Jo Firestone mourns the loss of a beloved friend, and recommends not reading that Joan Didion book. Once again, we see how people struggle to offer support -- and to accept it.

Someone is gone. Perhaps this is the first year you had to get used to it, or maybe you’ve had years of practice with how the calendar keeps going, and it’s still hard.

Either way, for right now I recommend getting in the bath.

Lie faceup if you want. I prefer facedown, coming up for air every few seconds like a nervous snorkeler. On a personal note, my bathtub is short, so I am forced to choose between submerging the top half of my body or submerging the bottom half. I always choose the top half, leaving my legs out of the water, looking like the first dolphin to live in an apartment.

Now onto a jigsaw puzzle, or doodling, or just stacking your mail into a Jenga-like pile. Anything that uses your hands more than your head. Stay in your robe all day, or if that’s too warm, try a shirt with no pants, like Winnie the Pooh. Eat something. Tell one of those people who keep saying, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do” that there is something they can do and it’s to bring you more pretzels — the good kind, or really any kind but the ones you bought last time, because those were bad. How can they make a pretzel bad? I don’t know, but they can, and they did and last time you bought them.

Tell Me One More Time What to Do About Grief

Don't Tell Mourners to "Stay Strong" -- Another in the What Not To Say To Sad People List

Megan Devine says:

It isn’t easy, but if we really want to support a grieving person, we’ve got to listen to his or her pain, rather than try to correct it. Pain, allowed expression, doesn’t have to turn in on itself. Given room — and validation — grief finds its right place, alongside the life that is built in the wake of loss.

'Stay Strong,' And Other Useless Drivel We Tell The Grieving

Peter Rosenberger: There Used to be M&M's

Many thanks to Peter Rosenberger, author of 7 Caregiver Landmines and How to Avoid Them for permission to publish this touching article about the bittersweet experience of caring for his father. "I’ve often heard that, “… There’s no pain like watching your children hurt.” Watching your parents hurt must run a close second." As the Talmud says, "When the father helps the son, both laugh. When the son helps the father, both cry."

There used to be M&M’s

For as long as I can remember, when my father came home from Reserve duty in the military, he brought each of my brothers and my sister and me a pack of M&M’s. Stretching past his military service as a chaplain, he and my mother extended the treats to when we returned home from school. Each time we arrived with our luggage (sometimes filled with dirty laundry), we’d walk into our rooms to find a bag of M&M’s waiting on the pillow.

When they moved away from the house where they raised five sons and a daughter, their new home carried the tradition. Bringing our wives, then children, and now even our grandchildren, the familiar brown-bagged treats (sometimes the yellow bags of peanut M&M’s) from my parents awaited every family member.

Except this year.

Nearly succumbing to congestive heart failure, my mother endured a dramatic and difficult year — as did my father. A U.S. Navy chaplain (Captain) and pastor for nearly 60 years, my father stepped into the role of caregiver for the first time, and I watched the process take a toll on him.

It felt odd. While I’ve cared for my wife with severe disabilities for more than 33 years, I’ve never seen my dad in this role. I found myself placing a hand on his shoulder much like he did for me many times following my wife’s now 80-plus operations. He sat with me in countless ICU’s, hospital rooms, and waiting rooms. Now I sat with him.

His seasoned faith remains intact and strong, yet he struggled to wrap his mind around the relentless assault of continued medical setbacks. With the same gentleness and encouragement he offered to me over decades of caregiving, I returned the favor.

I’ve often heard that, “… There’s no pain like watching your children hurt.” Watching your parents hurt must run a close second.

With a herculean effort by medical staff, along with my mother’s grit, she pulled through. While not where she’d like to be, she’s further than most expected. After a couple of months away from them, we returned to their home for Thanksgiving. They looked tired, older, but optimistic. The family pulled together, and the house looked great. The only significant difference I noticed was an oxygen tank in their bedroom. 

Yet for the first time in my memory, no M&M’s waited on the pillows. The absence of those treats indicates a passage, and a farewell to parts of who they used to be. Their home stands in a heavily wooded area of upstate South Carolina. As we prepared for the holiday, the trees surrounding their home continued shedding an entire color palate of leaves. The loveliness of autumn is a sad one that brushes hearts the same way the wind grazes branches.

So it is when watching those who loomed large in our lives diminish in vigor, but not in beauty. As many will attest, it’s the shedding of smaller things — the wisps of common things taken for granted — that often bring a tear.

Deep feelings often rise to the surface faster during holidays. For many Americans, a difficult season of slow goodbyes, bittersweet celebrations, and, for some, the ache of absence. 

Yet, not all is sorrow. Slowing our lifestyles to the pace of our hearts, we can cling to each other a bit tighter. After dinner, we can pause a little longer at the table — or sit quietly for an extra couple of minutes with those we love. If a chair is empty, we can choose to fill that seat with cherished memories. 

The treats I’ve enjoyed for a lifetime no longer await me, but the loving hands that placed them are still here to hold. Placing that candy on their pillows instead, I now possess a greater understanding of the joy they both shared — for a lifetime. 

A joy in something as simple as … a bag of M&M’s.

Peter Rosenberger hosts a radio program for family caregivers broadcast weekly from Nashville, TN on more than 200 stations. He has served as a caregiver for his wife Gracie, who has lived with severe disabilities for more than 30 years. His new book is 7 Caregiver Landmines and How You Can Avoid Them. @hope4caregiver

Jon Pavolvitz on the Hidden Grief Anniversaries

Most people think that grieving is about the big annual events—about Christmases and birthdays and the like, and of course it is. But the brutal truth (one that only those who continue to live after someone dear to them is gone can rightly fathom), is that these other quiet anniversaries are equally devastating and far more frequent.

In the wake of losing a loved one, everything in your life becomes a potential surprise memorial. Out of nowhere you are broadsided by days of the week or times of day or numbers on the calendar, or songs that were playing or cologne you were wearing or the feel of the grass beneath your knees as you fell at the news. These seemingly incessant reminders force you once again to observe the loss anew.

