
“Grief is love that has nowhere to go.” - Jamie Anderson
In the last two years, we first lost Lisa’s father and then my mother. Both to aggressive cancer and both we witnessed as they passed from this life.
It became a turbulent and difficult time, where life plans suddenly were put on pause, and we took on the responsibility of being their caretaker and end-of-life doula.
It’s a chapter I look back at with deep respect as to how fragile life can be and how living a good life may be hard, but experiencing a good death can be very difficult.
From my experience, in death, we find the utmost urgency to live.
I wanted this article to provide some hope to those who are currently experiencing the loss of someone they love or have recently lost someone they love.
Pre-Grief: The Most Important Work is Now
The final weeks with Lisa's father and my mother presented us with an important responsibility.
We had to be the calmest people in the room. We needed to Outcalm everyone, including our parents.
Lisa’s uncle one day pulled me aside and told me that if there ever was a time when my calmness was needed, it is now. Cry if I need to, but be the one the family can rely on because they need it. Leo is a wise man.
Emotions fly everywhere when we need to depart with someone beloved. It can be hard to make sense of life when it suddenly ends.
At one point, Lisa and I even had to become the “doormen,” telling our parents' friends kindly that they needed to leave, although this may be the last time they see each other.
However, we cannot carry the world on our shoulders, especially not someone else. Being the calmest person in the room means that you need other people in your life to Outcalm yourself.
Looking back, these are the three things that helped us Outcalm ourselves as we saw life come to an end:
This is about you - surround yourself with those who Outcalm you. Good friends, Lisa, my brother and my therapist, stood by my side when I called for them to help or an outlet to feel sad when emotions overwhelmed me. Be selective; choose people who can witness your vulnerability without judgment. This is about you.
This is about them—just Be. Asking questions about their experience, their wishes, and their statements of affection is good, but most of the time, you help the most by simply being by their side. There is a lot of love and peace in simply witnessing the dying.
This is about life. We took every opportunity to breathe, exercise, go to a nice restaurant, drink champagne, and swim in the ocean. We did whatever made us feel alive. This is about life.
Despite the sadness and urgency, you need to ground yourself in your life so you don’t lose track of what will continue even when your beloved is gone.
Post Grief: Be Generous About Sharing Your Grief
“Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow. We may weep, but we must not wail.” - Seneca’s letters.
In the months that followed, we both suffered from post-loss anxiety of fearing when the phone suddenly would ring with more responsibility for us to take on.
It has now been 8 months of peace, and we’ve found time to be with our own grief.
In this grief, I have remained very open to the emotion. It’s a new sensation for me to experience grief up close. It’s changed a lot about how I view myself and my life.
I have also had a great therapist for the last two years since losing Lisa’s father. I no longer see him, but he has been invaluable in helping me understand what it means to grieve correctly.
I say correctly because there are ways to grieve incorrectly. Complicated grief is a real thing, and these are some of the misunderstandings I believe contribute to it:
“You will get over it.” You won’t get over “it”. Grief will always be with you, but what will change is your relationship to it.
“Dive into work and get something else on your mind.” Grief will wait for you to sit with it, so you cannot replace it with being busy.
“Don’t talk about death.” Talk about death. Be generous about sharing your grief with those who can witness your sadness as they can your joy. Grief gets lighter to bear as those who love you share your burden.
There is a lot of good advice on grief, but in my experience, you really have to form your own relationship with it.
Take six months without making any big decisions. Give yourself some time to settle into this new chapter of your life. Thank you to my good friend Rafa for sharing this practice.
Eat omega-3 fatty acids and rest. Being sad takes a lot of mental energy, so make sure to take good care of yourself. Write about what you experience and be graceful toward yourself.
Be open to Sudden Temporary Upsurges of Grief (STUGs). Grief will hit you like a hammer suddenly, and when it does, it demands to be witnessed. The good thing is that if you do, it will pass.
One day, you will wake up, have a coffee, and suddenly realize that the sadness that weighed you down isn’t as heavy as it used to be.
To be grateful for grief is to be joyful, not because sadness has disappeared, but because your heart is so vast that it can hold space for both to coexist.
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