loss

09/19/2014

Grief and Groceries, Part 1

Many of Mom’s cakes and casseroles never made it to our table. Instead, she took them to homes where sickness, injury or death touched a family. She never made a big deal out of it; she just did it — and in the process taught me it was the thing to do as I grew up and fed my family. Even as a little kid, I understood the practicality of bringing meals to people who were hurt or sick, but I didn’t understand (or think about) why she took food when someone died.

The beginnings of understanding came in a poignant moment when I stood in my parents’ kitchen surrounded by plates and bowls and platters of food. “So this is why we take food after a death …”  Two years earlier my husband and I’d moved our young family cross-country to care for Mom while Dad worked nights during her recovery from breast cancer. She’d held it off three years longer than the initial diagnosis predicted, but when tumors resurfaced — this time in her brain — we soon realized the cancer was terminal. Its speed left us bereft only two months into the projected six more we’d hoped to have with her.

We’d known it was coming, said our goodbyes, and were with her at the end. We’d been as prepared as anyone could have been, yet in an equally real sense, we weren’t prepared — not at all. The finality of death brought the unexpected shock of her loss to us all.

It is not possible (either physically or emotionally) to become truly “ready” to experience the visceral realities of new grief, even if you’ve experienced other losses before.

Mom’s absence filled my every thought. At that time I was pregnant with our youngest child (… but Mom won’t get to meet her, and she’ll never know her grandma). Besides my concerns for Dad (How will he get along without Mom after 32 years together?), I worried for our two young daughters who were also upset by their grandmother’s death (They’ve lived most their lives with her — and now they’ve lost her, too). Although we needed the routine of mealtimes and bedtimes (I can’t sleep — Mom’s gone), I was too much in shock (because Mom was dead) to organize thoughts well enough to manage the what-seemed-complicated process of assembling PB&J sandwiches (like Mom taught me to make). In my newly grieving state of mind, preparing a hot meal (like Mom used to cook) was as unlikely as my bulging, pregnant body competing in a World Wrestling championship — and attempting it might have resulted in a bigger mess.

But I didn’t have to. Thoughtful, compassionate friends, neighbors, and church members brought meals. There were hot dinners and dishes that required only reheating (with time and temperature instructions clearly labeled); ready-to-eat cold cuts and salads; and fruit and veggie platters with dips. There were frozen meals “for later.” Countertops held homemade and store-bought breads and desserts (some made especially for my children), as well as candy and chips. Every brought-in item became “comfort food” in a time when comfort was sorely needed.

“Ohhh …” I thought. I actually nodded my head like a bobblehead doll. “Now I understand why we take food after a death.” It was as if the pencil-sketched idea suddenly became a full-color photograph. I vowed that, henceforth, I’d not only drop off such items, but I’d do so with more thought and thoughtfulness, more compassion in my cooking.

After my husband died suddenly, my framed print perception of “why we take meals after a death” became a life-sized hologram complete with Dolby surround sound and smell-a-vision. But not at first, not in those earliest hours of shock.

In the wee hours after his passing, I’d posted a message that said something like, “Our family needs your prayers. … Grieving.” I hadn’t even told who “we” were, much less that my husband had suddenly died (because that would have made it “real,” and I couldn’t do that). That morning there was a knock at my door. A friend stood there. She offered a hug, a condolence card signed by her and another friend, a Publix gift card, and a frozen entree. She said to throw it in the freezer for now, but then use it when I might need it later.

I thanked her and thought, “This is nice, but … why?” (Weeks later, when all was too quiet and in my widowed fog I’d forgotten to get groceries but needed to feed my daughter, I remembered their gift and understood why.)

That first day after his death, another couple dropped-off a deli platter of sandwich roll-ups, apologizing profusely that it was neither hot nor homemade, but when my college daughters arrived home for the funeral and none of us had consistent appetites, being able to reach in the fridge and grab a bite at a time was perfect.

With extended family coming into town, I deeply appreciated the post-funeral meal and extra dishes provided by friends and other church family. Leftovers helped feed everyone beyond that one day, and I was too exhausted and drained to prepare anything that required more than oven or microwave reheating.

Friends thought they were feeding our bodies — and they were — but more importantly they were feeding our souls with their practical demonstrations of concern.

