On Grief...

How do you grieve?

I've been thinking about it lately.

A dear friend of mine lost her dog a few weeks ago. You know the pets that have your whole heart? That was her dog. Of course it made me think of losing George. And Sampson. And Redd (though we had to give Redd away before moving to stupid California with its stupid no ferret laws). And Mitzi (who stayed in New Mexico as the family dog after we moved away and died years later, but I still miss her). And other pets we've had through the years. But mostly George because he was the last one we had to say goodbye to.

And when someone loses their pet you do that. You think of your own loses and you identify with them. And you think, "How should I respond?" I've settled on "sorry" or "it's so hard" because it is. I try not to talk about how I know just exactly what they are feeling, because I don't. I know what I was feeling. And I know that part of my grieving process was probably different than others.

I hate that stupid poem.

I know, I know, it brings a lot of people great comfort, but I don't believe in an afterlife for people so why would I believe in a rainbow bridge for pets? How horrible for George and Sampson and the others to be waiting over there for me when I will never show up. Because I don't believe in it. So they aren't really waiting over there. See? But I know a lot of people find great comfort in that and share it automatically. And when George died I just said thank you when they did. Not "Do you even know me?" which is what I thought. So I don't share that poem. Or my thoughts on the fact that death is death is death. There was no before and there is no after there is just now. And that I find that to be wonderful but I know most people find it terrifying.

People don't want to hear that shit when they've just lost their companions.

Then another friend of mine asked if I would read a book on grieving before its release so I could give a review on release day. I've read blogs by the woman who wrote the book and found them to be really insightful and lovely so I absolutely agreed. The woman who writes the blogs and now the book lost her husband around the same time as my friend Jo lost hers. I felt like I understood a little more what Jo was dealing with on a day to day basis by reading those blogs.

Because I don't have the frame of reference. I've written about her loss before and about the reaction of people around her and what she deals with. But I felt so strongly for her and for her kids. And how do you react as an outsider? Not a family member, but a long distance friend? Typically I have the same response as I mentioned earlier, I'm so sorry.

I've written about my grieving process for my father and how much it surprised me because I didn't see or talk to my dad on a daily basis. I hadn't lived at home for decades and yet when he died my world rocked. So I think of that and then think of how much greater the magnitude of rocking would be for a spouse. It makes me feel a bit helpless. But honestly we are all helpless in that situation. None of us have the right words to make it better. Because we can't.

So I was thinking about grieving. And thinking about how we process it.

And then another friend lost her partner. The father of her children. Her daily companion. Her love. And all I had was "I am so sorry."

How do we process this? How do we help? How do we reach out through a computer and give a virtual hug? And how do we keep from saying the wrong thing? That's a challenge for me all the time. One of the ways I process strong emotional things like sickness and death is through humor. Dark fucking humor. But humor. My whole family does it. I've talked about it before. We are literally the kind of people that laugh at funerals. It doesn't mean we didn't love the person who passed, or that we are being disrespectful, but it does mean that we process things a little differently. We laugh through the tears to keep ourselves as whole as possible.

So I worry what to say and how to say it and what is appropriate and what isn't.

I hate people who try to co-opt a death as their own. You've seen them. A lot of time in churches it's the funeral brigade. They are helpful, sure, they organize the casseroles and the visits but they also dictate how people mourn. Or they turn it all back to them, "I remember when we lost my James..." I remember as well but this isn't about you. You don't own grief. You have no monopoly on being the great comforter. So shhh....let other people help. Let the bereaved tell you what they need. And don't look at me like that when I respond to "Oh how are you?" with a half laugh and a "Well...Dad just died so..."

When Dad died I knew I was going to be okay when I could start joking again. And okay is what we strive to get to after a death. We are never the same again. That's not the way death works. And we will always face reminders. Other people are going to lose dear pets that will remind of losing our own. Other people are going to lose parents, or spouses, or children, or best friends and we will remember our own loses. But hopefully we get to okay.

And sometimes, even when we worry about the right thing to say we find someone who grieves in a similar fashion and we know they will be okay. Never all better but okay. The second response is my friend who just lost her partner. It's okay to laugh, if you are so inclined. For me this let me know that though she is an understandable wreck right now, she's going to find her path to okay. And if she needs any dark jokes I told her she can come to me.

It's what Skippy did when she was diagnosed with cancer. There are friends you call to make yourself feel better through tea and sympathy and friends you call to get jokes about the phrase killer boobs not supposed to mean actually try and kill you.

So I've been thinking about grief and grieving.

If you are reading this and are still working your way to okay I'm sending you a hug. And I'm keeping my mouth shut if that's what you need. Or I'm telling you something horrible but funny if that is more your speed.

