Making Space for Grief

Alexandra Hunt writes:

We have an expectation that sadness should soften quickly and privately. But grief doesn’t operate like that. It’s inconvenient. It’s repetitive. It’s sharp and can cut deep. It shows up long after everyone expects you to be fine. I think we all know that at some level, which is why we avoid it. Not just other people’s grief, but our own....Grief can be what life promised and didn’t deliver. The way we’re taught to carry grief teaches us to shrink. To be careful. To not burden people. To refuse to admit we need to be held. To say things like we’re fine on our own. So when I tried to build something around grief—a space where it could exist openly and where the ask to receive care was upfront—it fell apart in a predictable way. Not because it wasn’t needed. But because we don’t know how to hold it. Because we don’t know how to hold each other. Grief isn’t an interruption to life. Grief is life. It’s what happens when something mattered. When someone mattered. When a version of your life existed and then didn’t. You don’t get to opt out of that. The only choice is whether you have somewhere to put it. And right now, most of us don’t. So it leaks out in other ways. In distance. In disconnection. In relationships that can’t quite hold. In reactivity. In anger. Not because we’re broken. But because we’re carrying something with nowhere to go.

What to Know About Dying

The Washington Post's Ashley Abramson on what death doulas want us to know about dying, including: it can be peaceful, it does not need to be painful, there is sometimes a surge of clarity and energy before death, and hearing is often the last sense to go. Most important, though is this:

Thinking about death while you’re alive can make it less scary Many cultures see death as a positive experience or transition, not something to be feared. While your own end of life can be hard to think and talk about, death doulas encourage doing both. One of the best ways to experience a peaceful death — and a fulfilling life — is to contemplate your own mortality regularly. “The more we allow ourselves to talk about death in every way, the logistical realities and emotional connotation, the less scary it is,” said [Erika] Reid Gerdes.

More States Allowing Assisted Death

From the Washington Post: Oregon, the first state to enact an assisted-suicide law in 1997, extended the practice to nonresidents in 2023. Delaware, Illinois and New York legalized assisted suicide in recent months. And at least 15 states are expected to weigh similar legislation this year, although it is permitted only when people are terminally ill with just six months or less to live. They also must be mentally competent — disqualifying anyone with advanced dementia — and be able to ingest the prescribed life-ending drugs on their own. Other countries, including Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands, have made the practice even more readily available, allowing doctors to administer lethal injections to patients who doctors say face unremitting suffering with no hope of improvement, whether death is imminent or not. As I noted ten years ago in the HuffPost, "Baby boomers have spent more than half a century revolutionizing the way we live. Now it is time for us to revolutionize the way we die."

Gavin Newsom on His Mother's Assisted Death

California governor Gavin Newsom held his mother's hand as she died in 2002. In his book he talks about his complicated feelings about her and her choice to have an assisted death. From the Washington Post: It was the spring of 2002 when Gavin Newsom’s mother Tessa, dying of cancer, stunned him with a voicemail. If he wanted to see her again, she told him, it would need to be before the following Thursday, when she planned to end her life. Newsom, then a 34-year-old San Francisco supervisor, did not try to dissuade her, he recounted in an interview with The Washington Post. The fast-rising politician was wracked with guilt from being distant and busy as she dealt with the unbearable pain of the breast cancer spreading through her body. Newsom’s account of his mother’s death at the age of 55 by assisted suicide, and his feelings of grief and remorse toward a woman with whom he had a loving but complex relationship, is one of the most revealing and emotional passages in the California governor’s book.

Andre Is An Idiot | Official Trailer | Joint Venture

A "no cops, no doctors" guy confronts a terminal diagnosis.

When Death Comes - Mary Oliver

The New York Times Special Supplement on Death

The New York Times begins the new year with a superb supplement called "Let's Talk About Death," with excellent articles on grief, end of life decisions,funerals, burials, and other methods for disposing of remains, writing an obituary, "death cleansing" "facing death with support, comfort, and dignity, near-death experiences, and making it easier to face all of these things and to talk to family and health care professionals about them.