Grief: Creating Meaning for Your New Life, Your New Self

For some people the meaning of their life isn't even something they think about.  For others it is obvious.  They know from an early age who they are and what they are meant to be.  Some people feel their life is meaningless and others feel that their life could have meaning but don't know how to find it.  For many people their friends and family know what they mean to others and the world but the person doesn't feel it themselves.  That's why I often ask you to think of someone who loves you (whether they are still alive or not) and look at yourself through their eyes instead of your own.  Listen to what they are whispering in your ear and let that whispering be louder than your own.

Even if you are on the most secure path; knowing who you are and what your purpose is - grief can shatter that.  I know someone who is very prominent in his field.  He was passionate about what he did on a daily basis.  Then his only child, a son, died of a drug overdose.  All of a sudden nothing had any meaning to him.  It didn't matter that he has people who love him; an enviable career, and a comfortable  life.  He felt the death of his son was the death of his present and his future.

That is the empty space.  That is the question - who am I now?  That is the question - where is the meaning now?

Feeling that your life has purpose and meaning may not just happen.  It often has to be worked toward; created.  When the person who shares everything with you; your mentor, your companion, your child, your anyone - including your animal - dies - it is like the pieces of the puzzle you have spent your life putting together lie scattered on the floor.  You know if you pick them up and put them together again they will make a different picture. You question if you have the strength to even try.  You do.

One of the ways of putting meaning back into your life is to do something in honor of your beloved dead.  Let them inspire you.  It can be something small...or something large.  When my husband first died I felt that all meaning had gone out of my life.  I couldn't even feel what I meant to my family and friends.  I knew in my head that I was important to them - but I didn't feel it in my heart.  I wrote a beautiful obituary for Artie and put it in the local newspaper.  On the first anniversary of his death I wrote a memory piece for the same newspaper.  I put a plaque on a bench in Central Park.  I was searching; always searching.  Then, as many of you know - I got the idea that my life would have meaning if I followed his example.  He was a recovering alcoholic who made himself always available to other drunks and addicts.  I would make myself available to other grieving people.  I started this blog.  Over four years after his death I started the Facebook page Grief Speaks Out.  It continues to startle me.  I have almost 100,000 like but the important thing is that I am reaching people from all over the world and am able to bring comfort to some of them.  Everything I have done or tried to do from the moment Artie died is part of this accomplishment.  He inspires me and still shows me the way.

There is a widow who loved to travel with her husband who now does volunteer work in Ecuador.  There is a man who spends his time helping his brother. There is a mother whose son committed suicide because he was bullied who raises awareness about bullying.  There is a mother whose adult son died who constantly nurture her nieces and nephews. There is a father who does cancer research. There is a woman who runs an animal sanctuary.  There is a child who welcomed a new cat merrily into her heart conquering her fear that it would remind her of her cat that died.

Sometimes we think that in order for our life to have meaning we must change the world.  It must be big.  That's not true.  It can simply be taking the time to listen to someone tell their story.  It may be a random act of kindness to a stranger, or a random act of kindness to someone in our own family. Any idea is like a breath upon a window pane.  If you don't give it shape by taking action, it disappears.

Don't let the why bother? win.  Don't let the disinterest win.  Think about the person, the people, the pets that you love.  Scan your environment.  Think about the one thing you can do today that will help you feel proud of yourself when you go to sleep tonight.  If you can't do something today - you can do something today - you can forgive yourself and be gentle with yourself.  Maybe the first meaning is to be loving to yourself.  Sometimes if you are looking, something presents itself to you.  I was walking down the street yesterday.  I'm a New Yorker so I'm always in a hurry.  :)  An elderly woman asked me where a store was.  I told her where I thought it was.  Then I rushed past it.  I stopped.  I turned around and I could still see her.  I walked back and told her where it was.  I didn't feel like I had done anything - but she was so grateful.  I saw someone helping someone carry a walker down the subway steps.  Those are the little things that present themselves to us every day.  We can ignore them - or we can respond to them.

I'm not having such a great time right now.  I'm having the fifth year blues.  I don't understand how I can be alive so many days without my husband.  I question my courage to continue - and then I continue.  I'm not writing blog posts as often as I'd like.  Sometimes people tell me I am inspiring.  What I think is inspiring about me - and what is inspiring about my husband - is that we don't walk easy on the earth.  We are damaged.  We hurt.  Yet, with all that - we find ways to make a difference.  I'm talking about him in the present tense again - but the people that he shared his hope and experience with who are sober - are sharing what he taught them with others - so even dead - his work continues.  That it also continues through me is one of my greatest comforts.

