone holds. It is determined by what they do with the access grief gives them.

Some take property. Some take money. Some take information. Some attempt to take control of the deceased person's story. Others seek access to the grieving person's body, trust or private life.

Death brings more than grief through the door.

When mourning becomes a performance

Some people arrive to be seen arriving. They cry harder than family and friends who lived closest to the loss. They tell stories that never happened and claim an intimacy the dead are no longer here to correct.

They may attend the gathering, eat what the grieving family prepared and inspect what grief has left unattended.

Social media has expanded the performance. People who did not show up for someone's life can become highly visible at their death. They post photographs, write elaborate tributes and position themselves inside a story in which they may have played little part.

The comments console them. The attention gathers around them. Somebody else's death becomes their content.

Social media did not invent performative grief. It moved it from the funeral home to the feed, gave it an unlimited audience and began rewarding the loudest mourner.

An old saying came to me: They wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.

Harsh, certainly. But some people who would not help extinguish the fire will still dress in black, attend the funeral and cry loudly enough to suggest that they tried.

Death can announce vulnerability

Some people read obituaries for reasons that have nothing to do with respect.

An obituary can reveal who died, who remains and when the family will be attending the funeral. Social media can provide photographs, relationships, telephone numbers and clues about who may now be living alone.

Criminals have used that information to burglarize homes, manufacture debts, impersonate old acquaintances and approach surviving spouses. One New York burglar received a sentence of at least eleven years for targeting homes while families attended funerals. In Ontario, two people were charged after more than 300 thefts from mausoleums and cemeteries; police alleged that they posed as grieving relatives to obtain access.

Sometimes the person arrives carrying sympathy. They know enough about the deceased to sound familiar. They get close to someone who is in shock.

Then they take.

The grieving person is left with missing possessions to locate, deceits to uncover, police reports to make, and betrayals to absorb. Time that should have been available for remembrance becomes consumed by people who saw death not only as a loss, but as an opening.

Not everything taken can be worn or sold

Grief has visited me more than once, and each time it taught me something new about who follows it through the door. My partner's death was not my only loss. When my son Jerome died, several men tried to offer me sex as a form of support.

I was not impressed. I was grieving my child. I was also left wondering how they obtained my telephone number and what made them think my son's death had created an invitation.

Different people may call such an approach by different names: comfort, companionship, a

distraction, a romantic interlude or something to help the grieving person "feel alive."

But when someone uses acute grief to pursue sexual access the person has not invited, we should be willing to name the possibility of sexual exploitation.

Not all intimacy after bereavement is exploitation. Grieving adults retain their sexuality, judgment and right to seek companionship. The difference lies in consent, timing, pressure and intention. Did the grieving person express a desire for intimacy, or did someone else interpret grief as availability?

Support is determined by what the grieving person needs—not by what somebody else hopes to receive.

Condolences do not entitle anyone to a telephone number, a private visit, a key, a password, a loan, a hug or sex.

We cannot forget the children

We cannot pretend that people willing to exploit grieving adults suddenly acquire a protective conscience when the person left vulnerable is a child.

When children lose a parent, they may also lose the person who controlled access to them, guarded their privacy and recognized when another adult's attention did not feel right.

New people may enter their lives. Telephone numbers are exchanged. Living arrangements change. Adults begin making decisions about their home, belongings, inheritance and relationships.

A child who desperately needs stability may welcome someone who appears dependable. That makes it important to notice adults who try to become indispensable too quickly—offering expensive gifts, private outings, secret conversations, sleepovers or affection the child has not requested.

Children should not be made responsible for identifying every unsafe adult. The adults who remain must do that work.

Support should widen a child's circle of safety. It should never isolate the child inside one new adult's attention.

Sometimes love needs to stand at the door

This is not an invitation to distrust everyone who brings food or condolences. It is an invitation to recognize that grieving people may need practical protection without being burdened with organizing all of it themselves.

Every grieving household could use one trusted person willing to ask the questions the mourner may be too overwhelmed—or too polite—to ask:

Who are you? Who gave you this number? What exactly did the deceased promise you? Why has this debt waited until now? And why are you being so helpful all of a sudden?

If someone you love is grieving, consider helping to:

• Ask permission before sharing their telephone number, address or circumstances.

• Screen unexpected calls, visitors, invoices and requests.

• Photograph and secure jewelry, identification, medication, financial documents, keys and devices.

• Arrange for someone trustworthy to remain at the home during the funeral.

• Keep records of donations, expenses and property intended for children.

• Verify supposed debts, promises, relationships and funeral-related services independently.

• Slow down sudden financial, romantic and housing decisions.

• Protect children's privacy and observe new or unusually intense relationships.

• Continue checking in after the funeral, when the crowd has disappeared but grief remains.

Protection must not become another form of control. The grieving person retains the right to decide who enters, what help they accept and what information may be shared.

The purpose is not to take over. It is to stand beside someone whose ordinary defences have been disrupted and help guard what shock has left unattended.

Those who are grieving should not have to become suspicious of every kindness. They should never be blamed when someone exploits a moment in which they could barely think. Responsibility belongs to the person who deceives, steals, manipulates or violates.

Perhaps loving someone through grief means being quiet enough not to make their loss about ourselves, attentive enough to notice who is getting close, and practical enough to guard the doors they cannot yet be expected to watch.

Grief brings visitors.

Let care help decide who gets through the door.