Tag Archives: grieving

Buddhist life, death, grieving

Celebrating Special Occasions

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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

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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

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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

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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.

grieving

Grief, Sleep, and a Heavy Box

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For most of my adult life, I have been a great sleeper. I usually have had little trouble falling asleep and I’ve stayed asleep for most of the night.

After my husband’s stroke, the stress and what seemed like an infinite number of unknowns exhausted me and I continued to sleep well at night but I awoke exhausted and dragged my way through each day. That continued for the first seven or eight months after he died.

Then I had a period of not being able to sleep at all. Intense anxiety kicked in and every time I was about to drift off, my entire body would go on high alert and I would leap out of bed, gripped by dark fears. After a couple months of that, my doctor prescribed Lorazepam, which helped me start sleeping again. It took six months to get my anxiety to a point where I could at least get decent sleep a few nights a week.

In the year and a half since then, I’ve gone from needing eight hours of sleep a night to feel rested to needing nine or ten and then I often feel a wave of exhaustion around midday. Many days I take multiple naps, sometimes adding up to two hours a day or even more.

Lately I’ve been noticing that it’s often emotional tiredness that makes me want to nap. I think my body is actually getting enough sleep, but the effort it takes to keep moving forward when my husband is dead is exhausting.

When he first died, I did everything with the thought “Tom is dead” in mind. I would think, “I’m showering (Tom is dead)” and “I’m eating lunch (Tom is dead).” Over time, the prominence of that thought faded, but there is still a weight I feel like I’m carrying around and that is what ties me out.

I first read Jack Gilbert’s poem, “Michiko Dead” in 1999 and the image of a person carrying an awkward box that can never be put down stuck with me. These last few months, my mind has gone over and over again to that poem. I think I’m tired all the time because of that box of grief that can never be put down.

My thoughts now aren’t “I’m writing (Tom is dead)”—they are more like “I’m writing (why am I so tired . . . oh, it’s the box I’m carrying)” and that box is grief for my husband. Carrying it means I’m always working. The box is invisible to others and I’m so used to carrying it, I forget sometimes that I’m carrying it—but it still tires me out.

I try not to judge myself for all my napping. When the voice in my head tells me I’m being lazy, I try to respond, “No, it’s fatigue from carrying this box around. It’s ok to nap.”

Michiko Dead

BY JACK GILBERT

He manages like somebody carrying a box   

that is too heavy, first with his arms

underneath. When their strength gives out,   

he moves the hands forward, hooking them   

on the corners, pulling the weight against   

his chest. He moves his thumbs slightly   

when the fingers begin to tire, and it makes   

different muscles take over. Afterward,

he carries it on his shoulder, until the blood   

drains out of the arm that is stretched up

to steady the box and the arm goes numb. But now   

the man can hold underneath again, so that   

he can go on without ever putting the box down.

grieving

Do the Dead Forgive Us?

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One commonality among all the grieving people I know is regret. For many of us, the regret is small(ish) but others are plagued by regret. People wish they could take back something they said or did or do or say something that was left undone or unsaid. Often the regret is about something that seemed innocuous in the moment but in the aftermath of the death, takes on outsized significance.

I’ve mentioned before my own regret about how I responded to my late husband’s pain. My insight about how to respond better came too late. I would give anything to be able to apologize to him for not getting it right at the time. I spoke with two widowed friends in the past week who are experiencing similar regrets. The impossibility of ever apologizing or explaining themselves weighed on them heavily. They both wondered, could their dead partner ever forgive them?

I choose to believe that our dead loved ones hold no grudges, that they miss us as feverishly as we miss them, and that just as we wish we could do-over some of our interactions, they have the same wish.

We couldn’t have known then what we know now. Had we known the day or moment they would die, we might have behaved differently, but we didn’t know. Had they known the day or moment they would die, they might have behaved differently, but they didn’t know.  We did the best we could in the moment, and I think our dead loved ones recognize that more readily than we do.