You are not betraying the person who has died by finding ways to fill that empty space - or at least to build around it.  You are living double - triple  - quadruple - for yourself and for your beloved dead.  You are taking them with you wherever you go.  You are celebrating their life by learning how to live your own.

People make fun of Facebook because of people who only post about where they are having coffee.  I like Facebook because if I don't have the whatever it takes to move - I can still post on someone's page who is having a difficult time.  I look for small things to do when I cannot find big things.  Some days I do very little.

If you are reading this you are a grief warrior.  You are a searcher.  You may have already figured out what to do to feel that once again you know who you are.  You may already know what gives your life meaning.  If you think you don't,      give yourself credit for what you are already doing. If you are someone who is there for a family member, a friend, an animal - acknowledge yourself for that.  If you have time there is volunteer work you can seek out.  Each of us is a bright light.  The wind and the darkness of grief create the illusion that it has blown out.  It is like a fire in a fireplace that looks like it is no longer burning but if you fan the flames they burst into fire once again.  That is your task.     Keep your fire - your passion burning.  If you do not have one - create one, discover one.  Do it in the memory of your beloved dead.  Do it for yourself.

Someone said today - if I can be happy - anyone can be happy.  I tell you - with all my snarkiness, with all my dark times - if I can be inspiring - anyone can be inspiring.  It may be a smooth path or one that is rough with stones and blocked with low lying fog.  It doesn't matter.  Your beloved dead are not only walking beside you - they are holding your hand and leading the way.  Allow yourself to be led.  xo

Grief: Getting Out of My Black Room

September 12th.  Writing a blog post every two weeks is not writing a blog post once a week.  Does that make me a terrible person?  Probably not.  However it makes me someone who isn't following through on what I want to do.

My Facebook page Grief Speaks Out now has over 81,000 likes from all over the world.  How did that happen?  What am I doing?  I know that I am using everything I have learned over the past over four years.  I know that it is easier to respond to someone else; to pick a moving image and write something to go with it than it is to follow my own advice.

I call this post getting out of my black room because I have a beautiful apartment.  My bedroom is painted black and there is a velvet shawl nailed over the window.  I think I accidentally nailed the window open when I did this - but I like the window open so that's okay.  I was looking for privacy in my bedroom while I was still unpacking and it actually looks pretty even if it isn't very functional so I will probably never change it.  Hmmm - that's kind of me.  I can look pretty even if I'm not very functional.  The difference is I am trying - and sometimes succeeding - to change me.  My personal window often feels nailed shut even when it already wide open.

Which is all going sideways when i meant to go forward.  My living room is unusual for NYC.  It is two stories tall and has a skylight.  Filled with books and antiques, and even a huge stuffed woolly mammoth -  it is always shines with light.  Painted a light blue it looks as though the day has come to visit.  I walk through this room sometimes on the way to take a shower or to look for a book.  However, I only stay in this room when I have company.  I never sit in it myself.  I like to be in the black room.  Why will I not allow myself to enjoy the beauty of this space I have created?  I feel uncomfortable with beauty.  When I go outside and it is a particularly fine day sometimes it hurts and I can't wait to get back inside.

My husband used to say, "What's wrong? Nothing's wrong.  That's what's wrong."  Of course, something is terribly wrong.  My husband is dead.  I miss him every day.  I say wise things about letting our beloved dead inspire us, letting their light lead the way, being alive with grief - and all the while I am typing on the computer in the black room.  A short hallway and I could be typing in a room full of light and wonder and I choose the darkness.  I'm like a small animal that burrows under the earth.

The truth is my life is very good these days.  I have worked very hard over the past four years to get here.  I have had friends stop speaking to me, friends fail to understand me as most grieving people do.  That hurts.  However, I have friends who want to listen to me talk about Artie and my sadness as well as my happiness.  I have made new friends.  Some of them are a little embarrassed.  They say they read my blog and do I mind that they know so much about me.  I say no - that's just the way it is.  I also let them know that the blog is about grief and I spend a lot of time doing things besides thinking about grief and talking about grief.  I have made new friends from grief sites and one from a bereavement group.  Those are friends whose understanding comes from a shared experience.  Sometimes it's intertwined.  I met someone with a very interesting job who also reads the Facebook page.  They told me the how it has changed the way they feel.  It made me feel proud and also a little embarrassed.  When someone compliments me I am still learning to receive it...to say a simple "Thank you." instead of a stammering - "Oh no - that's not true - not really."

I can't absorb it.  I'm wanting to breathe it all in.  I'm wanting to feel all this happiness and usefulness and success in my very bones.  It feels good.  I am proud.  I am grateful.  However, I am also uncomfortable.  It doesn't feel like me.  I'm not guilty.  I know Artie would be - probably is - very proud of me.