And since these days and times and triggers aren’t obvious to most people in our lives (and since we don’t have the time or the words to describe them all), they are usually unaware of just how much and just how often we mourn. Even those who are closest to us and care for us greatly remain largely oblivious to our recurring sadness. Our grief can feel like a very lonely journey, which in many ways it is because it is specific to us and to the one we’ve lost. It is a customized but hidden wound.

Acknowledging our Grief Anniversaries

Peter Rosenberger: The Orientation and Disorientation of Caregivers

Many thanks to Peter Rosenberger, author of 7 Caregiver Landmines and How to Avoid Them, for permission to publish this insightful article.  "Suffering and sorrow tend to put differences into perspective."

The Orientation and Disorientation of Caregivers

Walking into Waffle House for breakfast, I held the door for two men. The younger man awkwardly helped his older companion with a walker and oxygen tank. No stranger to these things myself, I waited for several moments while nodding to the younger man. Mustering a sad smile, he expressed his gratitude for my patience.

As they slowly exited, I stepped in—only to be stopped by one of the longtime servers. “Peter, go out there and talk to that young man! His name is Randy, and I ain’t serving you breakfast ‘til you do,” she stated forcefully.

Decades of Waffle House visits with her taught me that disobedience usually involved a tongue-lashing. And, she really wouldn’t serve me until I talked with him.

Dutifully returning to the parking lot, I approached Randy, stuck my hand out and said, “I was told to come out here and talk with you—and Judy won’t serve me breakfast until I do. What’s going on?”

Randy’s eyes instantly filled with tears while sharing that this was their last breakfast out before hospice came that afternoon for his partner. Listening, I understood why Judy sent me back to the parking lot.

I speak fluent caregiver.

Randy added, “We’ve been together for 24 years, and I am just so upset. I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid I’ll go into my room and cry—and won’t be able to stop.”

Chatting for a while, as Randy’s companion quietly sat in the car with the engine running, I offered things learned from a lifetime of caregiving for my wife who lives with severe disabilities. Giving Randy my card and sharing he could call anytime, I prayed with him, hugged him, and watched him breathe a bit easier. Returning to the restaurant, Judy, with brimming eyes, nodded her thanks and served me breakfast.

Strengthening and encouraging my fellow caregivers serves as one of my deepest passions. I understand the brutality of the journey in ways few do. I also understand that the caregiving burden borne in the gay community is all too often compounded by judgment from people of faith. People who share my faith.

Caregiving respects no sexual preference, creed, politics, religion, or race. The harshness of caregiving saves all its assaults…to wage on the bonds of love. In the face of a chronic illness or disability, that love isn’t sexual or about sexual orientation. The love compelling one person to put themselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse disaster—is something far different and worthy of respect.

Suffering and sorrow tend to put differences into perspective. The ministry of grace vividly displayed from the cross of Christ, can flow from us without this incessant need to fix, change, or dispute those who live differently.

In that parking lot, Randy and I were not gay versus straight. Nor were our doctrines and creeds discussed. While I remain devoutly evangelical with deep convictions, I never asked Randy’s beliefs. I just saw a fellow caregiver grieving as he ministered to a suffering loved one. Randy and I have that in common.

Caregivers struggle. They deserve care—not judgment for their fears, mistakes, or even their lifestyle. No one has ever argued me into a relationship. But there are those who loved me into one.

When the AIDS epidemic crashed upon society, all too many in the gay community were shunned. In the process, a vast number suffered with a horrific disease without the comfort of Christian ministry. That tragedy can’t be undone. Yet, that same community stands in need now, as they grieve while caring for aging and disabled loved ones.

Acceptance is not agreement. In order to care for someone, one is not bound to condone a lifestyle operating in contrast to Scripture. Yet, ministering hands reached into my grief and trauma to help me get to safer ground. I would be a poor steward of that help …that grace …if I didn’t offer it to others as they journey down the heartbreaking path of a caregiver.

While I’ve learned to speak fluent “caregiver,” it’s my Savior’s native tongue.

###




Peter Rosenberger hosts a radio program for family caregivers broadcast weekly from Nashville, TN on more than 200 stations. He has served as a caregiver for his wife Gracie, who has lived with severe disabilities for more than 30 years. His new book, 7 Caregiver Landmines and How You Can Avoid Them releases nationally Fall 2018. @hope4caregiver

Sandra Bullock on How She Handled Losing Her Dad and Dogs Within Weeks

The First Holiday Without a Loved One -- The Atlantic

After Maryanne Pope’s husband, John, died in September 2000, the first Christmas without him, just a few months later, was a struggle. She used to cherish decorating a Christmas tree in her Calgary, Canada, home, but that year, there was no joy to be found.

“Putting up a tree didn’t feel right to me. There was absolutely nothing to celebrate,” says Pope, the author of A Widow’s Awakening. “Plus, I may have had the intuitive wisdom to know that unpacking all the familiar decorations would be a disaster.” She tried again the next year, but “every ornament was like unpacking a land mine,” she says. “The memories were extremely painful.”

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Instead, she tried something new.

“I put up a string of white lights on the hearth of our fireplace, where there were some photographs of John,” she says. “I did Christmas very differently.”

As the years went by, Christmas got a little easier to bear, and she began to love the season again, especially the lights she would always put up in honor of her husband. “I finally began to realize that I was going to have to toss the traditions that were causing me even more anguish,” she says. “I had to learn how to set boundaries so that I could celebrate the Christmas season the way I wanted to.”

The First Holiday Without a Loved One

Always Go to the Funeral

Dierdre Sullivan explains on NPR why it matters that you are there when someone dies.

I believe in always going to the funeral. My father taught me that.

The first time he said it directly to me, I was 16 and trying to get out of going to calling hours for Miss Emerson, my old fifth grade math teacher. I did not want to go. My father was unequivocal. "Dee," he said, "you're going. Always go to the funeral. Do it for the family."