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Grief and Groceries, Part 2, lists additional practical ways you can help with food after a death.

07/03/2014

Fireworks of Grief

July Fourth weekend, 1992. 

Their home phone rang as my parents walked back in the door after visiting Mom’s aunt over the holiday weekend. It was Mom’s doctor — not his staff — on the other end. “Where have you been? We’ve been calling for days. We’ve got you scheduled for surgery.”

Mom hadn’t told me about the biopsy — or even about the lump that prompted it. She hadn’t wanted me to worry. My first inclination of something wrong was when an uncle called to ask me if I’d heard the results. “No,” I’d assured him. “There’s nothing the matter. They’d have told me. You must be mistaken.”

Back in January she’d had her annual exam and mammogram. All was clear. In April she’d seen a small lump in the mirror (it was visible but not palpable) and she’d made an appointment. Her doctor recommended a biopsy. She had the biopsy and left town for the weekend.

The cancerous cells had already burst through all the lymph nodes.

Surgery, radiation, and chemo followed.

My husband and I moved our family from Arizona to Florida to care for her as she recovered while Dad continued working nights. She did well and returned to work.

20150704_multiburst fireworks

photo by Teresa TL Bruce, TealAshes.com

July Fourth, 1995, after watching the fireworks, we walked in the door and found Mom (who’d stayed home with a slight headache) slumped against the hallway. It was the first visible symptom that breast cancer had resurfaced, this time in her brain and spinal column.

The following week we learned it was terminal.

It’s been 19 years since that second devastating Independence Day. In the intervening years our family sometimes rekindled the positive traditions of early times. After my husband’s illness and death, though, the redoubling of grief made — still makes — the Fourth (like most widowed holidays) harder to manage than it used to be.

It’s not easy to construct new traditions. It’s not easy to “get over” grief when you miss loved ones who “should” be sharing special days. Please be patient with your grieving friends. Invite the bereaved to join you in your celebrations. Ask them about the traditions they cherish. Acknowledge your awareness of them, let them know they are not forgotten, even though they may be alone in their loneliness on Independence Day and other holidays.

06/27/2014

Comfort after Mom’s Funeral

When my mom’s mother died, I was a preteen child. I remember looking up as grandma’s best friend put her arms around my mom and cried along with her. Through her own tears, she told my mom, “I know I’ll never replace your mother, but I’ll try to mother you for her.”

Twenty years later, after my mom’s funeral, that same dear woman (who was then widowed and had long since become Mom’s best friend) embraced me and said, “I know how much it hurt when I lost my mama. It has been years and years, and sometimes it still breaks me up. I won’t tell you it will stop hurting, because you never lose the hurt when you miss the ones you love. But it won’t always hurt as much or as deeply as it does now. One day you’ll feel the sweetness of your love as much as the pain.”

I found comfort in her acknowledgement of my grief. Her words validated the pain I felt. They promised I wouldn’t forget the love I’d always felt from my mom. They assured my love for her would remain significant, even in her absence.

In that time and place of acute, agonizing new loss, I didn’t want to hear anything that diminished the significance of my grief.

  • I knew I wasn’t the only person to have had a loved one die, but I didn’t want my grief compared to theirs.
  • It was helpful to hear, “I know how much I hurt when my mom died. I’m here for you,” but it never helped to hear people say, “I know exactly how you feel,” because they didn’t lose my mother.
  • I was grateful that Mom no longer suffered from the cancer that killed her, but I hated hearing other people say, “At least she’s not suffering anymore.” 
  • I fully believed then and continue to believe now that my mother’s soul IS “in a better place,” but it felt hurtful and trite to hear would-be consolers say, “You can take comfort that she’s in a better place now,” because the important, essential fact was that she was gone.

I didn’t want to hear that I would stop hurting, because in that moment of bereavement when my LOSS surrounded me, the pain of mourning preserved my connection to Mom. To think of not missing her or to consider that I might stop mourning her felt like thinking of dismissing the bond between us and dismissing the significance of her role in my life.