I have a particularly good time and then I want to eat too much and watch a terribly mindless program on television.  I often do.  I am showing up and doing and helping others - all the things I tell people to do.  Yet, at the same time I am running from instead of to.  What is that all about?

Part of it may be that it is difficult to have all these wonderful things happening without having Artie here in the flesh to share them with.  I have started again calling out at night - "Artie.  Come back.  I know you can't but please come back."  I love sharing things with the people I share them with.  None of them is Artie.  I am especially grateful for my granddaughter.  If I close my eyes she says, "Gammy. Are you takin' a nap?"  That's what she would say to me about my private moments - "Gammy, are you takin' a nap?"   Why am I closing my eyes at the very moment they should be open?

I realized that I was ignoring my daughter because I was so focused on my granddaughter.  I have started paying more attention to her.  I praise her not just for being a great Mom but for being herself.  I ask her about what she is doing.  I tell her how beautiful she is.  It has made our relationship so much better.  Why don't I treat myself that way?

No one is Artie.  No one can fill his space.  Jess Walter wrote "What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?".  I can see Artie's eyes twinkling as he tells me that living my life with all my senses brimming over with happiness is not leaving him.  It is continuing an adventure in which he is with me every step of the way. 

I've got the 5 year thing.  More than one person has told me that the fifth year is difficult.  It's not like the first year difficult.  There is a trajectory.  The first year was constant crying and desperation and disinterest.  I know now that when I agree to do something I probably won't want to - but if I go I'll have a good time.  I'm just falling back into that peculiar kind of stuckedness (there's a literary word!!).  I stop and say...it's too hard.  I can't do it.  When I say that there is no Artie to hold me and scratch my back and pat my head and tell me he loves me and it will be okay.  I don't want to be my own Artie.  I don't want to listen for the sounds, watch for the signs from a dead guy.  I am throwing an emotional temper tantrum.  i want the one thing I cannot have and if I am not careful that will taint all the things I can have.

There it is.  When I write I only know where I am going to start, not where I am going to end up.  I can spend as much time as I want,  as much time as I need in the black room of grief and sadness and frustration and exhaustion.  As foolish as it would be to stop missing Artie, to stop remembering our love - isn't it just as foolish to let that very real part of me spill over into the other parts of me.  If I want some pure sadness with no joy in it - fine - but then let me have some pure joy without mixing some sadness in.

Hold my hand and let's walk together out of our black rooms.  They'll be there when we need them again.  Let me learn to be alive with grief not just in my words and my actions - but in my bones and in my soul.  If not today - maybe yesterday I have already done it and not noticed - or tomorrow I will find it easy.  So many locks have already fallen off of the doors - or been meticulously picket off - and the doors are swinging open.  Let us - one step at a time - walk through them.  With love.  xo

Grief: I Want To Be Seen, I Want To Be Heard but I Don't Need To Be Fixed

Lately I have been having experiences where people who I think understand me completely - because they are intelligent, creative, funny people - say things that make me wonder if they have ever truly heard what I say.  People who have had deep grief in their life seem to often get it immediately, people who haven't - not so much.  The latest one was - if you have been reading my posts - you know I often wonder if I will some day want to have another relationship.  When I expressed this uncertainty to someone they interpreted it as my being ready to have another man in my life.  I am still wearing my wedding ring and my husband's wedding ring on the finger on which you wear wedding rings.  I took them off for a while - but I like wearing them so I put them back on.  I talk about Artie all the time.  I explained to this wise person that no thank you, I am still wondering.  I am not ready to take action because I already have a soulmate.  I already have the great love of my life.  He unfortunately is dead.  This person couldn't hear that.  That along with people who say other things that are far from what I am expressing - even people when they read my blog - have made me have doubts. (I said that - no, to be honest because I was tired, yelled it - at someone once when they said something to me so far from who I am - Don't you read my blog?!? They said Yes, they did.   I don't know what they were reading.)

I always say that I am lucky to have friends who listen to me talk about Artie; who listen to me talk about my sad and lonely part.  I wonder now what they say when I am not in the room.  This is not a good path to take since unless I set up spy cameras I have no way of knowing.  I don't want to be healed.  I have more and more a full life.  I am happy with my unhappiness as well as my moments of joy.  I wonder if my being outspoken about grief leads people to say or think that I am stuck or living in the past.  I wonder if people want me to move on even though they don't tell me that because they know I will argue with them.  I wonder if people wish I would stop talking about Artie but are too polite to say so.

