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…
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…
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…
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, OR ON THAT DEATH’S ANNIVERSARY. MAYBE IT’S TIME TO GROW SOME COMPASSION, ALL AROUND. Anthony Bourdain’s suicide four years ago hit me hard. Perhaps this was partly because Bourdain…
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. I’m often in touch with a…
“Her first husband died in a workplace accident when she was 24 and pregnant with their second child. ‘Becoming a young widow changed my life,’ she said.” Suddenly, reading these words recently in the New York Times, sitting there at the old oak table in the kitchen, having breakfast, the hair on the back of…