I was pregnant with our second daughter when Dad’s mother died, and I was pregnant with our youngest daughter when my mom died. I can’t count how many well-meaning souls attempted to console me by saying, “At least you have the new baby to look forward to,” as if I should be content and ignore my grief because welcoming a new life should “undo” my bereavement over the end of my grandmother’s life — and then over my mother’s. As much as I glowed and grinned in the anticipation of each child’s arrival, I grieved for their yet-unborn losses, too, knowing they’d never get to know their great-grandma who’d nurtured and inspired me as much in my adulthood as she had in my childhood. I mourned for my youngest, that she’d never know the grandmother who’d rejoiced in putting as much loving energy into her too-brief years of grand-mothering as she’d put into decades of mothering me.

The condolences that offered me the greatest comfort in my new, raw grief (as a granddaughter, a daughter, and more recently as a widow) were the simplest, most spontaneous and heartfelt expressions of acknowledgment:

  • I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your loss. I’m so sorry to learn of the death of your mother, your grandmother, your husband.
  • I wish I knew what to say. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.
  • This is awful news. I’m devastated for you.
  • I’m keeping you in my thoughts. You’re in my prayers.
06/23/2014

Why One Widow Won’t Watch World Cup

Once upon a lifetime ago, I was a minivan-driving, sideline-cheering soccer mom, but I haven’t watched a single World Cup match this year. Not one. Part of my avoidance is due to my late husband’s attitude toward the host country, Brazil. It’s not that he had anything against Brazil — on the contrary! He lived there as a missionary years before we met, and he appreciated the culture as much as he admired the people and their language.

(The first time he told me he loved me he said it in Portuguese. He was too shy to say it aloud — in case I didn’t feel the same — so he wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to me. I suspected the words’ meaning, but he refused to translate them for me, so I had to find a Portuguese-English dictionary to be sure. But I digress …)

In our decades together, my husband shared his love of Portuguese with me. I understand it better than I speak it (he always made fun of my accent), but the beautiful language makes me feel saudades — an untranslatable nostalgic, homesick, loss, and beloved longing — for him. Hence, the first half of my self-imposed World Cup boycott.

We met while enrolled as students in our university’s language programs. I lived in the women’s Spanish house, a rambling old, three-story home to 17 women (including two native-speakers). He lived in the smaller men’s Portuguese house with a handful of roommates (including one from Brazil). Residents were under obligation to speak only their contracted languages while on the premises of each house (unless talking on the phone or entertaining guests in the living room). The only TV channels available (in those pre-internet days) were those broadcast by stations carrying only the languages of our houses.

The second reason for my avoidance of this World Cup is the same reason I shied away from watching the worldwide event — even before his death. Ever since the 1986 World Cup held in Mexico, back when I still lived in the Spanish House, just hearing the words “World Cup” sends shudders down my spine the way an arachnophobe  reacts to a tarantula or a coulrophobe avoids circus clowns.

It happened early in the days of that 1986 event.  With 16 roommates in my always creaking three-story house, we came and went at all hours. We seldom knew one another’s schedules, but at any given time there were usually several of us at home. One day I came home from campus to make myself lunch and do some intensive studying during that usually (relatively) quiet time of day. Even before I put my key into the lock — which was not only unlocked but slightly ajar — the sounds of cheering roared from inside the house: GOOOOAL!

A group — a very large, very rowdy group — was watching the World Cup in my living room. As I crossed the threshold, I doubted I’d manage any studying with so much noise. We had hosted 25 – 30 people in the living and dining areas before, with only the slightest sense of crowding,  but this was a much, much larger throng that left no space for my feet to step between people. I threaded, kneed, and elbowed my way toward the kitchen (getting dirty looks and derogatory comments for interrupting the wall-to-wall spectators’ views). One thing became clear: I’d never seen ANY of these people before. I checked the other rooms and floors in the house. Not one of my 16 roommates was at home. I was ALONE in a house full of strangers — and I mean full!

I didn’t know which (if any) of my roommates had  let them inside (none ever admitted to it after-the-fact, either) and I didn’t know when any of my roommates might return. I couldn’t have called any of them if I’d tried; this was before cell phones, and the house phone was out of sight in the middle of the living room hoard.

One of the strange men even followed me into the kitchen, cornered me near the sink, and begged (yes, begged) me to go out with him. He refused to take no for an answer until I shoved my engagement ring — sharp side out — in his face. (Thank goodness my then-soon-to-be-husband had already proposed!) I smacked my sandwich together and left the house through the back door — which was also unlocked.

For the rest of that World Cup, I avoided the house unless I KNEW other roommates would be there. Even when I arranged to meet one (or more) of them on campus before we headed home together, we were frequently far outnumbered when we arrived. For the most part our “guests” behaved themselves (though I recall a number of groceries disappearing from the kitchen) and at the conclusion of the matches they dispersed as suddenly as they’d appeared. Still, the three-story house never felt quite as safe as it once had (and although I know it looked different, my memories paint it looking like the establishing shot of the house outside the Bates Motel).

It was one event, nearly thirty years ago (Am I really getting that old?!?), but it still shapes my view of the world — at least of the World Cup. In the intervening years we had children together, fell in love with soccer as a sport for our daughter’s sake, and went about our merry way from year to year. But between the saudades for my husband induced by this year’s host country and the shudders induced by memories of an otherwise happy time, I’m still not planning to watch.

The loss of my husband was more than “an event,” nearing four years ago, and it will continue to shape my world–but not entirely define it. In the years ahead I will continue to grow and find new things in life to fall in love with from year to year. Even in the joys of happy times ahead, I won’t deny the occasional tempering of saudades for what once was.

06/14/2014

Another Father’s Day–DANG IT!

Father’s Day. For three weeks I’ve written, revised, and discarded post after post, trying to decide what to say. It’s the night before, and I still don’t know …

I’m blessed and grateful that my dad is still here. He lives nearby and continues to be a rock of solid reliability. I can’t remember him ever directing an unkind gesture or a loud word my way (though when he spoke my full name in a certain tone I knew I’d crossed the line).

When I was a young, naive newlywed I remember my mother once telling me she hoped I appreciated how lucky we both were to have such good, kind men in our lives. I thought at the time that I did fully appreciate it.

Looking back now, I see how clueless I was, how little I understood. Since then I’ve seen glimpses, peeks at the hardships inflicted on many women and children because of the actions (and because of the failings) of the men in their lives.

So again I acknowledge how blessed I’ve been — how blessed I am.

And yet …

It’s another Father’s Day — DANG IT! — and my husband, the father of my children, is dead. This is our fourth without him. You’d think I’d be “used to it by now.” I thought I would, too. (It took years, but eventually I got “used to” the absence of my wonderful grandfathers. Sort of.)

But I’m not used to it. Not at all. Chances are that the widows and widowers you know, the mourning parents and the bereaved children of your acquaintance, or the grieving coworkers in your office aren’t “over it by now,” either.

Here are a few things you can do to show them your support:

  • Say something. A text, a call, a private message, or a note can be brief. “I’m thinking of you today/this weekend.”
  • Take the kids of a widower shopping so they can do something special for their daddy who’s trying to do two parents’ jobs.
  • Take a small treat to a widow (and her kids) “just because” to let them know they’re thought of on a day when they’re even more aware (if that’s possible) of their loss than on other days.
  • Let them know their loved ones aren’t forgotten — and neither are they.
  • Invite and include (with sensitivity). If the kids in the troop are doing a daddy-daughter or father-son activity, TALK TO their widowed mother. ASK if she’d like a surrogate parent or relative to “step in” for the event or if she’d like to attend with her child. (The same applies to asking widowers about activities geared toward moms.)
  • Listen. Whether the death happened recently or years ago, sometimes the bereaved need to share memories of their loved ones or feelings about their loss.
  • Ask instead of assuming.
    • “Are there ways I can help you with …?”
    • “Would you like me to …?”
    • “Would you like to talk about …?”
  • Don’t dismiss or diminish their grieving.
    NEVER say:

    • “At least …” anything. (Saying “at least” literally makes it seem as if the loss isn’t that important to the speaker, so why should it be so important to the bereaved?)
    • “You should …” OR “You shouldn’t …”
      (No one has the right to tell someone else how to go about the emotions or the business of grieving.)
    • “I know what you’re going through.” (Each loss is unique.)

You can’t “fix” your friends’ grief, but you can — and should — comfort them by letting them know you support them in it.