Possessions Left Behind

 

            After a loved one’s death, we have to decide what to do with their possessions. Although there are some things that we wish they would have taken with them, many of their possessions have stories and emotions attached—their favorite coffee cup with the slight chip, the tools they used for their hobbies, the scent in their clothes, and their ashes.

 

            After Ev died, I wanted to keep everything, and I mean everything, even her handwritten notes on containers in the freezer identifying food, and the to-do list on the board, with smiley faces indicating her preference for which tasks we should tackle next. I didn’t want to lose anything that reminded me of part of her personality, laughter, or sense of style. As the survivor, I became the gatekeeper of her life. 

 

Getting Married Again

 

One of my readers asked: 

I know you are still examining the loss of Evelyn. I also know you are remarried. How did you get from grieving for Evelyn to being able to open yourself and commit to another relationship? Somehow you make the transition. How?

Many thanks, Ellen

 

Dear Ellen,

 

Losing a spouse is so traumatic and heartbreaking that we’re tempted to close the doors on ever getting this close to anyone again. What we want is for our spouses to not be dead and to have our old lives back, but these are not options.

 

Losing Evelyn devastated me. We were young when she died, and I didn’t know how to grieve. Because my friends were also young, they didn’t know how to help, although several tried, and for their compassion I am forever grateful.

 

Pomegranate

Christina Rasmussen, Second Firsts: Live, Laugh, and Love Again, Hay House, 2013

 

When someone we love dies, we need to sit with our sorrow for a time and grieve. We need to mourn and cry and pound on the walls. We need to acknowledge our emotions and the fears that show up—of our own death, of life changing, of being alone. Grief is overwhelming. The impact of the death sends an electrical surge through our body, and our brain’s main circuit breaker trips before our entire wiring gets fried, but we end up numb and in shock.

 

We find ourselves in a place of darkness, feeling vulnerable and broken. For a time, we will live here, in the space between the world we knew and loved and the unknown world that is coming. 

 

Accidental Grieving

It’s unsettling to read about someone who is in anguish and coming apart at the seams. At the same time, Maryanne Pope’s book A Widow’s Awakening is a heartwarming story of her spirit’s ability to endure one of the hardest experiences we will ever face — the death of someone we love. 

What We Grieve

Our Astonishing Light

We do not grieve the memories of our spouses who died. Surprised? Me, too. Sometimes we are so overwhelmed with a profound loneliness that we grieve everything. Meanwhile the rest of the world goes on without noticing.

Dating Again

Last week the Chicago Tribune published some of my thoughts about when to start dating after your spouse has died. This post shares more.

(This is for both men and women, but I’m going to use words for a widower because men need more help with relationships, and constantly saying her/his, she/he, wife/husband/partner feels bulky.)

When is it time to start dating after the death of a spouse?

Facing Grief

Book: Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, Finding Joy, by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant.

I like Option B for a number of reasons, but I would not give it to someone in their first year of grief. That would be like telling a football player who has just suffered a concussion to get back in the game, even though he doesn’t know where he is or which team he’s playing on.

Alone or Lonely?

After the death of a spouse, the absence of the other person is keenly felt. Half of the life we knew and cherished feels gone. And it probably is.

            Suddenly there is no one else in the house to talk to, cook for, or clean up after. No one to toss around ideas with for what to do this weekend. No one to cuddle in bed after a long, exhausting day. We yearn to fall asleep in the arms of someone who unconditionally loved us.

Grieving In the Woods

Book: Here If You Need Me, Kate Braestrup

Kate Braestrup writes about her life after husband Drew, a Maine state trooper, was killed by a driver who lost control. This isn’t a memoir of grieving. It’s a memoir of learning to live with grief.

She accepts the cards she’s been dealt, having learned from the loss of a beloved family pet when she was a teenager, that death was part of life. She buried her dog with her own hands and stacked rocks on top to keep animals out. She rebuilt that stack six times until she thought it was right for honoring her friend.

The Worst Grief

Sometimes when we’re feeling bitten hard by grief, or just snarky, we try to prove that we are hurting the most, and that our grief is the worst that anyone has ever experienced. In the entire world. Ever.

I’ve lost a wife in her 40s, three beloved pets (well, one not so beloved), both parents (one to dementia), all my grandparents, a pair of in-laws, a friend to AIDS, two to murder, several to cancer, one to suicide, and a number of young friends to car accidents. As I walk among the tombstones in my personal cemetery, it would be hard to put them on a scale of the worst because they each hit me hard in different ways.

Advice For Grief Recovery

Dumbledore to Harry Potter, when he clung to thoughts of his dead parents,

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

My friend Fred Erwin wrote what he would share with people if they were grieving. His words are filled with wisdom, truth, and compassion. These are his thoughts with some of my own. 

