Monthly Archives: April 2024

anxiety, grieving

Identifying a New Secondary Loss, Nearly 3 Years Out

Leave a comment

The death of a loved one has a ripple effect. There’s the loss of that person and then there are the secondary losses—the shifts in routines that make a day feel off, the friendships that fade because the person who held them together is gone or people are too uncomfortable to maintain them, the end of hobbies that depended on the person who died.

I count my anxiety and panic disorder (APD) as a secondary loss. Although I wasn’t diagnosed with APD until after my husband died, now that I understand what it is, I realize I’ve had panic attacks since I was a teenager.

My late husband had such a calming effect on me that I only had a handful of panic attacks after we met. With them going unrecognized by me as a symptom of APD and then them fading away during my marriage, by the time I was diagnosed after he died, it seemed like a new condition.

Now through the lens of hindsight, I see the reemergence of my panic attacks as both a reaction to his death and a response to the loss of his calming effect on me.

Throughout our relationship, when I felt panic rising in my chest, I knew that a hug from him or hearing his deep unwavering voice would steady me. I came to count on him whenever I was navigating a personal or work situation that felt overwhelming. He seemed to always be in control, which made me feel completely safe.

One time, for example, I was driving in a snowstorm on a busy highway before my vision impairments were diagnosed and it was the phase when my doctors were just telling me I wasn’t “trying hard enough” to see. The light gray of the sky, the white of the snow, the surrounding dirty vehicles, the asphalt all blurred together into a mottled smear. I wanted to pull off the highway, but I couldn’t see where the lanes were. I started hyperventilating in panic and realized I was on the verge of passing out while I was driving.

I called Tom and he talked me through the rest of the drive, settling my breathing so I didn’t pass out. As long as I could hear his steady voice, I knew I would be ok.

Even with the stress of his stroke during the COVID pandemic, holding his hand steadied me. Even when he was asleep, I found comfort in simply being in bed up against his body.

And then he died—and my entire APD coping arsenal was gone. The thought that he’s gone forever adds to my anxiety and panic. My learning to manage it on my own has been messy.

I’ve had a lot of anxiety lately as the three-year anniversary of his death in June looms on my calendar. One day last week I left to catch the bus to my dance lesson in a hurry and forgot my water bottle. One of my go-to strategies when I’m feeling anxious is to very deliberately drink some water, taking a sip, feeling it in my mouth, swallowing it, and being aware of it moving down my throat. Once I realized the bottle wasn’t in my bag, I could feel the anxiety tightening in my chest—a tell tale sign that a panic attack is rising. That’s when I realized I didn’t have my drugs with me either.

I held it together on the bus, telling myself the fresh air when I got off the bus would help. Once I got off the bus, I knelt on the sidewalk, gulping air. My hands were shaking and it took effort to think. I knew I needed to get some water. There is a water dispenser at the dance studio, but I knew the studio would be buzzing with people and I needed to avoid that. Physical activity helps, so I just started walking and came to a coffee shop a few blocks from the studio, where I bought a bottle of water.

I sat outside the studio, ritualistically taking sips of water between measured breaths. By the time my lesson started, I was on edge but not on the verge of a panic attack.

The dance lesson helped, too. I’m working on tango right now and hearing the familiar music activated my muscle memory and my body started shifting its resources from fight or flight mode to the work of holding my upper body in the tango frame, which is also surprisingly mental. I’m early enough in my work on tango that it takes a tremendous amount of focus for me to maintain the form (shoulders down, elbows up, head up and left, arms strong yet flexible, back arched yet tall).

The secondary losses hurt and nearly three years out, I’m still identifying them.  

Buddhist life, death, grieving

Celebrating Special Occasions

Leave a comment

Almost any time I have a glass of wine or a cocktail with someone else, I say “cheers” and clink my glass with theirs. I love the “cheers” and clinking ritual. It reminds me that I am lucky to be sharing a moment with whoever I am with and it adds a note of celebration. It’s impossible for me to say “cheers” and clink and not smile.

I recently began wondering why I only do that with wine or a cocktail—why not with cups of coffee or glasses of water?

The only answer I can come up with is habit, which means I can replace it with a new habit—“cheers”-ing and clinking with any beverage.