I once wrote about why it is important to go to weddings. A lot of the reasons are the same. Sullivan writes:

"Always go to the funeral" means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don't feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don't really have to and I definitely don't want to. I'm talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. The Shiva call for one of my ex's uncles. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.

In going to funerals, I've come to believe that while I wait to make a grand heroic gesture, I should just stick to the small inconveniences that let me share in life's inevitable, occasional calamity.

I Heard Your Voice in the Wind Today -- poem of remembrence

I heard your voice in the wind today
and I turned to see your face;
The warmth of the wind caressed me
as I stood silently in place.

I felt your touch in the sun today
as its warmth filled the sky;
I closed my eyes for your embrace
and my spirit soared high.

I saw your eyes in the window pane
as I watched the falling rain;
It seemed as each raindrop fell
it quietly said your name.

I held you close in my heart today
it made me feel complete;
You may have died...but you are not gone
you will always be a part of me.

As long as the sun shines...
the wind blows...
the rain falls...
You will live on inside of me forever
for that is all my heart knows.

Who Cares for the Carer? From Rob Lowe

Taking care of my mother was scary, unbelievably stressful and painful. It was also a time to be with her in a way that might never have happened under other circumstances. When she passed in 2003, I felt that we’d had the talks we needed to have, that we’d spent the time together we needed to spend. I have friends who’ve been through deaths of parents and they feel cheated; if only they’d been able to tell them how much they loved them, if only they’d done this or that. One of the hidden gifts of being a caregiver is that you’re with them. You’re able to do and say all of those things in its proper time.So be present for it. There is every reason to believe that you will look back on this chapter with satisfaction. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to get help. That’s why I’ve partnered with EMD Serono and EmbracingCarers.com, where you’ll find invaluable information regarding everything you’ll be, or are, going through.

Rob Lowe in Newsweek

Life lessons from the people we call to lay someone to rest -- Washington Post

The Washington Post Magazine has a superb series of profiles of people who provide support and comfort in death, from the gravestone carver to the bagpiper, to the casket-maker and the florist. A home funeral expert says:

We’re in a culture that doesn’t really want to deal with death that much. But death can be a meaningful experience that families share. It allows the grief to be hands-on. And what people don’t realize is that they can do more by themselves than they thought. In some states you can be your own funeral director. I’ve become trained as a home funeral guide, so I can guide other people through this: bathing the body, keeping the body preserved for a few hours or overnight before it’s moved. There’s a way to use dry ice to cool the body down so it doesn’t begin to decompose. I’m there as a support, as a counselor, somebody to reassure you that you’re doing fine.

Dying Well

Dr. Ira Byock "is not in the euthanasia camp — dying quicker doesn’t mean dying better. His pitch, instead: a menu of a few different things, the most compelling being 'psychedelic-assisted therapies.'”

His prescriptions for the medical-industrial complex now include listening to patients, formulating care plans for disease and symptom treatments, helping them sleep, helping them move their bowels, addressing family needs and perhaps most importantly training doctors to do this early. So medical schools have to teach about caring for seriously ill or dying people up to and including the ethics of decision making, and should face financial penalties if they fail to do so. “Most med schools dedicate one month for pregnancy care even if the doctors in question won’t end up delivering babies,” Byock says. ”But 70 percent of physicians will be seeing sick or dying people.”

Byock talks about learning to listen, being sensitive to older patient needs — and then comes the needle-scratching-across-the record moment when he brings up psychedelics.

“I’m a child of the ’60s,” Byock laughs. “And there are legitimate medical uses of psychedelics when we’re talking about end-of-life wellbeing issues....
“This is not just about avoiding suffering,” Byock said. “I’m in it for the joy. But, I mean, we’re all going to die. Best we do so the best ways we can.”

Byock and an ad hoc group of like-minded experts propose the following public policy planks to improve end-of-life care:

Raise training standards for physicians, nurses and allied clinicians in geriatrics, palliative care and related topics.
Establish minimum program standards for “palliative care” (disciplines, staffing, services, hours).
Require palliative care consultation before high-risk surgery or low-yield treatments for patients with advanced age or physiologic frailty.
Eliminate the requirement to forego disease treatments to receive hospice care for comfort, quality of life and family support.
Long-term care: Require adequate staffing of nurses and aides.
Long-term care: Require living wages and benefits for aide-level workers.
Annually revoke licenses of nursing homes in lowest 10 percent of quality and resident safety scores.
Award new licenses only to nursing homes qualifying as Greenhouse, Planetree or Beatitude-style models.

Going Out on a High: the Doctor Advocating LSD for Dying People

Social Media is Structured Around Good News and Can Be Devastating For Those Who Are Grieving

On Slate, Shannon Palus writes about the agonizing algorithms that keep sending ads for baby products to the mother of a child who was stillborn.

Taking time to process deep personal tragedy is one of the most trying tasks of being human. It is also an action that is inherently at odds with social media. Not in the content we post, necessarily—people like Brockell have bravely demonstrated that public platforms can be a place to share and connect over the bad stuff, too. But in the sense that the platforms themselves exist, ultimately, not to highlight and facilitate our social lives, but to profit off of them.

They don’t really have any concrete incentives to handle grief with care, and it shows. After posting about her stillborn son, Brockell continued to see ads for all manner of baby things. “[L]et me tell you what social media is like when you finally come home from the hospital with the emptiest arms in the world, after you’ve spent days sobbing in bed, and pick up your phone for a couple minutes of distraction before the next wail,” she wrote in a viral tweet Tuesday, also published in the Washington Post, addressed to tech companies. “It’s exactly, crushingly, the same as it was when your baby was still alive.”

They Call It "Therapeutic Lying" -- Deceiving a Dementia Patient into Treatment

We’ve tricked Mom into coming here because she’s not safe living alone. Moments before, we set up her room with photos and labeled her clothing. Nurses recommended we stay out of sight. I feel like the worst daughter.

