enna

    Holding you in thought and prayer, dear Katie. 

Yes, Katie, your Gracie girl and I know how much you like this video...

For those who knew Gracie Lee and to those who are here today giving loving support to Katie (Gracie's mom) enjoy the video.

It's best to view it full screen ~ the focus was on precious memories of toys and clothes and life photographed by her grandpa, Butch:

A good message for today...

Another good one from Mark Liebenow ~ Widower's Grief

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Laughter and Grief

 

For the most part, death isn’t funny.

 

“Grief” and “humor” aren’t often used in the same sentence. There are moments in the beginning of grief when we’re laughing hysterically, but generally, that’s in the middle of the night and it’s not a happy sound. Or we’re laughing while standing by ourselves in the woods holding on to a tree. Or we’re in the shower staring at the soap for five minutes. These moments are more about trying not to cry than anything funny.

 

We know that we laughed before death smacked us so hard in the chest that we couldn’t breathe, and we expect to laugh sometime in the future, but how do we get from here to there? 




When is it appropriate to laugh again after a death? Is there a code of conduct that specifies when smiles are okay, then when jokes are permitted, and finally when guffaws are kosher?

 

My own trip back to the land of levity started about two months after Evelyn died when I smiled briefly after someone told a joke. Then my face went blank, and my thoughts slipped back into its dark pool of sorrow. In my head, I knew what he was saying was funny. I just couldn’t feel the humor. 

 

A month or so later, I began making my own witty observations to others, along the lines of Dick Cavett’s dry humor. But this was head stuff — thoughts that were mostly ironic, some sardonic. It was noticing odd coincidences perched next to each other, like the line of turkeys that marched across my lawn in step the other day.

 

Six months in, I began to enjoy simple, physical pleasures again — dark chocolate, sharp cheddar quesadillas, IPA beer, and the aromatic smells of pine forests. But my battered heart was still numb. 

 

It would take nine months for an actual laugh to escape, and that came out more like a burp. Belly laughs were at the far end of two years down the road. I don’t know if this is the typical schedule for most people. The first time we snicker or chortle, we feel guilty. It takes time to get over this. 

 

In general, laughter doesn’t get its due in everyday life. It’s not just a frivolous, lighthearted diversion. Laughing releases tension in the body. It helps us cope with serious illnesses. It’s also a barometer of our wellbeing and a healthy response to life’s ironies. At times, humor functions like a Zen koan or a New Testament parable. When we realize the illogic of a situation and catch the sudden insight into something profound, we laugh with astonishment. Norman Cousins watched old comedies when he was seriously ill and laughed himself back to health.

 

Although we admire the skill of the acrobats and the bravery of the lion tamers, we love the clowns in the circus-like Emmett Kelly who used laughter to bring joy to those who hadn’t laughed in a long time. Every culture has its fools, clowns or tricksters who remind them that there is more going on in Life than the life they can see. Besides being a tribal leader of the Lakota Sioux, Black Elk was also a Heyoka, a holy fool, who comforted the grieving. Christianity has canonized a bunch of fools as saints, like St. Philip Neri. Buddhist fools include Pu-tai and Hanshan. Mulla Nasreddin Hoja was an Islamic Sufi fool.

 

I went on a grief retreat with 25 others, and it wasn’t long before dark humor surfaced. We were crying and laughing as we talked about our journey through grief and shared the silly things we did to cope on the hard days when grief threatened to pull us down. Laughter released the pressure inside and helped us breathe. We found it cathartic to poke fun at death, and by doing so, we took back some control over our lives. Laughing together gave us the strength to continue on.

 

Laughter opened our hearts to each other and let their compassion come in. When we can laugh in Death’s face, then Death doesn’t win.  

 

Posted by Mark Liebenow at 6:36 AM 

Sending love and hugs to you dear Katie. Our hearts hurt for you. We will always be here for you. I hope that the group you are meeting with are helpful to you. 

Anne

This is not a place that any of us want to belong to but it is a caring and safe place for those of us who miss a loved one.  As Katie said everyone is supportive and ready to listen without judgment. I believe the quote you added to your post belongs to Jamie Anderson. Here is a link I found: https://kathyparker.com.au/2017/01/02/grief-is-just-love-with-no-place-to-go/  

I hope you find that coming here gives you some peace. 

Anne

Grief is a process...we cannot hurry it along.

Widower's Grief

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

The Public Face of Grief

 

When death comes to someone we love, our world changes and we are forced to change with it. When we first go into public, we are numb and in shock, bearing the marks of grief, yet most of the world doesn’t seem to notice. 