Ever since my stroke in 1997, I’ve tried to celebrate and appreciate every day. My late husband had a similar attitude. One of the first commonalities we found was that we both believed in keeping a bottle of prosecco in the fridge at all times, just in case. When there’s a chilled bottle of something festive on hand, it’s easy to find excuses to celebrate.

I think the death of a loved one is a reminder that our time here on earth is limited, which to me highlights the specialness of every moment. Any moment with a loved one could be the last one, so why not celebrate it? And if it turns out not to be the last one, well, celebrate that there will be more to come.

Another version of this philosophy is to use the good stuff everyday rather than saving it for “a special occasion.” I was raised in a family that saved many things for “a special occasion,” which meant that sometimes something got thrown out because it spoiled or broke before an occasion special enough presented itself.

When I was in  grad school, I read Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” in which two adult sisters present arguments to their mother about which one of them deserves the family heirloom quilts. One sister argues that she should get them because she’ll hang them on the wall where they’ll stay pristine and be admired. The other sister would put the quilts to “everyday use” as bed covers. The mother gives the quilts to the sister who would use them, noting that actually using them is the most authentic appreciation for them one can offer.

I was intrigued by the idea of using something as a sign of respect and it shifted my thinking about my own habit of writing in my books. I had grad school colleagues who sometimes bought two copies of a book so they could keep one clean and write in the other. They were appalled that I wrote all over my books, “ruining” them. But after reading Walker’s story, I realized that for me, a book that looks like it’s never been read is the ruined one. A book covered with scribbles has been loved and considered.

My favorite things of my late husband’s are the ones that bare evidence of his love for them—the sweatshirt that’s a little grungy around the sleeve edges, the flannel shirt that’s missing a button, the life jacket that looks like it had a few close calls.

The idea of using the good stuff everyday aligns with the concept of being choosy about how you spend your time and spending your money while you’re alive instead of aiming to leave a large inheritance.

For me, the point is to be intentional about appreciating the moments that make up a life and acknowledging that what makes an occasion “special” is my recognition of the specialness. If an occasion isn’t special, well, that’s on me for not noticing the specialness.

What, truly, could be more special than this moment?

Cheers.

grieving

Pining Away for Our Dead One’s Things

Leave a comment

When my husband died, I had him cremated. In the course of making the arrangements, the funeral home offered to sell me all sorts of urns, memorial jewelry, and plaques, and finally, the director told me they could take my husband’s fingerprint and have it engraved on a necklace charm or something else for me. “You can purchase the urns or plaques any time, but of course, we need to know if you want his fingerprint before we cremate him,” the director explained.

I said no quickly and effortlessly to all of it. The fingerprint was easy to dismiss because my husband used to joke that he had no fingerprints. The carpentry work he had done for decades and the many accidents he’d had involving power equipment that shaved off layers of his fingertips had left him with nearly smooth finger pads. He joked that he could commit a crime and leave no fingerprints behind. When he got an iPhone with touch ID, the salesperson tried to help him set it up for 20 minutes before conceding that indeed, Tom had no fingerprint.

I didn’t give my no to the fingerprint a second thought until I went to pick up his cremains a few days later and realized his fingerprint was gone forever. Never mind that I knew he didn’t even have a fingerprint. Never mind that I could put a blank charm on a necklace and claim it was Tom’s fingerprint and no one, including me, would know the difference. I didn’t want a piece of jewelry with his fingerprint on it until it was a complete impossibility.

I was talking with a widowed friend recently who regrets throwing out a threadbare T-shirt of her husband’s. The T-shirt didn’t ring any bells with her when she found it in with is other clothing and it was too worn to give to someone else, so she put it in the trash. Months later, she noticed that he was wearing that same T-shirt in many photos and realized it must have been one of his favorites.

It doesn’t matter to her that she still has many of his other shirts. It doesn’t matter to me that I have a ring with some of my husband’s cremains in it and several bracelets with his handwriting on them. We want that one thing that is impossible for us to have now.

I think if she found the T-shirt—maybe she didn’t throw it out after all and it turns up later in the back of a drawer—or the funeral home called me and said, “We accidentally took your husband’s fingerprint,” we’d find something else to fixate on. She’d pine away for a watch of her husband’s that she gave away and I would wish to have back one of the dozens of tape measures my husband had, many of which I gave out as party favors at a gathering.  