I guess it is a problem for all people to feel that lack of deep understanding from people who have not had a similar experience.  My husband was a recovering alcoholic.  He felt - and rightly so - that it was alcoholics and other addicts that could understand each other best. I have often thought that you shouldn't work in child abuse prevention if you have never had children.  It is hard to understand the joy and also difficulties of raising a child if you are an observer.  Was I effective when I worked on suicide hotlines because I had attempted suicide many years ago and knew what it felt like to want to give up?  Maybe as much as I talk and write those who understand me best will always be other grieving people.  Should I lower my expectations?

It makes me sad.  I understand the loving gift of someone wanting to help me.  On the other hand, when I think I am so clear in my speech and expression it feels very strange for someone to want to help me in a way that has nothing to do with who I am.  I have started to call what I believe in transformative grief.  A grief that does not end - but transforms both itself and the grieving person.  I am learning how to be alive with grief.  That is so different from thinking that grief will some day fly out of the window and I will no longer be sad that my husband is dead.  I love our love and him and wait to be together again.

I am alive and can remarry - can love again - but I don't have to.  It is not as stupid as telling someone whose child has died that luckily they have other children.  I can't believe people actually say that.  But, they do.  Why is it so difficult for some people to understand that there are people in our lives that are central to our lives?  Each person is unique and takes a unique space.  They cannot be replaced and it is foolish and unfeeling to think they can.

I do not want to forget Artie or to stop missing him.  I wish I could live my life fully with the full understanding of those who are close me.  It might be easier if I chose silence as so many do - but I am astonished when people say certain things to me and I keep explaining myself whether they can hear me or not.

My Facebook page Grief Speaks Out has, as I write this, over 56,000 likes from all around the world.  It is astonishing me.  It is not that I am a good writer (although I think I am) or that I choose interesting pictures - which I do.  I think it is what one person said - they just wanted someone to tell them that their feelings aren't crap.  I like that word - crap - because it was so direct.  Grief must be a common language because people have posted in German, in Arabic, in Spanish and in Japanese.  Unlike my blog, more people read my Facebook page in Egypt , Pakistan, Bangladesh,  Kenya, Vietnam and Mexico than in the United States.

This is what I want.  I want people to know that after 4 years for me - six months for some - 21 years for others - time doesn't matter.  Our feeling aren't crap.  They don't need to be fixed or healed.  There is no disease to treat.  There was a quote by the actor Gregory Peck.  He said in an interview that many years after his son died he doesn't miss him every day - he misses him every hour of every day.  We see our beloved dead in every blade of grass, we feel them in every breath we take.  They are a part of us.
Grief is not a disease to be cured, or a mental disorder to be medicated.  That doesn't mean that we shouldn't seek therapy if we need it, or take medication if it helps.  I did a lot of that.  Still do if I need it.  Grief is not depression - but if it has depression as a side effect then we should treat that depression.

When we find our uneasy balance - when we see that we are living and loving and grieving all at the same time - when we move in rhythms of being stuck and unstuck - I would like people to honor that in us.  I want people to know that we have learned to be okay without being okay.

Having beloved dead is not easy.  It can be made easier with understanding, with listening, with acceptance.  I have many new relationships and many old ones (though some have disappeared).  I am lucky to have loving people in my life.  None of them are Artie - nor could they be.  That is my loneliness.  It is part of me.

I wish for you people in your life that understand and accept you as you really are.  I wish that the others would get hearing aids or have the Wizard of Oz give them a new heart or whatever it is they need to know that grief speaks out because it wants to be heard.  Whatever you are feeling is normal.  I wish - as always - for you to have happy and sad moments both - for you to experience the full component of emotions that you have been given.  I wish you love.  xo

Grief: Exhaustion: Like Water Wearing Away A Stone

People do grieve differently.  I grieve differently for different people.  My parents were not good parents.  The details aren't necessary - they have been dead for a long time.  I didn't grieve for them.  I was, as honest as this is, rather relieved when they died.  I always tried to be loving to them but it was never easy.  With my mother I felt badly because, as difficult a mother as she was, she was a wonderful grandmother.  I will always miss my friend Judy who fought a brave battle with cancer.  She had the warmest heart.  She would see someone I wouldn't notice, someone sweeping the street or handling garbage, and she would stop to talk to them to ask them how they were doing.  She always had a big smile for everyone.  I wanted to call her in April to arrange a time to get together.  She died in March. I hope she forgives me since I knew better.  You can't wait.  Death isn't a respecter of human schedules.  However a good and loving friend Judy was, I don't grieve for her the way I grieve for Artie.

