IF YOU’VE LOST A PARTNER TO SUICIDE, EXPECT TO REVISIT THAT PECULIARLY GUILT-TAINTED SORROW EVERY TIME A CELEBRITY EXITS LIFE BY HIS OR HER OWN HAND. MAYBE IT’S TIME TO GROW SOME COMPASSION, ALL AROUND. Anthony Bourdain’s suicide a year ago hit me hard. Perhaps this was partly because Bourdain and I work / worked peripherally in the same field,… Read More
MOTHER’S DAY, IN ITS INSISTENCE ON SENTIMENT AND BIOLOGY, IS CRUEL TO MANY. AND IT’S REDUCTIVE TO ALL OF US. INCLUDING THOSE OF US WHO STILL HAVE MOTHERS, AND LOVE THEM. INCLUDING THOSE WHO ARE THEMSELVES LOVING, LOVABLE MOTHERS. BUT BEING A MOTHER, AND HAVING A MOTHER , EVEN WHEN IT WORKS BEAUTIFULLY, IS NEVER AS SIMPLE AS A MUG… Read More
IS WRITING A WAY TO KEEP YOUR HEART AND LIFE WIDE OPEN, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU DON’T WANT TO, BECAUSE YOU’RE DEEP IN THE MONOTONOUS PAIN OF GRIEVING? SHOULD YOU? HOW CAN YOU, WHEN THERE IS SO MUCH HURT, AND SOMETIMES, SO MUCH UGLINESS? YET, ALTHOUGH WHEN DEEP IN GRIEF WE DO NOT EXPERIENCE OR BELIEVE IT, THE OPPOSITE IS ALSO TRUE…. Read More
THE AIRLINES DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW IT, BUT IT’S TRUE. AND FLYING ON THE MILES GIVEN TO YOU BY SOMEONE YOU LOVED, WHO HAS HIM- OR HERSELF FLOWN OFF EARTHLY LIFE… WELL, THE JOURNEYS I HAVE TAKEN UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE BEEN DEAR TO ME. HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW. This post is unusual for me. It is… Read More
Most of us, before widowhood was thrust upon us, gave little thought to what that state would actually be like. And when and if we did try to conceive of it, most of us got it wrong. ” … In the version of grief we imagine (before we are widowed),” writes Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking, ”… Read More
HERE ARE SOME THINGS YOUR WIDOWED FRIEND WOULD LIKE YOU TO KNOW. SHE’D TELL YOU IF SHE COULD. BUT SHE CAN’T. THAT’S PART OF THE PROBLEM. 1. Please understand that right now your widowed friend is not herself. Literally not herself. Most of the constructs of self she had have vanished, some temporarily, some permanently. Everything — her role in life,… Read More
Our beloved partner is no longer on earth. And now it’s the holidays. Sometimes other people, not realizing they’re doing it, ask us to dress grief up in party clothes. We may even ask it of ourselves. But we don’t have to do it. In the fall of 2004, Richard, my friend Kay’s husband and the love of her life,… Read More
WIDOWHOOD IS NOT STATIC. IT KEEPS CHANGING, AND IT KEEPS CHANGING US. IT HAS AN INFINITE NUMBER OF COLORS. HERE ARE FIFTY OF THEM. 1. I take a lot of deep breaths this time of year. 2. It’s fall, the season inherently bittersweet and elegiac. All that plush color and harvest, all that stunning beauty, some years almost ostentatiously spectacular…. Read More
WHAT DO WE DO WHEN, IN THIS SEASON OF RENEWAL, LIFE STILL FEELS LIKE A LIFE-SENTENCE? HOW DO WE GRIEVE AT A TIME WHEN EVERYTHING (EXCEPT THE PERSON WE LOVED) SEEMS TO BE COMING BACK TO LIFE? Easter. Passover. Spring. The days lengthen, grow warm. Everything seems to come back to life. Everything, that is, except the one we loved. The… Read More
DON’T BE AFRAID TO SAY ALOUD THE NAME OF THE DECEASED. DON’T BE AFRAID TO REMEMBER HIM OR HER. ALOUD. WITH US. KNOWING YOU LOVED OUR BELOVED TOO HELPS US. IT EVEN, SOMETIMES, BRINGS HER OR HIM BACK TO LIFE, JUST A LITTLE. THERE CAN BE NO BIGGER GIFT. In last week’s post, Eight Ways to Help the Widow, I mentioned… Read More
OUR FRIENDS WANT TO HELP US. THEY DON’T KNOW HOW. WE DON’T KNOW HOW EITHER. BECAUSE WE ARE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. DEAR WIDOW, I WROTE THIS LETTER FOR YOU TO GIVE YOUR FRIENDS. PART ONE: A LETTER TO THE WIDOW’S FRIENDS Dear Friend of the Widow, You already know this: ___________, the beloved life partner of your… Read More
NOT “FROM THE OTHER WORLD.” NOT “SHE’S SENDING YOU A MESSAGE.” STILL, SOMETIMES SOMETHING YOU DIDN’T FULLY REALIZE YOU HAD BEEN GIVEN MAKES ITSELF KNOWN. Someone must have told me, back in the miasma of grief and unreality that followed Ned’s unexpected death, to call Arkansas Social Security. Told me to ask about “widow’s benefits.” And I did. But I can’t… Read More