I choose to believe that the dead are more enlightened than we are and that they do not hold us responsible for not having had the knowledge we have now when they were alive.

Sometimes when I am wishing I had done or said something to Tom differently, I try to see myself in that moment through his eyes. He believed me to be smart, strong, compassionate, and capable. He appreciated my caregiving and loved me as much as I loved him. He might wish I had been more patient sometimes or done things differently, but he knew I was thrown into being a caregiver the same way he was thrown into being a care recipient. Neither of us had been prepared for those roles and we gave each other a lot of grace. I try to give myself the same grace Tom gave me.

I also try to keep in mind that my memories aren’t always reliable. My recollection of how I behaved or what I did or didn’t do isn’t nearly as accurate as I think it was. I trust that my dead husband will give me the benefit of the doubt because he loved me and that’s what people who love each other do.

These are choices I make about what to believe. I was raised in a tradition built on guilt and felt tremendous guilt after my mother died. I believed I could have saved her (I found her after school, still alive but unresponsive—and as an example of the unreliability of memory, my sister believes that she’s the one who found our mother, so one of us must be wrong) and that she died because I waited too long to call anyone. I regretted every argument we’d had, and there had been many. I wished I hadn’t physically pushed her way the last time she tried to hug me. I especially was sorry I had told her I was embarrassed by her.

For years, I cried myself to sleep most nights under the weight of this guilt. It was proof that I was a bad person. But gradually, I began to see myself as a not-so-bad person and that version of me was able to see my mother as a troubled but generous person who would certainly forgive me for the things I did as a tween that were actually totally appropriate for a tween. My mother had been a fourth through sixth grade teacher who knew tween behavior. Of course she would forgive me.

I still wish I hadn’t behaved the way I did toward her, but I also understand the behavior of tween me as normal and forgivable. Regret over the behavior is not worth carrying around with me as a weight to hold me down.

I can’t tell other grieving people what to believe, but I hope that whatever you believe, it is something that does not hold you down.

grieving

What To Do When Someone’s Pet Dies

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The first of a handful of times I saw my stoic late husband cry was when our dog Clark died. Clark was a black lab mix that Tom had rescued a few years before he and I met. Clark was an avid rafter who loved to swim. He was a cocky swimmer—I remember one time he literally swam in circles around a dog who was new to swimming, as if to say, “Look, dummy, it’s not that hard.”

Clark came along on all our early adventures—rafting, of course, but also camping and too many road trips to list. He was a rascal who let my young daughter dress him up in a pink feather boa and cowboy hat because he realized that he’d get an extra long walk if he did, and he didn’t mind wearing that regalia on the walk.

When Clark was diagnosed with lung cancer, I was devastated and sobbed for days, but Tom was stoic. When the time came to relieve Clark of his pain, we were with him, petting him and telling him we loved him through his final breaths. That’s when Tom finally shed the first tears I’d seen from him in the three years we’d been together at that point.

The death of a pet can be heartbreaking and devastating. Losing a loved one, regardless of their species, can turn your world upside down.

Pets are often faithful and trusted companions, offering unconditional love and acceptance. They provide reliable comfort and affection without ever judging or disagreeing with us. Their guileless trust and vulnerability can bring out the best in us. They show us—and share with us—pure joy. They can give our life purpose.

In my work as a sexual assault victim advocate, the people I worked with were more likely to cite pets as providing reliable comfort than humans.  

Some folks don’t understand why the death of a pet is so upsetting. Maybe you grew up on a ranch or farm, where people didn’t form emotional attachments to animals. Perhaps you’re not a cat person and you can’t wrap your head around why anyone would mourn the death of a cat. Try substituting “companion” or “loved one” for pet: They lost their companion and loved one.

The loss of a pet is the loss of a significant relationship. Someone who’s pet has died may grieve hard, possibly for the rest of their life.