There are some people who play such a central role in our lives that the emptiness and pain their death leaves is something that cannot be fully expressed.  People who have not had that kind of grief get confused.  They don't understand what it is like.  I didn't understand until my husband died.  He was older than I was (is he still?).  I thought when he died I would be very sad and miss him a lot.  I didn't know that I would feel so broken and desperate.  I didn't know that I would begin this life of finding out who I am without him.  I didn't know it would be so unending and difficult - and still - in many ways rewarding.  We were grateful for each other while he was alive.  There were also lots of things I didn't appreciate until I no longer had them.

A dear friend whose only child, a wonderful son, died told me that she had a meltdown in the 5th year. I am sad that she went through that but it helps that she told me about it.  People who think you should be over it by now don't understand the exhaustion factor.  It tires me out waking up every morning and knowing once again Artie is dead.  It wears on me every day having things happen that I want, need to share with him and am unable to in the old way.  I can talk to him about them, and I do, but I can't hear his voice.  My body misses all the hugs and kisses and back scratches.  Because my parents were not nurturing Artie was the first person who took care of me.  I was the first person who took care of him.  We talked about that.  I have a lot of love in my life.  I am lucky.  That is not the same as having one person to whom I am the center.  We got a kick out of saying we were each other's raison d'être (reason for being).  I look into a lot of beautiful eyes.  It tires me out that I no longer look into eyes that adore me.  For a long time Artie was frightened of the intimacy of that kind of eye contact.  He would look away.  So, when he delighted in our gazing in each other's eyes, the love flowing back and forward was a kind of triumph.

Whether it's a spouse, a parent, a grandparent, a child, a sibling, a friend, an animal, (who have I left out) there are people who are so special in our lives it is hard to miss them day after day after day.  It is that peculiar kind of loneliness that exists even in the most crowded room.

I am doing what I write about.  I am showing up.  I have had some very happy times in the past weeks. I am going to stay with a friend in her beach house.  I had a friend stay with me.  I am going to be with my daughter and granddaughter.  It's when I'm alone.  I'm spending too much time sleeping and watching TV.  I want to escape this feeling of exhaustion.

I'm being productive.  My Facebook page Grief Speaks Out has almost 38,000 likes from all around the world.  I am proud of that and a little amazed.  I'm also comforted that all around the world grief is a common language.  As much as I may feel alone, I am part of that very special community of grief warriors.  I post something every morning at around 7 a.m..  I shut down the voice that says, "Why bother?" but then it comes back later and I don't want to do things.  I make a joke of it and say I have excellent procrastination skills.  The truth is I am tired of Artie being dead.  I can't change it. I accept it. Yet, I am just tired.

I meant to write this blog post earlier.  I like to write once a week.  I didn't.  I was pleased with myself that I always paid my bills on  time, even at the beginning.  I've missed a couple.  Some days I feel confused.

I have been eating healthy on a lot of days but some times I still dive into the ice cream and cookies as if they somehow replace my husband's love.  They don't.  They add to the exhaustion but unhealthy eating and sleep are an escape.

I am tired of holding a Yankee jacket and patting ashes.  I am grateful I am loved and that I love.  I see how far I have come, how alive with grief I am.  But I am tired.  I want to be alive for all I will experience.  I want to be alive for all I have to share.  At the same time I want to be with my husband.  I am tired of not being able to be with my husband.

The metaphor is water wearing away a stone.  It's not that simple though.  That water can wear away a stone  shows how constant pressure can make even the strongest material disintegrate.  On the other hand, water wearing away a stone polishes it.  It makes it smooth and shiny.  It reshapes it.  In California there is a place called Moonstone Beach.  The ocean has made the stones that lie on it beautiful.  They are like jewels.  I have learned that each moment of grief has its own time.  My exhaustion will pass, my strength will regather.  At least I am looking at what I am doing as well as what I am not doing.  I am making sure that I do not stop having happy moments.  I can't make the water stop - but I can admire what I have become with this wearing away.

I am sorry that I took so long to write to you all again.  I hope that in the places where you feel worn out and exhausted you can also see new and glorious shapes and textures emerging.  They are there if you open your eyes to them when you wake up from your nap.  xo

Grief: Disbelief is not Denial

I think along with the death of loved one for many of us there is a continuing feeling of disbelief.  I want to share with you that this is both common and normal.  It is not the same thing as denial.  I know that Artie is dead.  As I have written, I was lucky to be with him during the process of his dying. Seeing him inhale, exhale and not inhale again was like walking along the sea shore - watching the tide go out - waiting - only to realize that it was never coming in again.  That's how enormous the death of the force of nature that was my husband is to me.  I was lucky to be able to spend time with his body - to say goodbye to that as well.  As many times as I am told, and I believe, that his spirit is with me - I miss his body.  Those of us here in our earthly and earthy bodies find it hard to figure out how to be in a relationship with spirit lacking flesh.