We sense people staring at us, especially those who know us well because the face that they were used to seeing is gone. People also treat us differently because we are dealing with is something that scares them, and they don’t know how to handle it.

In the weeks after my wife Evelyn died, I did not look at people. I stared at the sidewalk when I walked to work, unable to comprehend what had happened, and not wanting others to see how broken I was. I did not want to be seen. I wanted to be anonymous and did not want to stop and chat about everyday concerns that no longer mattered to me. Those who knew what had happened were cautious, not knowing how to reach through the veil of trauma and find me.

 

In all honesty, I don’t think my face showed any emotions in those first weeks, but my eyes must have looked terribly sad and lost.

 

Two months later, I threw a birthday party for Ev because I promised her I would before the unexpected happened. Now I wanted her friends to have a chance to celebrate her and share their stories. The memorial service had been rather somber, and I thought a party would be a good way to send her off on her journey across death’s sea, like the Irish did with their kin during the potato famine, putting them on ships to America, not knowing if they would ever see them again. 

 

The party was held in Tilden Park high in the Berkeley hills on a warm day of sunshine. Evelyn’s friends laughed and sang, danced to a fiddle and a Celtic drum, and there was cake with lots of frosting, which would have delighted Ev. Although it was hard for me to celebrate, I saw that other people were still happy, and I needed to know this.

 

Yet, if they reminded me that joy still existed in the world, did I remind them of the presence of death? People want to believe that life is a happy affair. They don’t want to be reminded that death can come to any of us at any time, and it doesn’t matter how good, rich, or beautiful we are. 

 

Invitations to social gatherings slowed because most of our friends were couples, and I was now a single. This presented a problem for table seatings. If I was invited, I knew that another single person would also be there and we would be expected to interact with each other all night. The single people I knew at work were twenty years younger, and although they were caring and surprisingly curious about grief, we weren’t likely to hang out in the same places or listen to the same music.

 

If anyone said something about grief, I moved closer and started asking questions, wanting to compare notes on our struggles. When this happened at large gatherings, I noticed that everyone else moved away, leaving the two of us to talk alone.

 

When we’re no longer afraid of death, our appearance shifts. Our familiarity with the dark side of human existence brings us power because we have stood toe to toe with death. We have gathered our courage and walked the path of sorrow that sometimes made us shake with fear, and we have become warriors of grief. This is what you now see in our face.

 

Posted by Mark Liebenow at 6:40 AM 

Dear Katie,

You need not have any words for those of us here. It is alright for you to 'feel' selfish as long as you know you are not selfish.  Right now you only have to take care of yourself and the boys and the little one you are carrying. That is enough. I remember when I first came to this forum I had the same cry about not having words for others. One of the forum members told me that we'll carry you now and later when you are able you will be here for others. I remembered that to this day. 

You are here because you know that we hear you and care for you. Many of us do not have words to comfort you but we are here and we are listening. 

Your love and hugs are appreciated and we send them right back to you. ❤️

Anne

Oh, Kay, I am so sorry that Peggy is going through such a difficult time. I know how close you are to your siblings. You have such a kind heart. I keep you in my prayers and hope for Peggy's recovery. Sending hugs. 

Today I found myself rereading several chapters of this book today...

“There is really only one way to restore a world that is dying and in disrepair: to make beauty where ugliness has set in. By beauty, I don’t mean a superficial attractiveness, though the word is commonly used in this way. Beauty is a loveliness admired in its entirety, not just at face value. The beauty I’m referring to is metabolized grief. It includes brokenness and fallibility, and in so doing, conveys for us something deliciously real. Like kintsukuroi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with powdered gold, what is normally seen as a fatal flaw is distinguished with value. When we come into contact with this kind of beauty, it serves as a medicine for the brokenness in ourselves, which then gives us the courage to live in greater intimacy with the world’s wounds.” 
― Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home.

I really like this quote...

This really touched me...another article from Widower's Grief by Mark Liebenow.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

What We Grieve

 

Our Astonishing Light

 

We do not grieve the memories of our spouses who died. Surprised? Me, too. Sometimes we are so overwhelmed with a profound loneliness that we grieve everything. Meanwhile, the rest of the world goes on without noticing.

 

What I realized today is that while the memories of our loved ones may pull us down into sorrow, the memories themselves remain what they were — happy if they were good memories, and sad if they were unpleasant. But we don’t grieve them. 

 

I’m not talking about the traumatic, visual memories we have of the day our loved ones died because those are different animals — they torment and pummel us. What I’m talking about are the memories of everyday life, the ordinary interactions on ordinary days.