Pay attention to your grief.  

It is right for us to grieve because people we love have died. They died too soon, and they died before we were ready. They died before we had learned all we could from them. They were an important part of our lives, and their absence leaves a hole.

Grief will last for longer than you expect.

Grief will bring many emotions and physical sensations as we move through the days, weeks and months—shock, sorrow, loneliness, despair, rage, depression, aches, chills, discomforts and more. Do not hide from any of them. And if you have any unresolved grief from the past, that will probably come back.

Death is a physical event and grief is the appropriate physical response.

Gather with family and friends and share stories about the one who died. You know much about the person’s life, but you do not know everything. Sharing with others fills in the gaps and brings new insights and understanding. We hear stories we never knew. Be honest in your sharing because everyone has weaknesses and flaws. This is the time to acknowledge the fullness and contradictions of your loved one's life.

The biggest danger with grief is to fear or deny it, because then psychological problems begin.  

Allow yourself to cry when you feel like crying, and weep when moments move deeper. People expect those who are grieving to be emotional and you have their permission to grieve now. They won’t be as understanding if you put grief off for five or twenty years. 

Be prepared for visitations from the departed, whether this happens in dreams, visions, or simply feeling their presence when you see their possessions or smell a familiar scent. This can also be a time for you to complete unfinished business. If there is something you always wanted to say to the one who died, now is an excellent time.

Find relief in the rituals and prayers of your tradition, whatever they are.  

Many people have walked the path of grief before us. They bear witness to the fact that people survive grief, that they patch their lives back together, and that they are able to find happiness again.

Last Words

If you have lost someone close to a disease like cancer, you probably had the chance to say your goodbyes, although there were still some things you thought of later that you wish you had mentioned.

If the death was sudden, as from an accident, you may not have had this chance and everything was left unsaid — all the hopes and wishes for the future, all the lingering, unresolved arguments, what you loved best about each other, and what tasks the survivor could finish up for the one who died.

Cairn of Stone

I gather the heavy stones,

stack them in a cairn above your ashes,

for what has died inside,

stack sorrow and anger,

despair, rage alongside the grave

of loneliness, devotion, love.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

Paper Remainders

I am so happy to have an essay in the new Under the Sun journal - "Deeper Lake of Blue." You can read it at: http://underthesunonline.com/deeper-lake-of-blue/

           *

After Evelyn died, I wanted to keep everything that was connected to her — all her possessions, newspaper clippings, two stone owls from high school (I don’t know what they meant to her, but I’m keeping them), worn out shoes, hair clips, anything she ever touched, anything that might remind me of her style, her likes, her spirit that refused to be defeated by a challenge.

Possessions hold so much Life in them, so many stories. Even simple things like paper.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

Coming Home After

Journal entry 35                                                                       

(The following is taken from my journal during the first year of grief.)

The shadows of the dead weigh heavy, like thick humid air when dark storm clouds approach.

I’m not in control anymore. Forces I can’t see push me around like an ocean. Every day life flows by but I can’t connect. Every few days people bring food and I eat. They send cards or call and leave messages that I won’t return. Words have lost their meaning. Colors mute to gray. Every day I excuse myself, sit on the side of the world and watch it flow by, unable to move, unable to care what happens to me or to anyone.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

Going into Nature: Yosemite

Journal entry 14

Six weeks after Evelyn’s sudden death, people aren’t stopping by to talk as often and the quietness of home is getting to me. Feeling the need for a change of pace, I head for nature.

Driving through Pleasanton, I pass Amador Clinic on the left where Evelyn collapsed and Valleycare Hospital on the right where she died, not looking at either but staring straight ahead. 

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

Listening to Anger

Journal entry 13

When I’m out on errands in the morning, Marie spots me in a store. A longtime friend, Marie lost her thirty-eight-year-old husband a couple of years ago. She asks what seems to be the question of the week for everyone.

“How are you doing with your anger?”

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

Under the Surface

Journal entry 11

On the Monday after Evelyn’s memorial service, my parents drag me out of the house and we go to San Francisco for lunch at Scoma’s on Fishermen’s Wharf. The day clears of morning fog and warms into the mid-70s. Ev first met them at this restaurant, so afraid that they wouldn’t like her, and she tried to dress just right and say the right things.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

The Morning After Death

Journal 5

The morning after Evelyn’s death, I don’t know what to do, think, or feel. I’m probably in shock.

Life has been rearranged. Half of my life is gone. The entire context for why I went to work, and all of my dreams for the future, have been wiped off the chart.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

Public Grieving

The bombings in Boston this week remind us that public tragedies lead to public grieving, and even if we don’t know anyone involved, when we see photographs of the faces of those who were killed from a time when they were happy, see the faces of the injured in pain, see the despair of those who lost loved ones, we also grieve. 

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *