A New York Lesson

To have an uninterrupted block of time in which to read is to me a pure, unadulterated luxury.

 

Don't you just love that word luxury?  It just rolls off your tongue and sounds a bit sinful.

 

Reading for pleasure is healing and similar to putting your foot on the brake of life, stopping your normal crunched up, sometimes scattered daily routine, and allowing your mind to travel elsewhere.  When I find a book that has a compelling story line I am mentally gone and immersed in the characters and their lives and lose all track of the passage of time.  This past weekend, I found myself with two mornings in a row of relatively quiet hours in which to read and I used every second of it to enjoy a collection of short stories called "Good Bye To All That."

 

Essentially, the book is the work of 28 authors writers pouring their hearts out about why it was absolutely necessary and essential for them to live in New York City to become writers of importance, writers extraordinaire, and of course we all know that this kind of thing can only happen in New York City right?



My Favorite Building:
The Chrysler Building in New York City



Unfortunately, we also know that the best laid plans sometimes don't work out and then painful adjustments have to be made.  Usually this means leaving New York City, for at some point, even the most ardent of Big Apple lovers can get worn down by New York City and its frenzied pace.

 

But in between the arrival and the departure a vast amount of wisdom is learned by these authors about the hugs and punches of  life and each one lays bare their vulnerability in chasing their dreams and they write about how their New York lessons have stayed with them no matter where they ended up living after leaving.

One that particularly struck me, is a short story titled "Homecoming" by Mira Ptacin.  The author explains how she and her husband now live in a quiet and rural place called Peaks Island, Maine,  population 800,  years and years after living in New York City where they unfortunately practiced the selfish habit of constantly putting their careers first, always to the exclusion of their marriage.  While still in New York, Ptacin and her husband saw many red flags along the way signaling to them that they needed to spend more time together but none matched the impact of the sudden death of a childhood friend's father.

The loss forced them stop and wonder and think about what was actually important to them and eventually they ended up asking themselves a series of questions about what would happen to them if they got sick, who would take care of them, who would even care if they got sick or worse.  It made them re-evaluate their lives and they decided it was time to save their marriage or else pretty soon there would be no more marriage.

Loss can starkly show you what's truly important and what is a waste of your precious time.  Here is Ptacin's insight about the simplicity of life that she says she learned after her tragic loss:

"Brent's funeral was held three days after he died.  After the burial and as the sun was setting, we gathered at Brent and Rosemary's home.  We walked there from Andrew's childhood home, too, and we stayed until nearly 2 am, drinking on their wraparound porch, exchanging stories, eating Doritos, passing photo albums, and handing out tissues.  This went on for three nights, and kept going even after Andrew and I left town.

Here are some of the things I learned at Rosemary's that first week after leaving New York: I learned that when a widow is crying and smoking a cigarette, you let her cry and if you speak, it's to ask if you can get her another Diet Coke.  I learned that no one cares that much what you do for a living, but they will be grateful if you stay up with a six-year-old and watch Dennis the Menace because his grandfather is dead and he cannot sleep.  Rather than get into a political debate about the war, you thank an Iraqi veteran for his service.  You do not check your BlackBerry in the middle of a toast, and when someone hands you a crying baby, you hold it.  I learned that ice cream cake make grandpas feel really special, and when a neighbor invites you to swing by the food pantry during her volunteer shift so that she can take a look at that nasty poison oak on your shin, you go, and wait patiently until she can get free to see you.  I learned that you don't judge someone's worth based on what they can do for you and that you aren't expected to ask, "How can I help?"  Instead, you just jump right in."

That's exactly right.   

You just jump right in and embrace love and the whole range of magnificent feelings that life sends your way.

For when you put love first, you are home. 

When In Doubt

If you have ever have doubts about talking to someone you hardly know about a recent loss in their life, please think twice about ignoring the subject.

 

You may think you are doing the person a favor by not mentioning their loss or the name of the loved one that died, but it doesn't really work that way.

 

Acknowledging is important and helpful to you, and more importantly, to the person experiencing the loss.  It's extending sympathy or compassion and even though it may be hard to do, it's something that needs to be done.  So take a deep breath, remind yourself that you an adult and proceed.  Think about the person who is suffering rather than your discomfort.  If the death has happened to someone you know well, perhaps you can give them a hug, say you are sorry that they are going through a painful time and listen to what they want to say.

 

If the loss has happened to a work colleague that can be tricky.  But it is still just as important to acknowledge what has happened to this person.  If you can't seem to find the right words to say, then you can always give them a card with a short note.

 

To understand the bereaved person's point of view, here is a short letter that someone who did not want to be named wrote to The Washington Post's advice columnist Carolyn Hax:

 

"When I returned to work after my dad's funeral, everybody avoided me like crazy.  I guess they thought I would burst into tears if they even said hello.  Who knows, maybe I would have.  I felt so sad, so alone and isolated.  His obituary had been e-mailed to everyone , so all details were known.

 

After lunch on my first day back, I slipped off to an empty conference room to collect my thoughts, and a man I only know marginally saw me go in.  He came to me and started this conversation: 'I was so sorry to hear about your dad.  I didn't know he was a music teacher!  Tell me about him!' I was so happy to have someone to talk to about him.  We talked for about 20 minutes about my dad.  Yes, I cried a little.  But at that moment, that was what I needed so much.

