I'm pretty sure when Salt-N-Pepa wrote this memorable song "Let's Talk About Sex" in 1990, they didn't think it would be parodied by a tiny blog discussing grief. Have you ever seen this music video? The lyrics begin with "Yo, I don't think we should talk about this. People might misunderstand what we're trying to say, you know?... Ya, but that's a part of life..." I think we need to talk more about "all the good things AND the bad things," which includes death, dying, and grief. The idea of "not talking about something" makes it scarier and allows for stigmatization. There should be no guilt or shame when it comes to grief, but for that to happen, we need to talk about it.
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| The Fam <3 |
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If you're also grieving, it is likely that your experience will differ from mine. My brother, sister, and I were going through it together, but we each had (and still have) different responses to our losses. It doesn't do ANY good for us to compare to each other, because the person you're grieving held a personal meaning to you, and the family members I'm missing held personal meaning to me. I talked to my mom on my drive home from work 3-4 times per week for seven years. The drive home form work is one of the worst times ever for me... my brother doesn't have that same experience. Fortunately he'll answer if I call him at that time, knowing what's going on. Even for the family members grieving over the same people, the hole in your heart and soul doesn't feel the same for each of you. For me, grief has been fear and anger and frustration and sadness and confusion and loneliness all rolled into a ball. And pain. So much pain. I've written many blog posts about pain in the past, but grief is the first time I've experienced so much pain that was 100% connected to my psycho-social experience. There was nothing wrong with the anatomical structure or physiological function of my heart, but there was SO much pain and it was very real. (Come to find out, about 3 months after my mom died, I was diagnosed with pulmonary emboli - so it's possible that there was something going on anatomically, then, too, but that's a story for a different day.) None of my learning about pain prepared me for the pain of heartache.
All the pain and emotions came with gratitude, appreciation, reflection, and love for the people we lost and those who cared about our family. I hope that in your grief, you can find these positives - but they don't shine through every day. At the beginning, almost all of the days felt very dark, with very little time for light. As time has passed, there has been more time for light, and the dark has been less frequent and less intense. Perhaps you'll find one of these books or an idea in this post to be helpful for navigating this unmarked territory. Or at the very least, maybe you'll laugh at something in the music videos and have a brief period of light to disrupt your dark.
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I have so much gratitude that I was able to take a leave of absence from work because I could not have been a functional physical therapist - or human - during that early time. At the beginning, I know I was breathing, but I wasn't really alive. I would see my therapist and she would ask me how eating, showering, and sleeping were going, and would ask if I had done any body movement at all. We decided focusing on those basics initially was the best way to go, and beyond those, I set the goal to read a single page each day. Accomplishing that goal was the first step to a long pathway back to returning to life. This book is set up like a calendar, one page per day of the year with a quote and a meditation related to grief and loss. In the beginning, I didn't have the ability to focus. For someone who reads about 40 books per year, it shocked me that I couldn't read a full sentence, let alone pages or chapters. My mind would wander or I'd just end up staring off into space. I spent a lot of time in the fetal position and, at the recommendation of my cousin, watched the entire series of Lost to occupy time and distract me between phone calls with my family. A book where I could read a single page was ideal - and honestly sometimes I had to re-read the same page several times to get through it and retain anything. Some of the quotes felt applicable and helpful. Suggestions to move my body to get me out of my head - even if it meant getting up to get a drink of water and then curling back up buried under a pile of blankets. Acknowledgements and appreciation for the people who've been lost, knowing that early on, that's really hard, but that as time passes, the memories won't be as sad and there will be happiness and joy recalling time we spent together. Recognizing that grief is hard and heavy but that there is life to live if you can manage to move through it is a common theme. I liked this book, but also read it a page at a time, and once I returned to work, I sometimes would miss a few days, so I still have some left to get through, but I'll finish it eventually.
Book #2:
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My therapist gave me "It's OK That You're Not OK" by Megan Devine. She recommended I purchase this book a few times, but I couldn’t put myself together enough to order it or get it from the library. I was still having all my meals delivered and not leaving my house except to see her every week. Beyond basic survival, I didn't do anything except watch Lost and talk to my family with occasional friend visits, still incredibly fearful of the stupid Coronavirus. So when I arrived at a therapy session, about two months into my grieving, and she handed me a copy of this book, I finally understood how much she thought I'd benefit from reading it and by then, I was capable of reading for longer stretches.
This book was really good because it presents a first-hand experience from the author, who is a therapist, who suddenly lost her husband. She shares her grief and lets you find places where it matches your own. She shares many of the things commonly said to someone who is grieving and explains why some are helpful - and others are painful.
