My Patient Readers

Dear Patient Readers:

For over three years, I have been using Blogger to communicate with you and for me the process of posting Cry Laugh Heal to the internet was working out nicely.

 

From the beginning, my goal was to try and help others who lost loved ones and were searching for resources that could help them find a way to carry on without their precious person.  At Cry Laugh Heal, I  write about my experiences with loss and resilience but always with others in mind.  I draw strength from the stories of other people and I'm sure you do too.  It's about support.  No one should ever feel alone and without hope.

 

So when I recently discovered that my blog was difficult to find from a teckie-internet-google-search engine kind of way, I was told I needed to change to another software and thus also change the look of Cry Laugh Heal. 

 

It has been one big frustration after another and I am writing to apologize for the inconvenience of technological problems on my blog site.  If you have recently logged on to www.crylaughheal.com, you discovered for yourself that the site is changing.  I didn't know that you would be able to see the ever changing look of Cry Laugh Heal but there it is.

It has been very difficult for me to navigate this process and find someone to help me transfer more than three years of blog posts and pictures from Blogger to Word Press and then take the Word Press content and work it into a new template but I finally found a great tech guy.  Unfortunately, it's taking longer than I thought.

I miss my writing routine and communicating with all of you on a regular basis but I am also excited for the new Cry Laugh Heal site to be born.  In the meantime, I am tweeting at @crylaughheal and I have a Facebook page that can be found at https://www.facebook.com/crylaughheal?ref=hl.  You are welcome to join me there and I hope you do!!

Here's to a new and improved Cry Laugh Heal that I hope will see the light of day very soon and give you the helping hand you may be looking for as you work through your loss and embrace your new journey.

Peace.

Mary Kate

South Korea Ferry Disaster

When the unimaginable happens, it is common to ask "Why?" "What if?" "What next?"

Watching the media repeatedly air stories about incredible disasters and accidents, it is understandable that after about a week of constant exposure to the never ending details of these stories that people begin to feel detached and almost numb to the tragedies that have occurred.

 

I'm not saying that the depth of the tragedy isn't felt by others because it is and many immediately respond with aid and help.  I think it's more that the disasters are overwhelming, just too much to take in or process. Two recent tragedies, the sinking of a South Korean ferry killing over a hundred people and the missing Malaysian Airlines flight which disappeared about a month ago over possibly the Indian Ocean while carrying 239 passengers and crew members, are the kind of disasters which instantly spring to mind as incidents that can cause media burnout. 

 

But when the media moves the focus of the story from the bigger explanation of how the accident happened to the more intimate personal story of those victimized by these accidents, the fragility of life and our connections to each other immediately comes to the fore.

Our common bond of vulnerability is exposed.

 

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran a touching story about a South Korean husband, Choi in-soo, and his painful efforts to try and understand the raw reality of losing his wife, Choi Soon-bok, in last week's ferry accident.  This is the kind of story that hits me.  When the person is still in shock and at the same time is trying to describe how it feels to discover that a loved one has died and they will never see that person again.

We all hold on to the last precious moments.  The last picture. The last text message.  The last voice message. The last email.

"I'm sorry I'm traveling without you," Mrs. Choi told her husband by phone when the ferry departed on Tuesday evening.  "That was the last I heard from her," Mr. Choi said. 

 

Here is the link to the Wall Street Journal story:  on.wsj.com/1mBI1gn  

Choi in-soo shows a photo of
his wife, Choi Soo-bok, on his smartphone.
Kwanwoo Jun/The Wall Street Journal

Listening to Easter

All about me are signs of renewal.  Easter is here and with it are the always hopeful signs of rebirth: the arrival of a new season of Spring, Christ's Resurrection, plants and flowers bursting forth in bloom and the feeling of being refreshed; of being given the opportunity to start over.