But according to doctors and social workers, we’re doing the most caring thing.

The Dementia Heist

The Neuroscience of Grief

“In the best case scenario, the death of a parent is anticipated and there is time for families to prepare for the loss, say their goodbyes, and surround themselves with support,” Dr. Nikole Benders-Hadi, a psychiatrist with Doctor On Demand told Fatherly. “In cases where a death is unexpected, such as with an acute illness or traumatic accident, adult children may remain in the denial and anger phases of the loss for extended periods of time…[leading to] diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder or even PTSD, if trauma is involved.”

No number of brain imaging studies or psychological trend analyses can truly capture the unique experience of grief. But there are a handful of constants in the scientific literature because all fully developed human brains are wired to respond to emotional pain with the same basic pathways.

Studies have implicated the posterior cingulate cortex, frontal cortex, and cerebellum brain regions in grief processing. These regions are involved in retrieving memories and dwelling on the past — but, in a cruel twist of neuroanatomy, they’re also involved in regulating sleep and appetite. “This might provide some explanation for the different and unique responses to grief and loss,” Jumoke Omojola, a clinical social worker in Omaha, Nebraska, told Fatherly. “Physiological changes might include headaches, stomach aches, dizziness, tightness in the chest too much sleep, too little sleep, overeating, or lack of appetite.”

The Death of a Parent Affects Even Grown Children Psychologically and Physically

The Death Disrupters

Andy Wright on six people who are changing the way we talk about death and the way we die. A death doula "provides a suite of services that includes getting financial affairs in order, making health-care decisions, even identifying the specific sounds and smells clients want at their deathbeds. Arthur also works with her clients’ families, providing support throughout the dying process and helping them wrap up affairs afterward." The Final Exit Network "provides education and support for competent adults suffering from terminal illness, dementia, or chronic or progressive physical disabilities who choose to end their lives." "Recomposition" is a method of burial, "in which bodies are placed in vessels with materials like straw, wood chips, and alfalfa. Tiny microbes that live in the human body go to work, raising the temperature inside and breaking everything down, including teeth and bones. After a month, the result is a rich topsoil that can be returned to the earth. It’s an accelerated version of a natural process, [founder Katrina] Spade says."

Chaplin David W. Peters says,

"People have very strong opinions about what they want their funeral to be like, and Peters encourages them to pick out the hymns and scripture readings they want performed ahead of time. “It helps people prepare for death,” he says, “if they have a say in what happens to them after they die.”

And Deathlab re-imagines the urban cemetery.

‘I was widowed at 23, young people need to talk about death’

Amy Molloy writes about marrying a man at age 23, knowing he has only weeks to live.

Do you know what to say when a friend’s loved one dies? Have you thought about the day your own parent, partner or best friend may no longer be visible? How would you discuss it, in a way that would be supportive, constructive, and even light-hearted?

If you don’t know the answer, you’re not alone.

A new study from the Royal College of Physicians in the UK has urged medical professionals to improve their bedside manner when it comes to discussing death, after identifying that “timely, honest conversations” about patients’ futures are not happening. However it’s not only doctors who need to become more comfortable with these conversations.

It’s been suggested that millennials are the generation most fearful of death, unlike our grandparents, raised through world wars, who learnt that life can be short. As medicine advances and life expectancy increases, we prefer to think of death as our “future self’s problem”.

But is postponing the inevitable increasing our terror of it?

Amy Molloy in The Amateursguide

New from the BBC: Care

Celete Roberge Sculpture Shows the Weight of Grief

Celeste Roberge

Sometimes Being Present is the Greatest Gift You Can Give

I really loved this very wise essay by Parker J. Palmer about what to say to support someone who is dealing with health problems or confronting mortality. It's important to suppress the natural human impulse to give advice. We want to be helpful and we want to reassure ourselves more than the person we are trying to comfort that we have some sense of control. Don't. Just listen.

I asked how he’d been feeling recently — he said he’d been feeling afraid. “Do you want to talk about your fear?”, I asked. He talked while I listened and asked a few more questions. When we were done, he told me that some measure of peace had returned. It was a peace that had come from within him, not from anything I’d said. I’d simply helped clear some rubble that blocked his access to his own soul.

Living with Dementia -- Making the Most of the Moment

A woman diagnosed with dementia has made sure that all the legal paperwork has been taken care of, participates in an online support group, and has created a "dementia daze" blog to help others.

A key to prolonging independence, participants told her, is to recognize the triggers that aggravate her symptoms and to adjust her routine to head them off. One strategy: Because noise in a grocery store can cause confusion, Mrs. Scherrer shops in the early morning, when the store is quieter.

Most important, she said, the group taught her she “can still live a meaningful, happy life, at least for now.”

To that end, Mrs. Scherrer, of Oley, Pa., writes a blog that provides advice on living with dementia, and she is a mentor to others with cognitive impairments. As a member of the advisory board of the Dementia Action Alliance, an advocacy group, she speaks at conferences of policymakers and neurologists, suggesting ways they can arrange for better, and more sensitive, care.

Mrs. Scherrer has bad days when she is “crying because I don’t know where I am,” she said, but “I have a passion now, and that passion keeps me going.”

Leading an Active Life With a Diagnosis of Dementia

A Doctor Needs to Know Who Has End-of-Life Say

“I just want to be clear on who has the final say on life support.”

The words cut neatly through a conversation which has barely moved beyond my perfunctory knock on the door frame of your hospital ward room. They don’t come from you—how could they? Unlike your drawn-out, mumbled monosyllables, they are brittle with impatience, as though they are responding to the folded-up patient list in my back pocket. “Clarify goals of care and resuscitation status,” it says, circled and underlined next to your name, your age, and your incurable disease. It means that I am going to ask for permission to focus on comfort and dignity instead of scans and numbers. I will go beyond asking, and will recommend this approach. The words that are still ringing in the air? They tell me we are going to disagree.