You'll be okay. It will take time, but you'll be okay.

Perspective? I've got your perspective right here!

Okay, I promise soon I will walk away from politics and hissy fits and move on to fluffy bunny posts and some more fiction and fun stuff.  But I have another one here that needs to get out before that happens...

After the name calling slows down or sometimes in the middle of the name calling portion of any debate there is always the "get some perspective" portion. This one is a difficult one for me because on one hand I hate it when people say such things, it makes you sound condescending at best and like a sanctimonious douche-bag at worst. And then on the other hand I have been guilty of it myself which as soon as I post something like that I think oh god you sound like a condescending, sanctimonious douche-bag!

You all know what I am talking about right? Like when a celebrity dies and people are posting about how it makes them sad and then someone else comes in and says, "You know 1,000 children died from starvation yesterday and you didn't shed a single tear." Don't you want to just reach through the computer screen and slap people when they do that? What's the point of it? To show how much more concerned they are, because we are assuming they cried over those deaths? Or to show that because we don't mourn the many we have no right to mourn the few?

Right now I sort of feel like that OPEC argument in the CFA debates is venturing into this territory. The whole, "You are protesting marriage rights yet condone death?" Well, no. It's not that simple. One, I have little to no control over where the US gets their crude oil from but I have complete control over where I get my chicken sandwich from. And two, because I drive a car doesn't mean I condone anything. I would love to be able to change the laws in those countries, but just because I can't that doesn't mean that I shouldn't speak my mind in my country.

There is a psychological part to the mass death vs. single death scenario. Part of it is that humans have a very difficult time imagining large numbers. You can picture 5 people. You can picture 20. You might be able to picture a few thousand, say by thinking about a concert or event. But when you get higher than that you have a hard time visualizing it. And then when you try to add in the concept of them dying? To imagine each one of those lives and the families of each one of those people? You sort of have to stop. Your brain says, nope, this is too much for me so we will think in groups and depersonalize this or you will drive me crazy and I won't have that.

But one or two deaths? We can imagine that. A celebrity that has touched our lives in some way? Even if it's just that you know their name. We can picture that loss. We know how it feels for their families. And yes, if we are fans of their work we can feel that we will miss them as well. People we watch on TV, whose music we listen to, whose movies we watch, they are part of our lives even if we aren't part of theirs. Brent and I watch Deadliest Catch and there is a guy on there, Jake Anderson, he has had a rough life but he seems likes just the nicest kid and has the best smile and you root for him to succeed. Brent and I have both said it, we want good things for this guy. Now we don't know him other than what we've seen over the years watching the show. He has no idea who we are, but if something happened to him I would be sad. From the same show, when Captain Phil Harris died I mourned for him. I was sad for his family, I worried about his boys. And I wasn't the only one. Fans of the show from all over were devastated and grieved. Did we know him? Do we know his boys? Not really. But the grief was still there.

To take it down to a more personal level when my dad died I know that weekend thousand of other people died. I know that somewhere children were starving. I know that we were still fighting two wars and  I know that there was a group of our military men and women who didn't make it through the weekend. But did it make the loss of my father any less devastating to me? Did I even think about those other deaths and those other families? I didn't. When I was at my father-in-law's funeral surrounded by hundreds of men and women in uniform, looking at pictures of him in Afghanistan, listening to the volley of shots being fired, thanking the Patriot Guard for being on hand in case the Westboro Bastards showed up did I spend a lot of time thinking about the hundreds of other military funerals they had all gone to? The fact that his unit was getting ready to ship out again and that some of them might not make it back? No I didn't. On both of those occasions I thought only of my grief. Of my family's grief. Of our loss. Would you have dared tell me that I had lost perspective?

It all reminds me too much of when I was a child and my parents would tell me to stop crying or they would give me something to cry about. Even as a child this just pissed me right the fuck off. Now, I would never have told my parents that they pissed me right the fuck off because then I would have gotten something else to cry about in addition to what I was already crying about. But if I was crying I obviously felt I had something worth crying about. How dare anyone tell you that your feelings aren't valid because there are worse problems? I never used that phrase on C while he was growing up. That's how much I hated it as a child it didn't slip in and become one of those "you just turned into your parents moments" I just banished it from my mind. If he was crying I might try to jolly him out of it, but I never told him that what he felt wasn't worth feeling. That his frustration over not being able to tie his shoe was silly and that if he wanted a real reason to cry I would give him one. I just suggested that he do something else for awhile to calm down.