It’s not about the fingerprint or the T-shirt. It’s about the deep aching loss of our partners, the wishing for one more day with them, one more T-shirt, one more hand hold, one more anything. Just one more. It’s about fighting the foreverness of death.

When I think about not having gotten my husband’s fingerprint, the thought, “It’s gone forever” rings in my head. I made a decision that can never be undone. My therapist says I am trying to find something I can control. I can’t control that my husband is dead, but I could control that fingerprint decision.

I used to tell myself I was being stupid when I got upset about the fingerprint. “You’re such an idiot,” I would say in my head. “You don’t need a stupid fingerprint charm, get over it.” Or worse: “Well, you should have gotten the fingerprint when you had the chance, dumbass.” But being mean to myself about it didn’t make the feelings pass sooner, it just made me feel stupid on top of being sad.

Now I try to show myself the same compassion I showed my friend who was upset about the T-shirt. If you’re trying to comfort someone who is struggling with the foreverness of death, here are some strategies to try.

  1. Because it’s an illogical longing, an approach based on reason will fall flat. Reminding the person that there are other T-shirts won’t make them feel any better. This is not a time to worry about what makes sense.
  2. Hold space for their sadness. Listen and offer support without judging or trying to fix things.
  3. Invite them to tell some stories about the thing they are pining away for. The last time I was upset about the fingerprint, my daughter asked me how Tom had lost his fingerprints, and soon we were laughing hysterically about him making boomerangs on a job site.
  4. Acknowledge that it sucks that the thing is gone. Don’t look for a silver lining. Don’t say “at least you have [fill in the blank].” These approaches minimize the pain the person is feeling.

Note that if you are the someone struggling, you deserve the same kindness and compassion your friends do. I mentioned above that I said things to myself that made me feel stupid, but I would never try to make a friend feel stupid on top of being sad. Why would I talk to myself that way?

death, grieving

It’s OK to Keep Talking about Your Dead Loved Ones

1 Comment

One of my favorite TED Talks on grief is Nora McInerny’s “We Don’t ‘Move On’ from Grief. We Move Forward with It.” I’ve recommended it to everyone I know because McInerny does a brilliant job of articulating the idea that grieving people don’t ever “get over” their grief.

I recently watched it again—for maybe my sixth or seventh time—and found a gem near the end that I can’t stop turning over in my mind. She says, “We don’t look at the people around us experiencing life’s joys and wonders and tell them to move on.” She mentions as an example that when a baby is born, we send a congratulations card, and then five years later when the parents invite us to a 5th birthday party for the child, we don’t say, “Another birthday party? Get over it.” Instead, we expect that people will continue acknowledging that child who was born and who changed the lives of their parents.

Perhaps this resonated with me because I’m coming up on three years since my husband died and I’m not at all done talking about my grief for him or remembering the life we had together. No one has directly said to me that I should stop talking about him or my grief, but I have had a few people make indirect comments about it to me lately.

“I work with someone whose wife died over two years ago and he still talks about her all the time. Don’t you think that’s weird?” a friend asked me recently. No, I said, I think that’s totally normal, and as I was about to remind my friend that I still talk about my husband all the time I realized, oh—my friend is talking about me. We had been discussing remodeling projects and mentioning all the improvements my husband had made to my house seemed totally relevant to me, but I had noticed that my friend’s expression had changed when I started talking about my husband.

Someone else messaged me in response to a post about my dead husband on Facebook. “I hope you’ll move on soon,” this friend said. I think she meant it in a concerned way.

Someone else asked me if it was normal for people as far out from the loss as I am to still be attending grief support groups. Again, I assume this person was asking out of concern.

In light of these comments and expressions of concern, I think of McInerney’s point that we don’t think it’s concerning when a parent keeps talking about their child, year after year, but we do want people to stop talking about their losses. I suppose we expect parents to talk about their living children year after year, but not their dead ones. We think it’s normal to talk about accomplishments and things we deem worthy of celebrating but we think death and other losses should generally be kept quiet.

If my husband were alive, I doubt my friend would have questioned my mentioning him in relation to my home remodels. Would anyone ask me to “move on” from posting to Facebook about my husband if he were alive? I suspect participating in a cooking club for three years wouldn’t prompt any concern about what’s normal the way attending grief support groups apparently does.