What can you do when a friend’s pet dies? The same things I hope you would do when a friend’s person dies. Here are some ideas:  

  • Write a sympathy card.
  • Ask your grieving friend to tell you a favorite story about their pet.
  • Think carefully before sharing your own story about losing a pet. Sometimes sharing your own grief story can be helpful, but often it is not. The key, in my opinion, is to share your story in order to make the person you are talking to feel seen. If your purpose is anything else, like to make them feel like they shouldn’t be so sad or so sad for so long, then please keep the story to yourself for now.
  • Offer help but don’t just say “Let me know how I can help,” which is actually not very helpful. Ask what they need and then help them get it.
  • Respect their grief and their grieving process. Don’t tell them to just get another pet and if they plan to immediately get another pet, don’t tell them they shouldn’t unless they’ve asked for your advice. You don’t have to understand their grief or their process to be compassionate.
  • Consider making a donation to an animal rescue organization in honor of the pet who died.

And do not, under any circumstances, tell them that losing a pet is “different from losing a ___.” Typically when people say this, what they mean is that losing a pet isn’t as big a deal as losing a ___. This is never ever comforting. Being belittled or having my grief minimized has never made me feel better about anything.

Whether it’s a dog, cat, bird, fish, snake, or other animal that has died, they had a big place in your friend’s heart. Your friend is now trying to figure out how to live the rest of their life without that companionship. Be kind.

grieving

How to Respond to Nosy Questions when You Are Grieving

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I recently wrote a piece that appeared in The Boston Globe about how we should talk about grief more. I said in that piece that being inarticulate is fine, being messy is fine, and I stand by it. I think the only way we’ll get better at talking about grief is by daring to be clumsy about it.

I was thinking when I wrote the piece about people aiming to offer comfort or condolences. There’s another category of talking about grief that I want to address today: the nosy question.

I’ve been amazed at how bold people have been about asking me very personal questions in the wake of my husband’s death. I’ve been asked how much I paid for the celebration of life, did my husband have a will, did I expect him to die, was I there when he died, did he have life insurance, am I dating. I know people who have lost loved ones to suicide who have been asked if a note was left, who found their loved one, and if they were surprised.

These questions may be fine from a close friend or a professional who needs the answer to proceed. A financial adviser can ask me about my husband’s will and then support and advise me. A friend can ask and then help me process my emotions about it. When a co-worker I’m not close to asks, I can only imagine it’s out of idle curiosity and either my answer will be forgotten or become fodder for gossip.

Here is what I have done when someone has asked me a question that feels too personal, too tender, too stupid, or that for any reason I don’t want to answer or can’t answer:

  1. Sometimes I set boundaries, such as saying, “I’m not up for this right now” or “that’s a conversation for another time.” No one has pushed me when I have used one of these phrases. I often use these phrases when people ask me questions about the medical care my husband received before he died. Sometimes I don’t mind answering those questions, so I use phrases that don’t shut down the conversation forever but imply that at some point in the future, I may want to talk about it.
  2. Whenever someone asks me about life insurance, how much something cost, or inheritance, I respond in a shocked and incredulous tone, “Did you just ask me about my personal finances?!” No one has had the nerve yet to pursue that line of questioning. The people I’ve said this to have been appropriately embarrassed and backtracked immediately.
  3. When people ask me nosy questions about my relationships with my husband’s family, I usually give a somewhat cryptic response. Most of the questions I get about his family imply that I must be relieved to no longer have to interact with them anymore; I assume these people are projecting their own issues with their in-laws onto me. The fact is I am actually much closer to my late husband’s extended family than to my own. They are my family. Now, the average random person asking about my in-laws doesn’t merit enough time and energy from me to get this information, so I often give a half-laugh and move on without answering their nosy question.
  4. I don’t worry about explaining why I don’t like their question or why I don’t want to answer it. I don’t worry about making them feel ok about having asked the question. I remind myself that if I want to, I can take the opportunity to make this a learning moment for them, but that I don’t have to.