We've all heard the opening to the Serenity Prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Even if you aren't religious it's a pretty good base to start from. Know what you can change, work towards that. Know what you can't change and let it go. And keep in mind that both are in the world. And please refrain from pointing out to people that they shouldn't be upset about the smaller things if they aren't fighting against the bigger. That they shouldn't mourn the one when they don't mourn the many. Control what you can, let go of the rest and don't be a condescending, sanctimonious douche-bag over someone else's choices.

One year later....

Last year this time I was checking the weekend weather forecast and getting ready to do one last cleaning of the house.  Brent's cousin Kim and her husband Dave were headed to Portland to spend the weekend with us. It was their 26th Anniversary trip and we were really excited to show them around our part of the country for a change.

Then the phone rang.  It was my sister Ann. All she could choke out was..."It's Dad.  It doesn't look good."  She said she would call me back and hung up. Now this wasn't the first time in my life I had gotten a call about Dad being sick, or in the hospital or even not doing well. But this was the first time I could feel the bottom start to fall out of the world during the call. For those of you that remember when Brent's dad died I actually thought it was my sister Ann calling to tell me Dad had died instead of my mother-in-law Ann calling to tell me about Jack. So to say that it was unexpected would be lying. But to say I was ready to accept it would be as well.

I texted Brent to let him know Dad was failing and by the time I got a response from him asking me what I wanted to do (we are talking a matter of minutes) Ann had texted me to let me know Dad was gone. Brent told me he could get a ride and would be home as soon as he could. I started to try and put together all of the pieces of what needed done. The moment when grief and practicality collide is always an interesting one for me. It's like your brain splits in to two pieces. There is the part that is wailing, tearing your clothes and putting ashes on your forehead and the part that is making to do lists and they are working together so you are functioning while tears are streaming down your face.

We still had company coming. Yes, they would totally understand if we all left them here for the weekend on their own but what good would it do to drag Brent and C to Albuquerque until the funeral? I would fly out as soon as I could and start on the things that needed done there, they would stay here with Dave and Kim and then fly out for the services. I would leave an itinerary for Brent to follow of all of the places I had planned to take Dave and Kim.  He and C would still have dinner with them that night but I would beg off. I just couldn't. Everyone would understand. I got a flight for first thing the next morning.

During that time my mother called as well. She wasn't sure if I knew yet but of course as soon as I heard her voice and started to sob she knew. Most of you remember that my father died on my mother's birthday. We were all in shock about that one as well. How could that happen? How was that fair? How do you reconcile my mother saying it was God's will and now Dad was in a better place with the fact that she believed God would think it was okay to take him on her birthday? There were times over the next few days that I had to bite my tongue when people would tell me about God calling Dad home and how wonderful it was. I would smile and nod and squeeze my hands together to have something else to focus on so I didn't point out that this belief they held meant that God deliberately chose my mother's birthday to kill my father and that didn't seem like the kind of God I really wanted to spend eternity with. Instead I just smiled and nodded and squeezed....

We all made it through the weekend. Brent and C entertained Kim and Dave and sent me pictures of all of the places they went.  The weather was just about as good as you can hope for June in Portland. Some rain but some sun as well. And I was really glad all of that went mostly according to plan. Albuquerque was what you would expect it to be. I wrote about Dad (of course) here and here and I'm sure other places as well, but those were the two I wrote closest to his death. The things that stick out the most from that time period are the feelings of being adrift. Of not being sure what exactly we were all supposed to do. There were the funeral plans to make, of course, but that didn't really take a lot of time. My Aunt Carol handled a lot of the little things, kept us all corralled on the same page. My family spent a lot of time sitting together semi-quietly. My grand nephew was our comic relief. To a two year old it was just a bunch of people together telling him how funny and fabulous and adorable he is. So he was the bright grief free spot for all of us.

I also fondly remember getting together after the funeral. We all went to my brother and sister's house and ate lunch and played games. It was as close to a normal family visit as anything that weekend was. I think we were all so tired of being sad we needed a time to laugh and relax and since it was just us, just the family, we felt like we could. And that for me was our first piece of, it's going to be okay. Because that's what happens. You have to figure out how to make it okay. To keep moving. To keep laughing. To keep living. Because one death isn't all. Even if it's your father.

So now it's been a year. We are finally at the end of all of the firsts. Which I knew from Jack's passing that those were the worst. From here on out it will be the big days that you dread. His birthday, Mom and Dad's Anniversary, the anniversary of his death. And it will be the little ones that take you by surprise.  The times you see someone who looks like him. You catch yourself saying something that he would. The times he shows up in your dreams. And for a few minutes the grief will clutch your heart and you will feel like you just want to stop again. To sob, to tear your clothes, to get those ashes out. But it passes...and you keep moving. Because you have to. And because that's what Dad would want. And for me I know my father would want me to keep living the best life I can, as the best person I can be, and telling the worst jokes I know.