 

After a funeral, everyone goes back to their lives, what they were doing before -- and the family who has lost their loved one is completely lost and directionless.  This man, who hardly knew me, reached out for just a moment and cared.   I still run in to him periodically at work and can't tell you how much his gesture, at that moment on that day, helped me to cope."

Psychologists often cite isolation as one of the main dangers while grieving.  Reaching out can make a difference.

 

Can You Hear Me Now?

It's one thing to forget to turn your cell phone off and then have it ring while you are in church, in a job interview, at a funeral or in a theater, but it takes some major manipulation of a person's ego to actually answer it while they are in those places.

 

Right?

 

Someone I didn't know sat next to me during a play and her cell phone started ringing.  I immediately looked at her and she started searching her purse to find the phone.  I assumed that once she found it, she would just turn it off.  Wrong!! She actually answered it and started whispering that she couldn't talk because she was at a theater performance.

 

Say what??!!

 

 

Forgetting to turn off my cell phone has only happened to me once and the embarrassment was enough so that I always check to make sure my phone is off when it should be.  I was in a large meeting some years ago with an executive of the company I worked for at that time and my cellphone started ringing.  I truly had forgotten to turn it to silent. I quickly put my hand in my purse and turned it off.  Luckily I caught it after the first ring!

 

But yesterday I read a story that tops everything.  Caleb Wilde, a young funeral director, posted on his blog, Confessions of a Funeral Director (www.calebwilde.com), that a colleague who is also a funeral director told him about a funeral service where the pastor's cell phone unbelievably began to ring in the church while the pastor was addressing those gathered to pay their respects.  I don't even want to think about the possible songs this pastor might have used as a ringtone. 

 

As if the ringing wasn't bad enough, the pastor then actually answered his cell phone while the service stopped and he then went on to confirm a time for a golf appointment in front of the whole congregation. Then he went on with the funeral service as though his actions on the cell phone were perfectly normal and within the bounds of good etiquette.

 

Not!!

 

How hard is it to turn off a cellphone or put the cell phone on vibrate during a funeral or anywhere else where you should not be talking?  I'm sure that the pastor probably received a few well chosen words from the family of the deceased after that church service. 

Has anything similar happened to you?  I would be interested in hearing about your experiences with cell phones ringing in places that surprised you.

More Humor Therapy

Grief is a journey that sets its own schedule.  Some cry, some talk, some paint and some even throw plates or other breakables to get rid of their anger. 

 

 Unfortunately, there is no set time for healing.

 

It is always difficult to adjust to life changing circumstances and face the outside world on your own.  But since we are all in this together, it is essential to reach out and extend a helping hand and let others know they are not alone in their journey.

 

 

 

 

I found the following story by Ken Garfield of Knight Ridder Newspapers and am sharing it with you in the hopes that it will help you smile:

Don't Let Death Have The Last Laugh

By Ken Garfield

Knight Ridder Newspapers

     We were on the way to her husband's funeral when my sister turned to me in the limosine and said, "I wonder if I should have worn a black veil."

 

     For just a second, I was taken aback.  How could she make a joke at a time like this?  Then it hit me.  How could she not make a joke at a time like this?

 

     When I realized what a brave and important thing my sister had done, I knew what to say.  "We still have time to run into Hecht's and buy one," I joked as the limosine drove on to the chapel.

     I never knew how sacred humor could be until tragedy struck our family.

 

     While my 51-year-old sister, Carol, was away on a weekend with cousins, her 56-year-old husband died of an apparent heart attack at their home in Boca Raton, Florida.  Eddie was a sweet and generous man who adored my sister.  In the last six months of his life, he finally landed a job he loved.  When they found my brother-in-law's body in bed, they also found in the kitchen the lunch he had made for work the next day.

 

     The memorial chapel was filled with elderly folks from the condominium complex where he worked and did good deeds for his friends, the tenants.  Grief darkened our days, of course.  My sister and her husbad, who had chosen not to have children, traveled through life together as soul mates.  For one to suddenly lose the other after 26 years broke our hearts.

 

     But just when it seemed as if the darkness was about to overcome us, the light returned in the form of a funny memory or whimsical story.

 

     In his eulogy, my father recalled how Eddie had told Carol that he didn't know where she was going on their next vacation -- but he was going to spend it at home with his beloved ballgames and TV remote control.  Carol recalled that the only thing Eddie feared more than a shirt ant tie was a social event to dress up for, and she noted that her home was filled with well-wishers after the funeral.

 

     "Eddie would have hated it," she joked.

 

     People who live with death know that humor helps mourners endure the pain.  Brandon Cook, of Hankins & Whittington Funeral Service in Charlotte, NC, said a funny story reminds the bereaved that life is a mixture of emotions.

 

     One story making the round tells of the daughter who had her mother's coffin wheeled into the service after everyone was seated.  Mother was late for everything else, the daughter told the mourners, so why shouldn't she be late for this?

 

     If you need encouragement to have a healthy laugh, Cook said, look to Proverbs 17:22: "A cheerful heart is a good medicine."

 

     A hospice chaplain told me that humor becomes truly sacred when it helps you understand that grief doesn't have to have the last word.

 

     I start welling up thinking about my sister facing life alone.  Then I'll laugh at a funny story, and the tears subside.