Valentine’s Day

02/11/2017

Valentine’s Schmalentines — Snarky Widowed Humor

Grief trigger warning for the newly widowed: I’m sorry for the renewed pain this occasion brings you; you’ll find more comfort reading this account of my sweet grandparents — Valentine Loss — A Love Story — than the post below.

If you’re looking for specific words and actions to help a bereaved friend, Valentine Greetings for the Grieving offers a checklist of dos and don’ts.

If you’re still here, bless you!

Back when I shopped with three young daughters, I dreaded Pepto-pink Barbie aisles (for too many reasons to explain here). These days, with my daughters and son-in-law all twenty-somethings, similar aversion rises like bile when I scurry past pink and red aisles of Valentine’s Day LOVE! proclaimed as a shopping to-do list, and my response is much the same toward lovey-dovey declarations flooding Facebook.

Now, please understand. I’m not cynical about celebrating romantic love. It’s a beautiful, wonderful bond that places rose-colored lenses on starry-eyed dreams.

But my 45-year-young husband lost his mind and then, at 47, his life. As a widow, Valentine’s Day annoys (shouldn’t you proclaim your love to your sweetheart 365 days a year?) and hurts (because I still — yes, still, after six-plus years — miss my own sweetheart).

It’s easier this year, but easier doesn’t mean easy. In past Februarys, seeing friends’ “I love my sweetheart so much” posts punched the breath out of me. (Grief hits below the gut, you know.)*

This year, I’m meeting the current Facebook plague — er, trend — head-on with (admittedly warped, slightly irreverent) widowed humor. (I’ve copied the anonymously authored Facebook heading and questions below in bold, italicized font and provided my responses below.)

In honor of Valentine’s Day, all married, engaged, or dating couples: Make this your status and answer honestly.
• Who’s oldest? He was but stopped aging, so I am now. (Couldn’t figure out my own age for two years after he died.)
• Who was interested first? He called me. Stopped calling several years ago, though.
• Better sense of humor? I loved his sense of humor, but he won’t laugh at my jokes anymore.
• Most sensitive? I’m not ashamed to cry in public over a touching advertisement, a lovely sunset, or a couple holding hands. My husband, on the other hand,  never shows his feelings these days.
• Worst temper? Mine, especially while driving or taking out the trash during the first year after he died. My husband seldom raised his voice when alive. Now he gives me the silent treatment.
• More social? That would be me, the introverted writer, unless I’m in the middle of reading a great book series. Or when when grief reboots my antisocial hibernation hormones. Then my husband might be better company. After all, he does hang out with a large group of people all day, every day — at the cemetery.
• Hardest worker? I don’t see him helping me pay the bills or tackle household chores.
• Most stubborn? Clearly, I now win all disagreements, set the thermostat where I want it, and have the last word about everything in our marriage.
• More sarcastic? My husband hasn’t made a smart-aleck comment in over six years. I, on the other hand …
• Who makes the most mess? I blame him for the clutter in my closet. (His bins of things I can’t quite throw out yet take up a third of the occupied space.)
• Wakes up first? Hard to say, unless by “wakes up first” the question means “sleeps less.” Then it’s me. Definitely me.
• Most flexible? (Can’t claim an original reply here. Too many widowed friends posted answers referring to rigor mortis and other morbid conditions we who survive our loved ones sometimes think, talk, and joke about more than we should.)
• Who cooks the most? Hubby cooked better than I when we were newlyweds, but over years as a stay-at-home mom (aka seldom-home-while-chauffeuring-kids-and-volunteering mom), I held my own with Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens, and Joy of Cooking. After he died … hmm … I wonder … What did I feed my daughter while trying to remember how to cook again?
• Better singer? (Sigh.) He had an amazing voice. We sang together in choirs and (cliché though it may sound) we made beautiful music together. (Sigh.)
• Hogs the covers? The covers stay where I want them now — what a great perk of widowhood! Hooray!
• Who smells better?  If I don’t smell better than he does, something’s dreadfully wrong.
• How long have you been together? Three decades — married 24 years, widowed 6 — if I count the years he’s slept at the cemetery as “together.”

*Still feeling brave? Here’s a prickly, pre – Valentine’s Day encounter I wrote a few years into widowhood: The Sister, the Beast, and the Invitation to Love.

02/12/2016

Valentine Loss — A Love Story

Donna and Owen were school sweethearts, but she wanted to be a missionary before she’d settle down to marry him.

Grandpa Owen and Grandma Donna married on Valentine's Day (Teresa TL Bruce/TealAshes.com)

Grandpa Owen and Grandma Donna married on Valentine’s Day (family photo, ca. 1930, Teresa TL Bruce/TealAshes.com)

As a young woman, she left her small-town Utah home to teach (and preach) as a volunteer for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She traveled 2,000-plus miles to North Carolina, a state where few Mormons then lived. While serving the people there, Donna roomed in a home with three daughters near her age: Lala, Gertie, and Leone. At the end of her time in the South, Donna and her “Carolina sisters” half-joked that someday they’d introduce their future children to each other — and have them marry so they could become “real” family.

Donna went home and married Owen on Valentine’s Day.*

They built and ran a business together — an auto service center and motel — and brought three beloved children into the world. When their little ones were seven, five, and three, Owen went hunting in the mountains with friends and cousins for food for their families. An out-of-season blizzard stranded them. Only one returned.

Widowed Donna went back to school so she could earn a living to support her children. She taught elementary school and raised her sons and daughter. She became a principal and also worked for educational publisher Allyn & Bacon.

When her kids were grown, she taught English in Japan.

Eventually, Donna dated and married Wally, a widower with a young son — the bonus son whom she delighted in raising and claiming as her own. She later became the first woman to sit (and vote!) on her city council.

When Donna’s second son met Leone’s daughter at college, everyone later agreed it never would have worked if “the Carolina sisters” had orchestrated it as they once planned. (I’m glad it worked out for them, since Donna’s son and Leone’s daughter became my parents!)

I never knew my dad’s father, Grandpa Owen, but I liked the way Grandpa Wally spoke of him, though he never met Owen, either.

Donna and Wally had an unusual second marriage. They each had a sense of responsibility and accountability to the other’s long-dead love. They spoke of taking care of one another for the one who was absent — and also playfully “blamed” them for household mishaps (“Donna, Owen must have mislaid my book…” “Wally, Bertha must have let your dinner burn…”).

For the rest of their lives, Donna and Wally celebrated three wedding anniversaries every year: Donna and Wally’s, Wally’s and Bertha’s, and — on Valentine’s Day — Donna and Owen’s.

From her decades-later hindsight, she didn’t tell me about the hardship of losing her husband when their children were so young. She didn’t describe the loneliness of losing her mother (hit by a drunk driver) within a short time of becoming a widow. But I’d heard the stories.

In college I lived near Grandma Donna and Grandpa Wally. Whenever I mentioned going on a date, Grandma worried. “Don’t get serious with anyone until you have a way to earn your own living. You never know what’s going to happen.” However, the first time I mentioned my future husband’s name, she changed her script. “When are you bringing him to meet us?”

Whoa, I thought. Our courtship was still in early days; it gave me pause that instead of reminding me to keep my distance, Grandma Donna wanted to meet him.

Fast forward two and a half decades.

In my early days of widowhood, I yearned to ask Grandma the important things I needed to know:

Grandma, how did you get through it?

When your heart was ripped in half, how did you become the optimistic, faith-filled, compassionate person I knew and loved?

How did you raise your children to be that way, too?

Grandma, how can I get through it?

Valentine’s Day isn’t easy on anyone who has lost a loved one — to death or otherwise. Hearts ache over severed connections. When all the world (in the media, anyway) seems paired up in love, it can be easy to rename February 14 as Single Awareness Day or Sorrowing After Death Day; it can be a very SAD day.

The first few Valentine’s Days after my husband’s death hurt horribly. I did what I could to serve others who I knew were also sorrowing, but it didn’t alleviate my own sadness.

This is my sixth widowed Valentine’s Day, and I’m trying to view it more as my Grandma Donna’s wedding anniversary than as a day without my own husband.

Grandma Donna survived — and thrived — after widowhood.

Valentine's Day balloons (photo by Teresa TL Bruce, TealAshes.com)

Valentine’s Day balloons (photo by Teresa TL Bruce, TealAshes.com)

So will I.

(But I still wish I could ask how she did it.)

*For ways to help your grieving friends through this holiday (and others), please see Valentine Greetings for the Grieving.

02/06/2014

Valentine Greetings for the Grieving

Holidays and other special occasions hurt when you’ve lost someone you love. Valentine’s Day is no exception.

When the love of your life has died, pre-Valentine’s advertising seems cruel. Perfect gift boxes from Jared and kisses beginning with Kay mock survivor’s lonely wedding rings and abandoned lips. Hallmark video vignettes leave tear marks. Plush teddy bears (or lace teddies), chocolate-covered strawberries (or chocolates), intoxicating aromas of roses (or colognes), intimate dinners out (or in) for two … Whatever romantic traditions a couple may have shared, reminders are everywhere that two are now halved into — rather than joined as — one.

Anyone who has lost somebody they love — parents, children, siblings, friends — not just romantic partners, can feel agonizing resurgence of “old” grief around the most heart-oriented part of the year. In my childhood home, Mom made heart-shaped pancakes and colored my milk pink every Valentine’s Day. She died nearly two decades ago, and I still ache for her — as well as for my late husband — every February 14.

For those whose grief began more recently, the already excruciating pain of loss is sharpened by the onslaught of all things about the holiday. Almost as devastating as the loss itself is the sensation of being forgotten, abandoned, or overlooked.

So what can you do to help your friends whose loved one has died? By telling your friends you’re aware of their pain on this holiday (and others!), you’ll alleviate some of that loneliness.

Instead of wishing a grieving widow(er) or other mourner “Happy Valentine’s Day,” express something that better reflects your awareness of the loss. 

Here are some helpful things to say to those suffering any bereavement — not just to those who’ve lost a life partner:

valentine-candy-heart

There’s a piece missing from this candy-filled heart. (photo by Teresa TL Bruce, TealAshes.com)

  • I know this is a difficult Valentine’s Day for you. You are in my thoughts and prayers.
  • You are in my thoughts this Valentine’s Day.
  • Thinking of you this week.
  • Avoid saying “at least,” which diminishes the importance of the loss. Never, ever say it. Your purpose is to acknowledge the source of the grief, not gloss it over or otherwise minimize it.

Gestures are great, too, and they don’t have to be big. If you can’t bring yourself to address the loss directly in words, you can indeed show your concern and awareness — literally, in deeds:

  • invitations to lunch/dinner at your home or a restaurant
  • invitations to do ____ [something!] with you
  • small gifts (a flower, a plant, a candy bar, a funny card … whatever you think may be of interest)
  • completion of a chore (rake the yard, wash the car, walk the dog, shine shoes together, do a load of laundry or dishes …)

Whatever you choose to do for your grieving friends this Valentine’s Day, thank you for doing it. Thank you for acting to comfort their broken hearts on this day honoring love.

___

Please note: I have no relationship of any kind with Hallmark or Jared or Kay jewelers — beyond my deep seasonal aversion to their advertising campaigns (as explained above).

12/18/2013

(Part 2) Grief Can’t Tell Time, but It Obsesses over Calendars

As I said in part one, grief can’t tell time, but it  can — and does — obsess over calendars.

Some calendar-activated grief triggers are predictable and public, like holidays and other annual events. No matter which of the 365 days begins a mourner’s first year of grief, your friend who has lost a loved one will soon ache through the first holidays in mourning.

Notice I didn’t say “the first holiday in mourning”? No, I said “the first holidays in mourning.” Plural.

Whether your friend mourns someone who died on January one, Leap Day, the Fourth of July, or New Year’s Eve, for the next year, every first holiday without the loved one will be difficult.* Whether it’s a national holiday or less celebrated annual observance, if the day is highlighted on calendars or merchandised in stores, chances are the days leading up to it will be filled with anticipatory pain.

As each holiday approaches throughout the year, acknowledge your awareness of the loved one’s absence. It’s easy to do. Make a phone call, write a brief note, send an IM,  email, or text. It can be simple: “I know this is your first Christmas without John. You’re in my thoughts and I’d love to hear yours. I’m here for you.”

Then follow through. Be there. Call or text, asking for the opportunity to hear memories about the deceased or their holiday traditions.

There will be private calendar triggers for your friend’s bereavement, too. Annual family events like birthdays and  anniversaries or family reunions can be unbearable to the newly bereaved. As much as I needed and craved time with extended family after my mother’s death and then again after my husband’s, it also hurt to be around them. It didn’t feel right without Mom or Hubby. Family dynamics had shifted. Nothing felt the same.

A couple from church visited one day with a long question that surprised me. “Will you tell us your birthday, your [late] husband’s birthday, your children’s birthdays, and your what day is your anniversary?” The wife pulled a 3×5 card and a pencil from her purse and she wrote each date.

A couple of months later, one of my out-of-state daughters called to say she’d gotten a birthday card from the couple, and I recalled their earlier question. Since then, they have sent each of our children a birthday greeting, and they’ve acknowledged my wedding anniversary. They have texted awareness of holidays, too.

“Little” gestures such as these offer big comfort and consolation all year.

___

*[This doesn’t mean the same holidays will be “fine” once the first year has passed. Sometimes the second year — when shock has faded and the survivors’ new reality has set in — can be as hard as (or harder than) the first year. Holidays — whenever they fall — are hard. Remember: For your friend who lost a loved one, all of life’s celebrations have been forever altered.]