So...I know that Artie is dead.  Although I often go back in time, using the technique of rolling my memories backwards, to connect with a loving, comfortable, taken care of feeling - I know I am not really time traveling.  There is no where I can go where Artie is still alive.  I can think of him as alive Artie but his life story as Artie Warner, as well as all his physical attributes of Artie Warner are gone forever.  A bag of ashes, as ridiculously fond I am of them, is not a man.  It doesn't contain his essential nature; his humor, his stubbornness, his wisdom, his Artieness.  I wonder if in his new form he has a name.  Never thought of that.

It doesn't matter.  When i wake up in the morning I'm still a little surprised he's not next to me. One morning I had a pillow leaning against my back.  For a second I thought it was him.  When I travel I sometimes find myself reaching for the phone.  If I watch something I know he'd enjoy - or would have enjoyed - the impulse to share it with him is still there.  While I don't believe wherever he is he is still interested in tennis, or politics I do think he is interested in me.  It's that sense of disbelief that contributes to my sense of loneliness.  I have had friends say I can call them any time.  I know I can.  I am lucky that way.  I want to talk to Artie.  I want to hear his voice.  I can guess what he would say.  Sometimes I even hear him telling me something.  How can that be?  How can it be that never is when I will look into his eyes, never is when I feel his arms around me, never is when I will hear his voice? How can the world go on without him in it?  It does.  How can I go on without him?  I do. How well I go on is up to me.

Sometimes there's even a voice, or the back of a head in a crowd.  I think for a minute - there he is - and then I remember.  Maybe that is what memorials and doing random acts of kindness in someone's name is for.  To keep them near.  To keep them alive.  That's not a bad thing.

I found out another widow is married, another has found someone else.  I keep looking at that in myself.  Is Artie too alive to me?  I hear him saying - No.  I am your one true love.  But he also says - you don't have to be alone.  You can find another man.  I wonder if it is different now that he is dead.  When we first started dating he still dated other women.  I went out with another man.  I knew that as much as Artie wanted to play fair, if I had had a sexual relationship with this man it would have been the end of Artie and me.  Is it like that now?  Does his spirit really want me to be free to love again or is it a test?  That's part of my disbelief.  I can believe that my husband is dead and that we can be spiritual soul mates and yet I am free to have a new love relationship because I am still alive.  However - it is difficult for me to believe my marriage and all that entails is dead as well.  Every time I take my wedding ring and his off I get so uncomfortable I put them back on.

I always wind up somewhere different than where I started when I write.  I wonder now if disbelief is normal and common but problematic when it holds us back from being fully alive.  Can I be fully alive with grief if I cut myself off from the possibility of having a new love relationship - someone to share the rest of my life with?

There is one thing I know for sure.  It is a complete and humbling surprise for me that my Facebook page Grief Speaks Out already has almost 11,000 likes from over 45 countries.  Grief has no borders, no boundaries.  We turn to Facebook pages and blogs because we need a way to express ourselves, we need to feel we are understood.  I am sorry there is so much grief in the world - but I, a natural loner, am grateful for this community of grief warriors that fight for each other across religions, ages, languages, ideologies.

Alongside my disbelief in so many things besides Artie's death - why o why are you dead? - is the growing belief that the common language of grief can bring us together in ways that nothing else can.  If only more friends and family would give us the support that strangers do.  Those that do...they are very special.

Wishing you companions along your way.  Wishing that you discover friends and maybe (if you don't have one) a life partner and that when they appear you not only notice them, but that you allow your heart to open to let them in.   xo

Grief: Hello, I'm Not Wallowing, I'm Grieving Part 293848

The blog post that has gotten the most hits over time is the one with the title that starts: Hello, I'm NOT Wallowing...  Some people have a need or a want to put you in a category.  You're not moving on fast enough and you need to be fixed.  You should follow your bliss.  I always say I do follow my bliss, it just runs faster than I do.  You're moving on too fast and you need to cry more.  Aren't you over it already?  You should talk more.  You should talk less.  If people would stop and listen, and not think they know, I think it would go a little easier for all of us.