I pause, not because this situation is uncommon but because it is easier to let my gaze linger on details than to face the difficult conversation ahead: The woman sitting silently next to you, playing with a wedding band too large for your chemotherapy-thinned fingers. The scar on your head where, during more hopeful days, your surgeons tried to remove the part of your brain that is now going to kill you. The toy lion nestled next to you, guarding you on behalf of your children who are “too young to visit.” They all scream the unfairness of your presence in this room.

Ashamed at delaying, I turn to your older sister. The spoken words were hers, and she is now defiantly holding my gaze, ready to record my answer in the open notebook in her lap. She knows unfairness intimately, and I am part of a now-familiar pattern. Your surgeons will not operate again. Your oncologists will not try more chemotherapy. Your neurologist will add no more medications for the seizures that will come back and possibly never stop. I do not think that you would benefit from “resuscitation” or “life support.” Unlike the others, however, I can be forced to provide them. The purpose of your sister’s words is to “be clear” that she knows this....I am angry at a health care system that has left you and your family feeling lost, suspicious and defensive. I am angry at a legal system that has tried to solve this problem by giving you, and by extension your family, apparently unlimited power at the end of your life without warning you that it is mostly the power to choose more suffering. It is a toxic combination.

Vlad Dragan I Just Want to Be Clear on Who Has the Final Say on Life Support

Guest Post from Sara Bailey: How to Find More Sleep and Peace When You are Dealing With Grief

How to Find More Sleep and Peace When You are Dealing With Grief

Losing a loved one can take such a toll on your mind and body. However, losing sleep can make those effects worse. When grief is robbing you of your sleep, your emotions will feel rawer and your body tenser. To give yourself a break, and allow your body, mind, and soul to heal, try these hints to get better sleep.

Practice Self Care in the Face of Grief

Grief can be a complicated process. Despite studies and research, there really is no good timeline for grief. You may feel your own grief come in waves, with certain triggers causing more pain than others. The loss of a spouse can be especially difficult to deal with, and you may not feel like taking care of yourself at all. However, you have to be able to take each day one breath at a time. You have to allow yourself to have good days and bad, and most importantly, you have to make yourself practice self-care. Self-care is not just a luxury when you are grieving and losing sleep. It is an everyday necessity. Nurture your body by going for a long run in the morning or taking your dog for a relaxing walk. Choose an activity that makes you feel as good as you can right now, and try not to push yourself too far. Exercise is an important step in promoting better sleep, as well as helping you to process your grief. Relaxing your mind and soul is also important for restful sleep, so turn to prayers that promote healing and positive change.

Learn to Build Habits That Help You Heal

You may not be able to escape your grief altogether, but you can take steps to help heal your mind, body, and soul. Begin by building a regular sleeping routine that helps you get the rest you need to restore your energy and health. Set a nightly bedtime that allows you to get seven to eight hours of sleep. Keep your phone and laptops out of your bedroom, and take care with how you eat at night. Some foods hinder sleep, such as those that contain caffeine, sugar, or a lot of spice or grease. Try to avoid these foods in the hours before bedtime. Nourishing your body with comforting, healthy foods is a better idea since you are more likely to have the strength you need while mourning. Try to plan meals ahead, and on the days you feel up to it, make some freezer meals to help you stay on track. You should also avoid alcohol and limit caffeine during this difficult time. These substances can negatively affect your sleep, but they can also impede your ability to heal.

Allow Yourself to Change Elements of Your Life

When you first lose your loved one, you may feel like your standing still in time. Grief tends to trap us in patterns that make life a little more comfortable to bear. Sometimes, however, a little change is just what you need to heal, and to get the rest you need. If you decide to make changes to your bedroom, know that it may be confusing at first, especially when it comes to your loved one’s possessions. If the process feels too painful, do not force yourself to make any sudden changes. Try making simple adjustments that will help you sleep better, such as using blackout curtains to keep your room dark, or lowering the temperature in your room. You may also want to look into sleep-enhancing gadgets, which actually can promote better sleep habits and help you take care of your health.

There’s no way to shorten the cycle of grief, but you can try to at least improve your sleep. Getting rest and allowing yourself to relax is the only way you can recharge your mind and learn to process all of the emotions and responsibilities that come with loss. So try to get more sleep and be positive as you walk this difficult path in life. 

Sara Bailey

Photo Credit: Pexels

Many thanks to Sara Bailey for permission to publish this essay.  

Poem: Parents by Ted Kooser

Parents

My dead parents try to keep out of my way.
When I enter a room they have already left it,
gone off to find something that ought to be done
elsewhere in the house, my dad rolling the Hoover,
my mother with dust rag and Pledge. At times
I’ve heard their old slippers, pattering away
down the hall, or seen for only an instant
what might be the hem of her skirt as it swept
through a door. I leave all the cleaning supplies
where they’re easy to find, and they seem to last
forever. “You don’t need to go!” I call out
through the echoing rooms, but they’ve never
turned back. They leave the floors shining
behind them, and remember to turn off the lights.

Ted Kooser

Wendy MacNaughton on Green Burials

"One guy wanted to be buried in a burlap bag. I said, 'Burlap okay. But no bag. This isn't a Mafia hit.'"


These Days Everyone Wants to Be a Tree

Epitaph on Elizabeth LH by Ben Jonson

Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.

BY BEN JONSON

Wouldst thou hear what man can say 

In a little? Reader, stay. 

Underneath this stone doth lie 

As much beauty as could die; 

Which in life did harbour give 

To more virtue than doth live. 

If at all she had a fault, 

Leave it buried in this vault. 

One name was Elizabeth, 

Th' other let it sleep with death: 

Fitter, where it died to tell, 

Than that it liv'd at all. Farewell. 

