Kelly Rizzo, the widow of comedian Bob Saget, recently shared that she "feels guilty for feeling happy" as she continues learning to understand her grief. The comment, reported by Parade Magazine, offers a rare and honest look at what healing actually looks like after losing a spouse.
Rizzo's words will land hard for anyone who has lost someone close to them. She is not describing sadness fading into relief. She is describing something harder to talk about: the strange discomfort of moving forward while still loving and missing someone who is gone.
What I'd tell a client about this
If you sat across from me after a loss like this, I would tell you that guilt over happiness is one of the most common and least discussed parts of grief. It is not a sign that you are forgetting someone or betraying their memory. It is a sign that your heart is doing two things at once, holding onto love for the person you lost while also staying open to life. Those two things are not in conflict, even though it feels that way in the moment.
As a coach who spends a lot of time turning stories like this into something useful for the people I work with, I see this pattern again and again. Someone experiences a loss, whether that is the death of a spouse, the end of a marriage, or even a major life change like a career setback. Time passes. Small moments of joy start to return, a laugh with a friend, a good meal, a quiet morning that feels normal again. And right behind that joy comes a wave of guilt, as if happiness itself is the problem.
The lesson here is simple but not easy: happiness returning does not erase grief, and grief does not require you to stay unhappy. Rizzo's willingness to say this publicly matters because it gives permission to everyone quietly carrying the same guilt in private. Grief is not a straight line from devastation to acceptance. It loops back on itself. You can laugh at lunch and cry that same night. You can feel lighter one week and heavier the next. None of that means you are doing it wrong.
What tends to trip people up is the expectation that healing should feel clean. It rarely does. Healing often feels messy, contradictory, and at times guilty, exactly as Rizzo describes. Understanding that this is normal, rather than a warning sign, is often the first real step toward peace.
One small action to take this week
This week, if you are carrying grief of any kind, whether from losing a person, a relationship, or a chapter of your life, try naming the guilt out loud when it shows up. Say it plainly, even just to yourself: "I feel guilty for feeling okay right now." Naming it takes away some of its power. It also opens the door to asking a better question, which is not "why do I feel happy" but "can I let myself feel both at once."
If you are supporting someone else through loss, the action is just as simple. Instead of telling them "it's okay to be happy," which can feel dismissive, try acknowledging the complexity directly. Something like "it makes sense that you feel both things" goes a long way. People in grief are not looking to be fixed. They are looking to be understood.
Rizzo's honesty is a gift in that sense. She did not frame her happiness as a tidy resolution to loss. She framed it as something that exists alongside grief, awkwardly, imperfectly, and still real. That is a more truthful picture of what moving forward actually looks like, and it is one worth remembering the next time you judge yourself for smiling too soon.
Grief does not ask for permission to show up, and it does not ask for permission to ease either. Giving yourself room for both is not a betrayal of what you lost. It is proof of how much it mattered.
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