I basically do a cost-benefit analysis that looks like this: considering (1) my current energy level, (2) relationship with this person, (3) the likelihood of me crossing paths with them again, and (4) the anticipated outcome of the interaction, how much of my limited time and energy do I want to put into either answering their question, explaining why I’m not going to answer their question, or feeling bad about this situation after it’s over?

I think sometimes grieving people who are normally very polite and kind feel pressure to be polite and kind when these kinds of nosy questions are asked, and I suspect they sometimes want to be granted permission to not be polite and kind in the face of these questions.

Grieving people: I give you permission to respond to nosy questions without being polite and kind. I give you permission to be rude, be curt, not offer an explanation. I give you permission to put yourself first, to handle nosy questions less than perfectly.

academic life/work, failure, grieving, life skills

Embracing Mediocrity

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I usually aim to do the best I can but that does not mean I aim to be the best. Often the best I can do is mediocre, perhaps a C or C+, if anyone is grading. I am a good enough employee, a good enough researcher, a good enough neighbor, a good enough mother. I have a few moments or days here and there where I’m a really great mother or a fantastic professor, but that is not the norm for me.

I don’t say this to denigrate myself or fish for compliments. I’m not looking for anyone to argue with me and tell me no, I’m a fantastic mother and a kickass professor! I’m totally comfortable with my level of performance in these areas. I’m a good enough mother that my children trust me with matters I want to be trusted with. I’m a good enough professor that I don’t worry about students not learning what they need to learn.

One of the lessons grief has taught me is that being good enough is good enough. That sounds simple, but I spent a large chunk of my life aiming to be the best and feeling inadequate. As a recovering perfectionist, when I first started being serious about mediocrity, I wanted to be the best at mediocrity, to hit it hard. I’ve chilled out a lot over the years and learned that the real power of embracing mediocrity is in letting go of standards.

Once I shifted my goal to being good enough, I started feeling much better about myself. The really interesting thing is that my performance didn’t actually change. What changed was where I put my effort. When I stopped worrying about being the best professor, I had more energy left for my family, which made me a better mother and wife. When I stopped worrying about being the best wife ever, I had more energy left for myself, which made me a better wife.

About ten years ago, I started selecting at the beginning of each semester one category of my job to prioritize and allowing myself to be mediocre in the other categories. Some semesters I prioritized teaching, the writing center, service, or scholarship, and then the next semester I would prioritize a different category. Not once did anyone seem to notice that I was performing in a mediocre fashion. The semester I won a service award was a semester that I was not prioritizing service. Several times I’ve been nominated for a mentoring award, and frankly, I have never aimed to be anything but mediocre as a mentor.

When my husband had his stroke, I allowed myself to be mediocre at everything except taking care of him. Again, nobody seemed to notice. People did notice that I was doing less than I used to—serving on fewer committees, for example. But the quality of my work was good enough that nobody commented. My student evaluations remained consistent.

After my husband died, I stopped even aiming for mediocrity. People gave me grace. I gave myself grace. There was a year or so of teaching I don’t remember, but again, my student evaluations remained consistent. I recently heard from a student I had during that time who mentioned, unprompted by me, how he had applied some of what he’d learned in my class since then, and holy moly, he learned exactly what I wanted him to. Despite my exceedingly mediocre performance. Despite the fact that I don’t remember teaching him what he learned.

I have fully embraced mediocrity in most areas of my life now. I still get nominated for awards and occasionally win them. I don’t get nominated as often as I used to, but I don’t do anything I do for the recognition.

What I’ve learned is that allowing myself to be mediocre doesn’t mean I am mediocre. It just means I take the pressure off myself. Many writers know Anne Lamott’s advice to start with a shitty first draft. Removing the pressure to write something wonderful helps many writers get past writer’s block and actually produce something decent.

