Tag Archives: widow

grieving

Recognizing a Grieving Behavior that No Longer Serves Me

For over four years, date night dancing has shown up on my google calendar every Saturday night.

In January 2020, I gave my husband video dance lessons for his birthday. We loved dancing together but had a limited repertoire and had talked often about taking dance lessons but always found an excuse not to. I thought the videos would be a good stepping stone. We did the lessons every Saturday night. We made it into a date night, having a nice dinner and wine before heading down to the TV room to dance. I put “date night dancing” on my google calendar to repeat every Saturday night.

After his stroke, I left date night dancing on the calendar because we planned to resume it once he was able. We joked about it sometimes; he would take a few steps with his walker, look at me, and say, “Date night dancing, here I come.” We talked about how date night dancing might look different in the future, depending on whether he used a wheelchair, a walker, or a cane. I new he would be debonair in any case.

After he died, I kept date night dancing on my calendar to remind me that the life I remembered before his stroke really did happen. Every time I saw date night dancing on my calendar, I cried, remembering how hard we laughed during our video lessons, how his arms felt around me, what a terrible follower I was. It hurt but it helped me feel connected to the life we had led.

About two years after he died, I started considering taking date night dancing off my calendar. It confused me sometimes to see something on my calendar that wasn’t really going to happen. My social life was a little more robust by then and I sometimes had real plans for Saturday night. Seeing real plans side-by-side with date night dancing made me feel like the past was competing with the present.

But I preferred to live with those feelings rather than seriously contemplate taking date night dancing off my calendar. I changed date night dancing to yellow, a color I don’t use for anything else on my calendar, so that when I glanced at a Saturday and saw an event in yellow, I would know the day was actually free and I could schedule something.

Last week I ran into a friend who is grieving the death of her daughter. As fellow grievers, we tend to skip the small talk and dive right into what matters. Immediately after hello, we were sharing details from our grieving—what we missed about our loved ones, how the changing of the seasons reminds us of them.

At some point we talked about how different people grieve in different ways and shared a bit about other grievers we are watching. “I’m a little worried about a friend of mine,” she said. The friend is holding onto things in a way that seems concerning. We brainstormed some ways to express concern to a grieving person without resorting to “shoulds” and judgment, which deny the individualized nature of grief.

One possibility we came up with is to ask, “How is this behavior serving you?” The open-ended nature of the question allows for the asker to learn that what seems concerning to them is perhaps nothing to worry about.

After that conversation, I asked myself, “How is keeping date night dancing on your calendar serving you now?”

I couldn’t come up with a way that wasn’t problematic. I don’t need reminders of the wonderful, happy, silly things we did together. I don’t need to feel a twinge of guilt when I make real plans on a Saturday night.

Still, it felt like a betrayal to take it off my calendar. It felt like saying I was ok with forgetting some of the details of our life together.

It’s ok to forget things, I told myself. It’s normal. The date night dancing isn’t what matters. What matters is the love and devotion we shared and that I can’t possibly forget.

Part of me does not actually believe that it’s ok to forget some of the details. A larger part of me, though, can see that keeping date night dancing on my calendar was not helping me move forward or heal. It was keeping me in sadness and guilt.

This Saturday will be the first Saturday in over four years where date night dancing will not show up on my calendar.

death

Wondering If You Should Attend a Funeral? and what to wear, do, and say if you go?

I find funerals and memorial events very comforting these days, but that was not always the case. I hated my mother’s funeral and those of my grandparents and other older relatives who died when I was a teenager and young adult. They seemed to me to be very uptight affairs, depressing, and overly long.

As I got older and no longer had an adult telling me I had to attend, I would worry about whether I should be attending, was I wearing the right clothes, did I say the right thing, and so much more. My view of funerals changed when I was in my early 30s and attended a very formal Catholic funeral for a colleague. As I was looking around, feeling very uncomfortable amidst the Catholicism, thinking I had dressed all wrong and probably shouldn’t even be there, my colleague’s sister approached me and asked how I had known her sister.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” she said when she found out I was a colleague. After hugging me, she asked me to tell her what her sister was like to work with. After I shared a story, I asked what her sister was like as a sibling, and the sister excitedly told me about some teenaged shenanigans the two had engaged in. When I left, I got another hug and a heartfelt, “Thank you for being here.”

That’s how I learned that funerals serve two important purposes that have nothing at all to do with religion or whether you’re wearing the right thing: they offer comfort to the loved ones of the person who died, and they provide other people who attend an opportunity to learn more about the person who died.

That realization helped me let go of my worries about whether I should attend funerals and memorials—if it fits into my schedule, I go. I figure if I can offer comfort and show interest and curiosity about the person who died, I’ll be welcomed, and that has always been the case.

I used to wonder if I knew the person who died well enough for it to be appropriate for me to attend. Now I understand that knowing the person who died isn’t even a requirement and I have attended many events for people I didn’t know to show my love and support for their loved ones. When a colleague’s child who I had never met died, I went to the funeral. When an acquaintance’s partner who I had never met died, I attended the memorial.

When my husband died, I wanted as many people at the celebration of life as possible. I was eager to hear stories about him that I might not have heard before and hear other versions of the stories I had heard. Several people showed up who had not known my husband but wanted to show their support for me, and I was incredibly grateful for their presence.

There may still be times when it’s best not to attend. If you are concerned that your own well-being will suffer, stay home. If your presence could cause some drama, stay home. If it is simply impossible for you to either offer comfort or show interest in the person who died, stay home.

If you go

What to wear: Events in churches and religious spaces are usually more on the conservative side, so I usually wear something fairly plain, dark, and professional-looking. Events held elsewhere are often more casual. Sometimes the invitation or announcement will mention a theme or dress code. For example, for my husband’s celebration of life, I included in the invitation that folks should wear whatever they thought Tom would most appreciate. This clued people in that the event wasn’t very serious—and folks showed up in wonderful outfits that he very much would have appreciated. I wore a short skirt, a cousin wore a pastel tuxedo jacket, many friends wore camping/rafting clothes or tie-dye.

Food and drink: If the invitation doesn’t mention food being served, assume there won’t be food. If alcohol is served, drink lightly. I did serve alcohol at my husband’s memorial event and needed to arrange rides home for a guest or two, which I would have preferred not to have to do.

What to say: It’s ok to not know what to say; genuine and authentic words of concern are better than platitudes. You don’t have to fix anything; in fact, it may be more important to hold space for people.

If you don’t go

Send a text the day of the event expressing your wishes for an event full of love (or whatever feels appropriate to you). There’s no need to explain why you won’t be there; you can simply say you’re sorry to miss it.

anxiety, grieving

Identifying a New Secondary Loss, Nearly 3 Years Out

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.  

grieving

Pining Away for Our Dead One’s Things

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

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

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?

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

How to Respond to Nosy Questions when You Are Grieving

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.

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.)