I write a blog on grief.  I now have a Facebook page on grief.  Someone commented that if I stopped spending all day on the computer focused on death and went out more I might meet a new love in a bookstore or a library.  It never occurred to that person to ask me how I spend my day.  I rarely spend more than an hour or two on the computer - sometimes less.  I talk about my grief and that of others because so many people don't.  If I wrote a blog on fun things to do in NYC, or a day in the life of... you would get a different side of me.  The funny thing is I did meet my love in a bookstore.  My love is my husband Artie and I met him in the bookstore I owned in Phoenix, AZ called the Turning Page.  I don't mind if you find a new partner if you are a widow or a widower.  Why should you mind if I want to be like the Queen Mother or Betty White and have a full life while remaining in love with my dead guy?  

I'm not sure why it's difficult to grasp the truth that for many of us that sadness and happiness coexist.  There is a difference between grief and depression.  When I came home from my trip to the Mediterranean (because I have such a boring life - giggle) I had a couple of very bad days.  I think I didn't give the fourth anniversary of Artie's death enough attention and it came back at me.  Those days were the dark, black hole kind of days.  I still managed to get things done; but it was difficult.  My sleep got all messed up and my eating did too.  Those days feel like they will last forever but for me, now, they don't.  They are the days of why bother, the days of nothing means anything without Artie here physically.   They are days of a multi-ton grief home invasion.  What helps me move out of that?  Not hiding completely.  I make myself share what is happening to me.  I have friends who listen and give me permission to grieve as well as encouragement to climb out of my hole.  I showed up.  I kept going out with people and, surprise, found myself having a good time.  I kept working on my Facebook page and found many other pages full of sadness, courage and lovely insane humor.  There are various places to share in the virtual world if you don't have somewhere to do it in the real world.  I have learned to turn myself outward when inward is not a good direction.

My husband used to say, "If you live in your head, you live in a very bad neighborhood."  What he meant by that was our mind is often our biggest critic, our worst enemy.  You have to practice turning outward to where life is.  The inner/outer connection will come.  Those days I knew what I was grateful for, but I didn't feel grateful.  I knew what I loved about being alive but I had a longing for death.  Wallowing isn't feeling what you feel and sometimes coming to a stuck place.  Wallowing is if you stay there every moment of the rest of your life.  Set aside 3 hours and feel sorry for yourself the entire time.  Don't let your thoughts drift to something else.  It's actually not that easy.  There is a life force in all of us.  It pokes through - and if you stop playing Whack a Mole with it - it can come through all the way. 

I am sad all the time that Artie is dead.  What isn't complicated for me and seems to be for some people, is that a lot of the time I am also happy.  I do fun things.  I just spent part of today getting tickets for various things that I will enjoy in the next few months.  I spend time arranging things with friends.  I spend time with my daughter and granddaughter.  I read a blog post written along time ago saying: maybe today I will start writing my book.  I haven't started.  Maybe I will this month.  Whether I do or not, I have to look at what I am doing not what I'm not doing.  I also can't compare myself to anyone else.  

Sometimes taking a shower is enough.  Sometimes taking a 5 minute walk because you can't stand being outside for 6 minutes is enough.  

It's difficult facing the sadness there is in the world.  There is a Facebook page that has pictures of beautiful people, many of them young, who have committed suicide.  I think it is important to remember and to be a witness.  Not all day.  There is time to be there in dark places and then put down the black crayon and pick up the purple, red, green, and yellow ones.

You can't help me.  My husband is going to stay dead.  What you can do is understand me.  Listen when I am sad, and laugh with me when I am happy.  The unfortunate thing is that I meet people because they have experienced the death of a most beloved person or pet.  The fortunate thing is that I meet wonderful people.  

The Facebook page is amazing because I have likes on it from countries on every continent except Antarctica.  I am startled and humbled and gratified by the response.  A little scared.  But what it tells me is that there is hope in grief.  If we share grief around the planet perhaps we will learn to share other things.  No one should have to hold a dead body in their arms - but they should especially not have to hold a dead body in their arms from a homicide or an act of war or terror.  Disease and old age causes enough grief without the ways we add to it.

Okay - usually I keep politics out of it.  The point is that in order to understand each other we have to be willing to see beyond the surface, beyond the mask.  We have to stop watching how someone acts and decide for them how they feel and how they need to change.  It's the hardest with the people who are closest.  Ask my daughter.  To just accept people where they are and then give them a hand to do something a little different to make their days and nights more full of joy - that's a true blessing.

I'm very lucky that Artie was a recovering alcoholic who whatever he failed at always made himself available to other addicts and alcoholics.  It was to honor him that I started all this.  I think he's proud of me.  I hope so.  I'm a loner by nature but this community of grief warriors holds me up.  It helps me cross boundaries I wouldn't normally cross.  From the widow in a small village in Corfu who will wear black for the rest of her life to a woman who wears red and remarries within a year...from the man whose brother dies who plants a tree to a man whose child dies who sets up a foundation to help others...there are so many acts of kindness done in the memory of those who we breathe for.  