What I'm writing here is what I experienced, but the book explains similar situations, why they're painful, and what to do instead. For example, at the beginning, nobody else could understand what my siblings and I were experiencing. Tons of people said "I can't imagine what you're going through." I have a shoebox full of condolence cards that say that sentence. It's probably an accurate statement, said with good intentions, but instead of saying this, people could have asked what I was experiencing, helped me to process in some small way, and share in my grief. This is semantics... but as I preach in healthcare, the words we use matter, and these circumstances cemented that belief in me. Another common case of good intentions but hurtful words in our situation was "at least they're together." Remember, my dad died, and then fourteen days later my mom did, too. I don't know about my brother and sister, but initially, I tried to find solace in knowing that they were together, but that never made me feel better. They didn't both need to die. Why couldn't my family at least have one of them, still?
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| From "It's OK that you're not OK." |
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Another friend send me this book, a favorite in her family, that is an illustrated story about, "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse." It's a sweet story about kindness and friendship with beautiful drawings. Though it's the shortest book of the group, it took me a while to be ready to read it because the cover felt like it would be sad, and I was already sad! This one can be read as a book or you can just open up to a page and enjoy the individual messages - it's designed to be read either way. It probably would be a good choice early on, particularly if you're not capable of concentrating very much. And then I sent it to a friend who experienced loss of a special pet, and she seemed to really appreciate it, too.
Book #4: Last but not least, "Finding Meaning." arrived with a note recommending I wait a bit before diving in and reminding me how many people cared about me. Ten months into life without my parents, I decided I was ready to read it. I sat in my therapist's office telling her that we were nearing a year of grieving, that I thought it was time for me to decrease the frequency of our sessions after getting through the anniversaries, and that I was going to read my final book about grief before moving on. And then I read Chapter 2 of this book which shares that grief doesn't end at a year or any arbitrary length of time. When asked "how long should someone grieve," the answer is "as long as I'm alive without the person I loved." It may not hurt as much or as frequently, but that emptiness and sadness exists and can be triggered forever. The book uses this as part of it's main theme - that Kubler Ross' 5 Stages of Grief end in Acceptance, but that she missed the 6th stage: Meaning. Meaning in the life (lives) that have been lost and in your own life moving forward without them. Meaning helps make sense of grief. It can look like gratitude, commemoration, honoring, shifting behaviors after the realization that life is short, or something else entirely.
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Honorable mentions: I also read Michael Rosen’s “Sad Book,” a book about grief appropriate for little kids written about the loss of his son, and Tom Hart's “Rosalie Lightning,” a graphic novel with incredible artwork depicting the loss of his young daughter. While all of these books helped me in different ways, I didn’t read any specific to loss of a parent, and definitely not two of them fourteen days apart with the added loss of two more close family members, and for certain not during a global pandemic where it was impossible to mourn with the rest of our family. I would think more people lose parents than spouses or children, but maybe they're not usually as traumatic and they're more expected that less books are written about that? Above all, I’m so grateful for these gifts, particularly the notes that accompanied each of them, and I can appreciate that others, including many in my family, have felt loss in a deep way this past year.
Added June 9, 2022: At the suggestion of a friend who was also experiencing grief, I read "Welcome to the Grief Club: Because you don't have to go through it alone" by Janine Kwoh. New in 2021, I was already a year into my grief process when I read it, and liked it. This book was different than the others and deserves inclusion in my post because it was helpful, supportive, validating, and used multiple mechanisms such as a short page or two of text, questions with answers, characters with speech bubbles, and even graphic representations to help process thoughts and emotions. I think I would purchase this one to send to someone experiencing grief because it was easily digestible in small chunks, and, considering the topic, it was the easiest to relate to.
Typical of me, this post has gone on far longer than I intended. Music often enhances situations, but the anthem of this post can't be "Let's Talk About Sex." At my Aunt's funeral, my cousins chose to play "You Are My Sunshine," which my Aunt sang to them - and my Mom sang to my sister, brother, and me. I couldn't believe the snow that started falling while a song about sunshine was playing. For me, I tend to cling to a song during emotional times, particularly if the lyrics seem to fit the situation. Later on, if I happen to hear that song, I flash back to that time and appreciate the memory having a theme song to accompany it. Since my parents died, I've been cherishing the comfort from my family and my oldest friends, and so for many months, I've been playing Ben Rector's "Old Friends" on repeat. Those friends who are more like family, like my cousins who also feel like friends, all of which knew my parents. People who were sad about what was happening for their own reasons and grieving alongside me. I think people who are sad need to find what feels most comfortable, and for me this was what felt right. "Cuz no one knows you like they know you and no one probably ever will, you can grow up, make new ones, but the truth is, there's nothing like old friends... I've got some good friends now, but I've never seen their parents' back porch. Wouldn't change how things turned out, but there's no one in this time zone who knows what in-line skates I wore..." Some awesome lyrics on repeat for many months filled with sweatpants, blankets, tea and LOTS of tissues and FaceTime. So why not post two different songs with entirely different tones and messages to round out the same blog post?
If you're grieving, I'll keep it real and tell you this sucks. So much. And it hurts, right where your heart is beating in your chest. But it's normal to feel this way if you've had love in your life. You're not alone. And while you'll continue missing your people, there is life worth living even without them, and you can bring your memories of them along with you. Take photos with your loved ones when you see them next... you'll be glad later. And tell people you love that you love them.