On a practical note, I don’t let these indirect comments get to me. I figure if someone doesn’t want to hear about my dead husband, they can stop reading what I post on my blog or Facebook and they can stop spending time with me. They can make choices. Frankly, I don’t really want to be around someone who doesn’t want to know about the grieving part of me. I don’t take it personally—I just know they are not someone who needs to be in my inner circle.

I also see these kinds of comments as further evidence that we need to learn how to talk about grief. This means building up our tolerance for listening to others share their dark thoughts and experiences, holding space for that stuff rather than trying to wrap it up quickly with a piece of advice or a pithy quote.

Over time, people who are less tolerant of me continuing to talk about my dead husband have faded out of my life, either because they don’t enjoy spending time with me anymore or because I have intentionally spent less time with them. Similarly, I find myself spending more time with people who don’t seem bothered by me talking about my dead husband, either because I have a better time with them or they appreciate my death-talk.

Some people lament that their circle of friends gets smaller after a death, but I see it as part of a natural sorting process. I don’t want people around me who are only going to show up for the happy stuff. And by seeking out grief support groups and blogging about grief, I’ve actually expanded my circle of friends in beautiful and surprising ways.

grieving

How to Write an Obituary

Leave a comment

When a loved one dies, one of the first tasks that needs to be completed is writing an obituary. If you don’t enjoy writing or feel confident doing it, this task can feel overwhelming. Capturing an entire life in just a few sentences or paragraphs may feel impossible.

The first thing to consider is whether you want to write it yourself or delegate it. Writing an obituary can feel cathartic. Writing my husband’s obituary was a labor of true love. I wrote most of it myself, but his mother and brother helped me fill in the blanks about his early years and some of the best language is from them.

I found it very comforting to write it myself and have the clearly defined task to focus on in the first days after my husband’s death, but I’m a writer and I enjoy writing. If writing isn’t your thing, or writing an obituary sounds horrible to you, delegate this task. You know how all those people say, “Let me know how I can help” but you have no idea what to ask for? Well, here’s something concrete. You need help writing an obituary.

If you are the one writing it, keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be perfect. Most obituaries these days live online, which means they can be updated or edited fairly easily. If you realize you left out something important or made a factual error, you can most likely correct it.

Understanding the main purposes and readers of obituaries can help you focus your efforts. I think there are two main groups of people who read obituaries: people who knew the person and people who didn’t.

People who knew the person often read it for information about a funeral or memorial service and to be reminded of the life and deeds of the person who died.

People who didn’t know the person may read out of curiosity or because of their connection to someone who was close to the person who died.

It is typical to include

  • The person’s full name, including nicknames. This can help people who are searching online find it quickly.
  • Their age when they died and often their birthdate and date of death.
  • The city or town they lived in most recently. This can also help people who are searching online for the obituary.
  • Places of employment, military service, and schools attended.
  • The names of surviving family members. This helps readers know who to send sympathy messages to.
  • Date and address of funeral or memorial service, if planned.

You can include much more, if you want. Some optional items to include are

  • Cause of death. This is completely optional and there is no right or wrong answer as to whether to include it. The decision is very personal.
  • Stories about the person who died. In the obituary I wrote for my husband, I included a lot of stories. I found it very cathartic to think about which stories to include, and I also enjoyed capturing his indomitable spirit and thought a lot about which stories would best showcase that.
  • Information about organizations people can donate to in the person’s memory.

Here’s a simple template for writing an obituary:

Name, age, city or town.

A few sentences or a paragraph about their childhood.

A few sentences or a paragraph about their teenage years, including high school attended.

A few sentences or a paragraph about their young adulthood, including places of employment, military service, and schools attended.

A few sentences or a paragraph about each decade or chapter of their life, including places of employment, military service, and schools attended.

The names of surviving family members.

Date and address of funeral or memorial service.

Although the obituary I wrote for my husband is quite long, it pretty much follows this template. There’s no need to reinvent a wheel here—the standard formula works well.

And don’t feel like humans are the only ones who deserve obituaries. Why not write one for a beloved pet? As I said, I found it very comforting to write one for my husband, so if you are mourning a pet, perhaps writing their obituary is just what you need.