Epitaph; To Live in Hearts We Leave Behind is Not to Die

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” 
― Thomas Campbell

Nick Cave on Grieving for His Son

A fan asked musician Nick Cave if he ever felt he was in touch with his son who died. Here is his answer:

Dear Cynthia,

This is a very beautiful question and I am grateful that you have asked it. It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. We are tiny, trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief’s awesome presence. It occupies the core of our being and extends through our fingers to the limits of the universe. Within that whirling gyre all manner of madnesses exist; ghosts and spirits and dream visitations, and everything else that we, in our anguish, will into existence. These are precious gifts that are as valid and as real as we need them to be. They are the spirit guides that lead us out of the darkness.

I feel the presence of my son, all around, but he may not be there. I hear him talk to me, parent me, guide me, though he may not be there. He visits Susie in her sleep regularly, speaks to her, comforts her, but he may not be there. Dread grief trails bright phantoms in its wake. These spirits are ideas, essentially. They are our stunned imaginations reawakening after the calamity. Like ideas, these spirits speak of possibility. Follow your ideas, because on the other side of the idea is change and growth and redemption. Create your spirits. Call to them. Will them alive. Speak to them. It is their impossible and ghostly hands that draw us back to the world from which we were jettisoned; better now and unimaginably changed.

With love, Nick.

Monty Python Song Now Number One for Funerals

They came of age in the “swinging sixties,” and now baby boomers are dying as they lived: ditching tradition and replacing it with Monty Python, pop songs and even fancy dress at their funerals.

The generation who grew up with the surreal comedians’ sketches and films is believed to be behind a surge in demand for the song Always Look On the Bright Side of Life at funerals, making it the most popular number to bow out to.

With its famously chirpy lyrics about the absurdity of life and the finality of death, the hit from the irreverent 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian rose from the 13th most commonly chosen song three years ago to the top spot this year, research by The Co-operative Funeralcare revealed.

The more traditional choices of The Lord is My Shepherd and Abide with Me were pushed into second and third place respectively as the Python member behind the song, Eric Idle, proved that comedy conquers all.

Hits by Queen also proved popular choices of funeral music, with nine songs by the band - including Who Wants to Live Forever and Don’t Stop Me Now - among the most commonly chosen.


Notoriously sung from a position of crucifixion at the end of The Life of Brian, it’s become a plucky English anthem, even performed at the 2012 Olympics, and a twinkly stiff-upper-lip send-off. In November 2014, a study by a chain of funeral directors found the 1979 Life of Brian song had overtaken Frank Sinatra's My Way as the preferred choice of music.

Elvis Presley was the most requested solo singer.

Baby boomers jazz up their funerals with Monty Python and fancy dress

Reimagine End of Life Festival: Wonder, Prepare for, and Remember Loss

At the Reimagine Festival, people will gather to talk about all aspects of end of life.

In Wonder
There’s so much we don’t know about death. At Reimagine, take an opportunity to consider, reflect, daydream, philosophize, and learn through a set of unique and often enlivening experiences.


In Preparation
Preparing for death can be an opportunity to set intentions for our lives. Whether planning for ourselves or with loved ones, it’s important to clarify our wishes and consider the many logistical and emotional aspects of death and dying.


In Remembrance
We’ve all experienced loss. Come together to share stories, to connect through our shared experience of grief and loss, and to remember those who will always be with us.

The Obituary of a Beloved Mother, Daughter, and Opioid Addict

This obituary is heartbreaking and also wise and instructive.

It is impossible to capture a person in an obituary, and especially someone whose adult life was largely defined by drug addiction. To some, Maddie was just a junkie — when they saw her addiction, they stopped seeing her. And what a loss for them. Because Maddie was hilarious, and warm, and fearless, and resilient. She could and would talk to anyone, and when you were in her company you wanted to stay. In a system that seems to have hardened itself against addicts and is failing them every day, she befriended and delighted cops, social workers, public defenders and doctors, who advocated for and believed in her 'til the end. She was adored as a daughter, sister, niece, cousin, friend and mother, and being loved by Madelyn was a constantly astonishing gift....During the past two years especially, her disease brought her to places of incredible darkness, and this darkness compounded on itself, as each unspeakable thing that happened to her and each horrible thing she did in the name of her disease exponentially increased her pain and shame. For 12 days this summer, she was home, and for most of that time she was sober. For those 12 wonderful days, full of swimming and Disney movies and family dinners, we believed as we always did that she would overcome her disease and make the life for herself we knew she deserved. We believed this until the moment she took her last breath. But her addiction stalked her and stole her once again. Though we would have paid any ransom to have her back, any price in the world, this disease would not let her go until she was gone.

How to Write a Condolence Note

The New York Public Library is presenting our beloved Amy Cunningham to discuss how to write a condolence note.

Join funeral director and Green-Wood Cemetery educator, Amy Cunningham, for this workshop on how to write a condolence letter.

With death ever-present, condolence letters were mainstays of 19th-century life, missives of comfort written straight from the heart. Amy and participants will read copies of letters by Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and Queen Victoria herself with comparisons to modern letter writing. Participants will then review the principles of a good condolence letter. Amy Cunningham is a Brooklyn funeral director who helps families with green burials, cremation services in Green-Wood Cemetery crematory chapels, home vigils, and other sorts of memorials.

Dying Patients Forced in Twice as Much "Rehab" in For-Profit Facilities

The New York Times reports on a study showing that residents of for-profit assisted living facilities are given twice as much "rehab" as those who are not, even when they are close to death, suggesting that the services are more about revenues than the patient:

Nursing home residents on the verge of death are increasingly receiving intense levels of rehabilitation therapy in their final weeks and days, raising questions about whether such services are helpful or simply a lucrative source of revenue.

That is the heart of a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, which found that the practice was twice as prevalent at for-profit nursing homes as at nonprofit ones.

More broadly, the study’s findings suggest that some dying residents may not be steered to hospice care, where the focus is on their comfort.

Although the research is based on a relatively small number of patients in one state, it echoes what federal regulators have found in recent years.