 

We do grieve the loss of our special person because everything they were — their personalities, humor, strength, tenderness, physical presence, and touch — are missing from this moment, this lonely, empty, cavernous moment when we desperately want them to be here, and would give anything if they could, if only for a moment. 

 

We also grieve our loss of vision for the future, because what we imagined our lives were going to be like with this person by our side has been snatched away. Even if we were sketchy on the details of what we’d be doing in ten, twenty and thirty years down the road, not having this to look forward to takes the wind out of our sails.

 

We also grieve our loss of place, because we no longer know where we belong. Our home may feel like just a place where we eat, sleep, and shower before we go back to work. Our invitations to the gatherings of married friends or friends with children drop off.

 

We grieve our loss of settledness because we had the life that we wanted. We hadn’t reached all of our dreams, and there were still some bugs to work out in our relationship, but we knew what to expect each week and month. Much of that has been taken away.

 

One day we will celebrate our loved ones again with all of their strengths, limitations, and occasional wackiness that endeared them to us. But not yet.

 

What we can celebrate today is the beauty of the evening’s sunset. We can celebrate friends who invite us over for dinner, who come over to drink coffee and see how we’re doing. We can celebrate because it’s their kindness that keeps us tethered to the earth, each other, and those we love.

 

In this time of turmoil and uncertainty, we need to remember who we are and we need to celebrate this, even though it’s difficult because we feel so defeated, inadequate, and conspicuously sad that we wonder if we have enough left to risk loving other people again. 

 

Yet we are standing up and we are dealing with one of the hardest things we will ever have to face. This is to be celebrated. We are strong, compassionate, funny, and talented, and the one who died saw these things in us and they loved us because of them.

 

Hafiz says this well: “I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.”

 

Posted by Mark Liebenow at 6:09 AM

Dear Katie,

I do not think that anything someone does or doesn’t do has anything to do with someone ending his life. Suicide is an act that is personal. The person only wants to end their pain. This is what I believe. I do not believe that what your Allen did has anything to do with anything you did or didn’t do. You are a loving and caring person and I believe Allen knew that.  We would like to blame ourselves but I don’t believe that is what is going on with suicide. I wrote an article after Allen ended his life on this earth that might help you. I will add it as an attachment so those who don’t want to read it will not see it unless they want to read it. It’s my personal opinion only. 

I know you loved him. I know he loved you and all his family. I wish I could take this unbelievable situation you are in and go back a few weeks but we both know that I can’t make it better for you. What I can do is be here to listen without judgment.  That is what we do here on the forum. 

I believe what others are saying ~ you are doing a good job of caring for your family. "Wondering" is normal.  Nourish your body right now. Breathe.  Rest when you are able. Hold Caleb and Ryan tight. 

Anne

When someone you know dies of suicide your world narrows and all your thought goes to that one act.docx

Sometimes we just have to laugh. 

I listen to music when life just doesn't make sense...to watch it full screen is best. 

No words. Holding you in thought, dear Katie. 

So excited for you Steve and Patty. I saw the article and was so glad Marty found it online. Thanks for posting it, Marty. This is such a 'feel good' story. It makes me happy every time I read something about your love story. It's good for our soul to have something to be happy about. 

"When we are thrust into exile, we are suddenly flooded with the backlog of unfelt feeling. This is why it can seem like one heartbreak joins with every other heartbreak you’ve ever felt in one mass of insurmountable grief. And though we may want nothing more than to distance ourselves from it, I believe we are being offered a chance, through the opening grief makes in us, to rehabilitate the relationship to our instinctual creativity. In exile, away from the hungry mouths and grabby hands that crowd in on our lives, we have a chance to come into conversation with our wild self again."

Toko-pa Turner, excerpt from “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home” (belongingbook.com)

Artwork by Lucy Campbell

Dear Ron,

I am so sorry to hear of the loss of your beloved wife to breast cancer. Please accept my sincere condolences to you and your children.

Right now you are in early grief and the most you can expect of yourself is to live hour to hour. It is perfectly normal that you are hurting. All the things you mentioned are what grief is about. Everything changes because everything you knew stopped. This will change. The pain is there because there was great love. I don’t know what ages your kids are but if they are still at the age of needing care you will find the strength to do that. You will need to take the time you need to go through this pain. If you need to sleep ~ sleep and if you need to cry ~ cry. Accept the feelings that surface. You are in what we call survival mode and this will last for as long as it lasts for you. In grief, there is no timetable. I lost my beloved Jim a little over six years ago after forty years of marriage and I still have those times that I can’t breathe. You will find your own way and believe me, much later you will focus on the wonderful memories that are buried right now.

This is a perfect place for you to share your thoughts because you will find many caring people who come here. No judgments only love and understanding.

Anne