This grouchy lady, me,  has to admit that with all the terrible things happening every day - including my one big terrible thing - my loneliness without my soulmate and greatest love - there are some pretty splendid things happening every day - some darn funny things happening every day.  It's my job as a human being to be increasingly aware of this great variety.  I think you lose something if all you feel is joy just as much as if all you feel is pain.

Bit of a rant this one.  So...feel what you feel.  Know that you are normal.  Know that the sun is going to rise in the morning and we can choose if it is a day to close tight the curtains or swing them wide open and step out into the light.  xo 

Grief: An Imbalancing Act - One for the Seesaw

I have never been a particularly balanced person.  I actually like being a little off center.  With Artie's death, though, I'm no longer even sure where the balance line is.  I feel all the time like I am an only child wanting to play on the seesaw and my best friend can't sit on the other side any more.  Maybe I am thinking that because in Dubrovnik, of all places, my granddaughter dGwendy and I went on a bouncing seesaw in a playground.  Our guide helped give her more weight and up and down we went.  You just can't do a seesaw by yourself.  So...do I find other things to play on?

Artie was my balancer.  He would catch me when I fell emotionally.  Oh, we fought.  I think I have said before that when we had a bad fight - when it was over - we would look at each other and say, "Who were those people and how did they get into our house?"  I was his balancer too.  We understood each other in a way no one ever did before in our lives.  We were interdependent.  We took care of each other.  Is he taking care of me now?  I think he is.  It matters but it doesn't matter.  There is no weight on his side of the seesaw.  I can't go up by myself.  I have to move over to the swings and push.  Sometimes I don't have the energy.

If I write too much about the dark times do I feel and others feel that I am living in a negative loop that I know how to get out of?  If I write too much about the positive steps I take and the happy moments do I feel and do others feel that I have left the truth behind?  I don't have balance because for me grief doesn't have balance.  One moment I am full of energy; the next I am stopped.  One moment I am laughing, the next crying.  One moment I am surrounded by friends and family, the next I am totally alone in the world.

I've lost my personal advisor.  How am I doing Artie?  Should I edit this?  Should I take a day off?

I've lost my go to guy.  Here's what I did today.  Are you proud?  Can I make you giggle?

I've lost my compass, my north star.  Together we could map the route.  Alone I find my way but the paths are overgrown.

This is silly but my domain name is expiring on August 11th and I can't find the place to change my credit card.  Artie wouldn't have had a clue how to do it.  He used to have people come over to set the clocks when the power went off before he met me.  But he would hold me and pet my head because I was frustrated.

Ballet dancers balance on their toes for hours. Gymnasts do stunts on a balance beam.  Maybe the trick isn't to try to be a ballet dancer or a gymnast.  Better to try to be a clown, a comedian.  I'm good at pratfalls.  I can fall and not hurt myself.  I can even get back up without help.  Sometimes quickly; sometimes slowly and with pain.

Maybe part of being alive with grief is to nurture oneself in a different way.  Maybe all that talk about being centered and balanced is a myth.  I'm starting to think that being present means taking in what comes - rocking with it - and then letting go to go on to the next bit.  There is a move I've been taught from Aikido.  If you stand your ground with clenched teeth and fists and someone tries to push you over - it's easy for them to do.  If you stand loosely and when they push you, you go with the push - they can't move you at all.  You have gotten power by going with the movement presented to you.

So balancing is easier if I welcome all my feelings which means allowing the possibility of light and dark, fear and courage, joy and despair, loneliness and community.  Honor the one that is present instead of fighting and then ask it's opposite to come in.  Today I am frightened - hello fear - meet courage.

So much of learning is remembering what we already know but keep forgetting because that person, those people, those animals - are no longer here to remind us.  Remember when they reminded us of something and we said, "NO!"   There are a lot of things Artie told me about myself I didn't recognize were true until he was no longer here to tell me.

I'm not going to take my seesaw out of my garden.  I had too many good times on it.  I'm going to try to remember the slide and the swings.  I have to find different ways.  I've always said my role models for depression are Carrie Fisher and Winston Churchill.  Maybe I can use my imbalances to give me strength and creativity.

I am alive.  I am breathing.  I will figure some of it out.  The rest...hopefully...Artie will tell me about some day when we are no longer separate but are both in the same form.  Maybe that was the truth all along; the balance that I'm lacking now waits for me further along in my journey.  Artie and I stood once in a concert hall and sang..."Lean on Me".   I hope some day we can lean on each other again and not fall over into empty space.  Until that time - all us grief warriors - we will lean on each other.  xo