It’s also a fresh reminder that families should keep a close watch on, and ask questions about, the kind of care their relatives are getting in nursing homes.

“Some of these services are being provided in the last week and sometimes on the day of their death,” said Dr. Thomas Caprio, one of the study’s authors. Dr. Caprio, who specializes in geriatric medicine, hospice and palliative care, is an associate professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Rehabilitation services — physical, occupational and speech therapy — are “a potential revenue source for these facilities,” he added. “And when the plan of care shifts to hospice care and palliative care, that revenue stream disappears.”

An Obit with a Twist

This obituary for Rick Stein has a surprise twist at the end that is very touching.

Wilmington - Rick Stein, 71, of Wilmington was reported missing and presumed dead on September 27, 2018 when investigators say the single-engine plane he was piloting, The Northrop, suddenly lost communication with air traffic control and disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Rehoboth Beach. Philadelphia police confirm Stein had been a patient at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital where he was being treated for a rare form of cancer. Hospital spokesman Walter Heisenberg says doctors from Stein's surgical team went to visit him on rounds when they discovered his room was empty. Security footage shows Stein leaving the building at approximately 3:30 Thursday afternoon, but then the video feed mysteriously cuts off. Authorities say they believe Stein took an Uber to the Philadelphia airport where they assume he somehow gained access to the aircraft.

"The sea was angry that day," said NTSB lead investigator Greg Fields in a press conference. "We have no idea where Mr. Stein may be, but any hope for a rescue is unlikely."

Stein's location isn't the only mystery. It seems no one in his life knew his exact occupation.

Holding an Illegal Shiva for My Mom

Mark Effron's rabbi told him that he could not hold a shiva for his mother because it was Sukkoth. He did it anyway.

Back at our house, we held a non-shiva shiva. Mirrors stayed uncovered, family and friends and colleagues descended upon our house and we talked about my mother well into the night. There was plenty of food, plenty to drink.

That’s when I realized that, though I might have felt thrown out of sync at first by the unexpected scheduling, it really was all for the good. My mother got a grand send-off, filled with at turns poignant and hilarious paeans to her warmth and sense of humor. And she would have loved the non-shiva shiva. It wasn’t interrupted by a minyan and solemnity. It was just a damn good party.

As my mother told us as we were planning her 90th birthday party in Florida three years ago:

”All I care about is that we’re all together….and the hall is nice…and the food is delicious.”

John Pavlovitz: Do Not Say This to People Who Are Grieving

John Pavlovitz writes about how kindly meant comments can be painful to hear:

They saw my total, alarming devastation, and in their urgency to alleviate some of it, did what good people do when other people they care for are grieving: they said things.

And often the things they said, as birthed from a beautiful place as they were—really hurt. What they so desired to be healing, actually poked the already massive wound in my heart, and made it worse.

It does not help to say: "God needed another angel," "He's in a better place," "Everything happens for a reason," "I know how you feel."

Just say: "I care about you." "I loved him/her." "I will cherish my memories of him/her." "I am sorry."

And do not ask if you can do anything. Just do something.

Is Assisted Death "Rebranding Euthenasia?"

A widow writes about her opposition to assisted death:

Hope inspired us to try standard and experimental treatments to combat J.J.’s cancer. Those treatments extended his life beyond the initial four-month prognosis to three and a half years. If we had relied on the initial prognosis, given in to the depression and given up on hope, we would have missed out on so very much. Our oldest son, James, would never have gotten to know his father; our youngest son, Lucas, would never have been born.

Getting through his darkest moments and the temptation to despair made J.J. realize that assisted suicide presents a very real risk for terminally ill patients like him. J.J. and I resolved to fight efforts to legalize assisted suicide, laws that prey on terminally ill patients when they are most vulnerable. Assisted suicide is legal in seven states and Washington, D.C. This is a tragedy, and one we can prevent.

J.J. served as president of the Patients Rights Action Fund, an organization that works on behalf of patients to oppose legalizing assisted suicide. We dedicated the last years of J.J.’s life to this because we recognized the "death with dignity" movement for what it is: a well-funded rebranding of euthanasia offering nothing but a message of hopelessness.

If our experience taught us anything, it is to hold on to hope for yourself and for others around you, especially in the face of life-threatening illness. You could be improving their lives, as well as your own.

Letter-writers responses (excerpts):

It’s a blessing to have that possibility for terminal patients, especially those who have immense pain. It galls me when people want to take that option away from others, just because they find it wrong. What works for others may not be feasible for you. We can make up our own minds.

Death with dignity isn’t for everyone. In fact, a very small percentage of terminally ill patients choose to use it. Often, the angels of hospice can keep dying patients comfortable until a disease runs its course. But death with dignity should remain a choice for those who wish to use it. The Hansons should not be allowed to limit the choices of others.

Palliative care Lengthens Life as Well as Improving It

A new study shows that "Patients with advanced cancer randomized to receive outpatient specialty palliative care lived longer and had better quality of life."

Mary Oliver: When Death Comes

When Death Comes, by Mary Oliver


When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Memorials for Gamers

After Michel Koiter died suddenly at age 19, the video game company he and his twin brother René worked for wanted to pay tribute to him.

Blizzard Entertainment art director Samwise Didier, came to [René] with an innovative proposal: He wanted to erect a monument to Michel in World of Warcraft, most likely the first permanent memorial in gaming history. René agreed, and in late 2004, a stone obelisk engraved with Michel’s initials, MK, appeared in World of Warcraft. Known as the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior, it features the body of an orc—Michel’s chosen avatar in the game. In a recent update, Blizzard added an angelic figure known as a “spirit healer” to watch over the obelisk. “It was an epic gesture,” René said.

Slate's Michael Walters tells this story in a moving essay about digital memorials in the world of gaming.