One of my favorite writing teachers, Diana Goetsch, says that writers should allow themselves to write something that might suck—but it also might smack of genius (she’s quoting someone with the “smack of genius” phrase but I can’t remember who).

By embracing mediocrity, I’ve taken a “shitty first draft” approach to nearly everything I do. I’m astonished at how often what I do ends up sort of smacking of genius. And often it doesn’t smack of genius, and that’s ok because my job in life isn’t to be a genius—it’s to be a good enough human. By just aiming to do the best I can and not to be The Best, I have more time and energy left for what matters.

grieving

The Wild, Tangled Scribble of Grief (aka you’re never done with it)

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I posted last week about feeling good and then Thursday night, I did not feel good. Not good at all. I had an upset stomach and a brutal headache when I went to bed. I slept for a few hours and then woke up, having an anxiety attack. I was sick all day Friday, able to work from home but napping between meetings and feeling generally crappy, nauseous, and headachy all day.

Midway through the day, I realized: it was the 19th of the month, exactly two years and seven months since my husband died. There’s no name for the 31-month anniversary of a death and two years-and-seven-months doesn’t have a fancy term for it, but my body knew it was a date of import. Some months the 19th comes and goes uneventfully, but January was not one of those months.

In those months when the 19th hits me hard, I often wake to a memory of holding my husband’s body in my arms in the hospital’s neuro-ICU. All the tubes and monitors had been removed, so for the first time in days, I could actually get my arms around him. Holding him while he took his last breaths, feeling his ribs move against my arms and then not moving, then realizing the very last breath was complete was the most intimate experience I’ve ever had in my life.

Compressed into those last breaths were the happiest and saddest moments of my life. I got to do exactly what I promised to do when we got married—to be with him until the very end. And then I had to keep living.

When I realized that my illness was a grief response, I thought of a meme that shows up periodically in the widow Facebook groups I belong to: on one side is a neat line progressing from loss and shock through guilt, panic, isolation, finding new strengths, and ending at affirmation; on the other side is a wild, tangled scribble ricocheting around those same terms, bouncing from one to another over and over and so often that the end of the line can’t even be discerned. Over the first image is the heading “stages of grief”; over the second is the heading “my experience.” Well, friends, that wild, tangled scribble is my experience for sure.

The general trajectory is toward some sort of overall peace, but the day-by-day experience can depart significantly from that arc. The time between tough days gets longer, but the tough days don’t stop coming.

Megan Devine has done wonderful work at Refuge in Grief promoting the idea that the phases of grief need to be retired. I’ve been following her work since my husband died, so I’ve been well aware since this journey started that I would not have a linear or orderly experience. I’ve still been surprised at exactly how much emotional whiplash I’ve experienced. I’ve had intense lows and highs back to back. I’ve had some of my worst grief days a year or two after my husband died.

My body has often reacted to a milestone date before my mind processed what the date was.

When a tough grief day hits me unexpectedly, I let it. I don’t bother telling myself it’s too long after my husband’s death for me to be feeling this way or I don’t have time for this emotional crap right now.

Here’s what I do:

  • I remind myself that everything is temporary and that this wave of grief will pass.
  • I take everything off my schedule that can possibly be bumped.
  • I give myself permission to be a mess—to nap between meetings, to close my office door and cry, to wander around the house touching things that remind me of him, to talk to him.
  • I bring one of my old-fashioned cloth handkerchiefs with me everywhere I go.
  • I spend as much time as I can with my two dogs, who never judge me and know just how to put their heads on my lap in a comforting way.
  • I give myself grace. I am kind and empathetic to myself, just as I would be to anyone else in the same situation.

I did all these things on Friday. None of these things seemed to have made the grief hurry up and pass, but it made Friday more bearable. (I figure I can be grieving and mean to myself or grieving and kind to myself—either way I’m grieving and it sucks, but I see no reason to make it worse.)