In the past 10 years, gaming companies and individual players alike have endeavored to preserve the legacies of lost players within the games they loved. Across World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Guild Wars 2, and dozens of other large-world massively multiplayer online role-playing games, hundreds of shrines have popped up honoring deceased players. For close friends and family members of players preserved in video games, those memorials offer a way not only to reflect on their loved ones but also on the community that cared for them. A shrine stretches far beyond the digital plot of land it occupies. It reaches into the homes of hundreds of quasi-strangers, bound together by their love for a friend they likely never met in person.

The Medical Pause; Health Care Professionals Acknowledge Death

Health care professionals often see death as a failure. Their job is to keep people alive and well; when a patient dies, they mark the time of death, do the paperwork, and move on to try to save someone else. Jonathan Bartels is a nurse who has developed "the medical pause," a way for health care professionals to acknowledge that a life has ended in a respectful and meaningful manner.

The medical Pause is a practice implemented after the death of a patient. This practice offers closure to both the medical team and the patient. It is a means of transitioning and demarcating the brevity and importance of this moment. Through silence this shared event is able to be honored and marked by a multicultural medical staff. Silence allows individuals to personalize their practice while not imposing onto others. This act is a means of honoring a persons last rite of passage. To bring an element of the sacred back into a profane world of medicine.

Anyone can ask to do this following a code/death. At first it may feel awkward because we are standing in a vulnerable place and asking for a moment of respect. After it is done, it becomes easier to repeat because everyone involved understands how important it is.

“Could we take a moment just to Pause and honor this person in the bed. This was someone who was alive and now has passed away. They were someone who loved and was loved. They were someone’s friend and family member. In our own way and in silence let us stand and take a moment to honor both this person in the bed and all the valiant efforts that were made on their behalf.”

45 seconds to a minute of silence.

“Thank you everyone.”

Grieving at Disney World

No one should ever judge the way people grieve. This poignant essay in Slate by Nicole Chung is about a family that went ahead with a long-planned trip to Disney World after the unexpected death of the children's grandfather.

One of many things I didn’t know about grief is that it doesn’t hit you all at once. After my dad’s death, I kept waiting to mourn. Any time now, I thought. Here we go. But for days, what kept me feeling listless and confused and impatient with everyone around me was more like shock than sorrow....In the end I found my space to begin grieving not at home with my mother, nor at my father’s funeral, but on our first day at the Magic Kingdom. A dear friend of mine happened to be in Orlando at the same time we were because her grandmother, who lived there, had just died. She met us there, and we rode the Dwarf Mine Train with our arms raised, whispered about the astonishing racism of the “It’s a Small World” ride, and watched my enraptured younger daughter meet Belle.

Until then I had been too shell-shocked, or I’d been traveling, or I’d been worried about my mom, or there’d been too many people to talk to and not enough time—but now, in the company of a good friend who was also grieving, I was able to speak for the first time about my messiest feelings and regrets where my father was concerned. The two of us often trailed a few steps behind the rest of my family, talking about complicated families and how death—no matter when or how it occurs—leaves so much open and aching and unresolved. I felt sad, and strangely comforted, and somehow I was managing to have a good time, too. It made me wonder how many other people in the massive crowds around us were also mourning someone or something here, at The Happiest Place on Earth.

Rob Delaney Writes About His Sick Toddler Son

Rob Delaney wanted to write a book about caring for his toddler son who had a brain tumor, to encourage other parents of sick kids.

The reason I’m putting this out there now is that the intended audience for this book was to be my fellow parents of very sick children. They were always so tired and sad, like ghosts, walking the halls of the hospitals, and I wanted them to know someone understood and cared. I’d still like them to know that, so here these few pages are, for them. Or for you.

But I can’t write that book anymore because our family’s story has a different ending than I’d hoped for. Maybe I’ll write a different book in the future, but now my responsibility is to my family and myself as we grieve our beautiful Henry.

A Muslim and a Christian Enter Heaven in "Mr. Andrews" by E.M. Forster

I love this description of two souls, a Christian and a Muslim, ascending to heaven together in "Mr. Andrews" by E.M. Forster, my favorite story about what the afterlife is like:

The two souls floated upward, hand in hand. Mr. Andrews did not speak again, for he was filled with horror at the approaching tragedy. This man, so godless, so lawless, so cruel, so lustful, believed that he would be admitted into Heaven. And into what a heaven—a place full of the crude pleasures of a ruffian’s life on earth! But Mr. Andrews felt neither disgust nor moral indignation. He was only conscious of an immense pity, and his own virtues confronted him not at all. He longed to save the man whose hand he held more tightly, who, he thought, was now holding more tightly on to him. And when he reached the Gate of Heaven, instead of saying,” Can I enter?” as he had intended, he cried out, “Cannot he enter?”

And at the same moment the Turk uttered the same cry. For the same spirit was working in each of them.

From the gateway a voice replied, “Both can enter.” They were filled with joy and pressed forward together.

A Daughter Dies of Cancer

Nearly four years to the day she was diagnosed, her oncologist tells you there’s nothing more he can do.

You take her home and let her live her life. You put your own life on hold so you can drive her to school, to parties and to the performances she loves: She’s a musician, and you live to hear her beautiful voice.

She has one final scan. She’s been struggling for breath. She’s been extremely pale. She’s been getting fevers every night that spike as high as 103. You learn that the tumor near her left lung is now the size of a grapefruit. It’s close to her heart. The oncologist says he’s sorry. He does not schedule any more scans. He does not schedule any more ­follow-ups.

She lives for three months longer. With the help of hospice and palliative care, she is able to stay home. She goes to a final birthday party, meets her friends for a final lunch date. She texts her best friend the night before she dies: “I’ll see you this weekend.”

It is March 22, 2017. The outside world is gray and cold, covered with snow. You and your husband sit beside her in her bedroom and listen to her labored breathing. You tell her you love her. You tell her you’re proud of her. You tell her you’re sorry you couldn’t save her. You tell her it’s okay to go.

She opens her eyes — those big blue eyes you know better than your own — and sighs one last time. Then she’s gone.

Jaqueline Dooley in the Washington Post