 

I still make and hide an Easter basket for my young adult son full of chocolates and jelly beans and multi-colored Peeps.  It's a tradition that we both enjoy and these days I laugh as he searches through the house for his hidden basket as I watch and say "hot", "cold" or "warm" depending on where he is in relation to the basket that has sometimes been hidden in places such as the shower, the dryer and the stove.

As my Easter unfolds, the Easter basket search always takes me back to my rambunctious childhood and also to the Easters when my husband was alive.  I know that Easter, and other holidays, are times of great celebration but also are emotionally difficult for those who have just lost loved ones.

 

I know of a woman who just lost her husband last month to cancer after a long and tough fight.  She has two young sons and my thoughts are with them today.  I know that her family and friends will do their best to make sure she and her boys are included in Easter activities but sadly there is no getting around the pain they all are feeling.

 

I think people are aware of others who are dealing with feelings of grief during the traditional holiday season of Thanksgiving and Christmas but holidays in general, whether it is Passover, Easter, Memorial Day or the 4th of July, all tend to carry their own little hidden emotional minefields.  Grieving is stressful all by itself and then when you add the pressure and expectations of holidays, it can add up to unexpected meltdowns because it hard to escape the old sights and sounds associated with these special days.

 

I found these helpful tips from the Hospice Foundation of America and thought they might be good to share:

 

-- Be aware than an approaching holiday might be a difficult time for you.  The additional stress may affect you emotionally, cognitively and physically; this is a normal reaction.

 

--Take care not to drink alcohol (a central nervous system depressant) in excess, overeat (which brings fatigue), or overwork.

 

--Recognize that holidays won't be the same.  If you try to keep everything as it was, you'll be disappointed.  Doing things a bit differently can acknowledge the change while preserving continuity with the past.

 

--Be careful not to isolate yourself.  It's alright to take time for yourself but don't cut yourself off from the support of family and friends.

 

--Talk over your plans.  Decide what you want to do and what can be avoided.

Do what is comfortable for you.  May you find what works for you.

This I Believe -- Book Excerpt

"This I Believe" is a fantastic book that keeps on giving inspiration to me.

 

I recently discovered this book quite by accident.  I was in Richmond, Virginia with my son and his girlfriend and we came upon a local non-profit that was giving away books for free.  I couldn't believe it.  Free. Books.

 

Free books are irresistible to me.  This would be similar to offering the editor of Vogue free clothes and accessories.  A room of tables full of all kinds of books just waiting for someone to come along and adopt them and take them home.  Where do I start?  I immediately wondered how many I would be able to carry to the car.

 

Early in my book grab, I found "This I Believe" and I snatched it up right away because the subtitle of the book said it was about "The personal philosophies of remarkable men and women"  and is also based on the NPR series of the same name.  "This I Believe" features 80 essayists, some famous and some unknown, writing to complete the thought that begins the book's title.

 

 

 

I decided I didn't want to read the essays in order; that jumping around from famous to unknown and back again would make the book more interesting.  One essay, titled "The Making of Poems" caught my eye because beautifully written poetry expands my viewpoint of the world.  Quickly, I found that the essay is really about resilience, one of my favorite topics to explore and talk to others about for never ending periods of time.

 

I love to find out how a person has pulled themselves back together after a personal crisis and what has kept them going.  What fuels their inner strength?  How did they learn so much from the pain in their life?  I think the answer is as varied as the billions of people making up Planet Earth but in this case, let's focus on author Gregory Orr's resilience and his remarkable essay which begins here:

 

The Making of Poems

By Gregory Orr

 

I believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions, and traumatic events that come with being alive.

 

When I was twelve years old, I was responsible for the death of my younger brother in a hunting accident.  I held the rifle that killed him.  In a single moment, my world changed forever.  I felt grief, terror, shame, and despair more deeply than I could ever have imagined.  In the aftermath, no one in my shattered family could speak to me about my brother's death, and their silence left me alone with all my agonizing emotions.  And under those emotions, something even more terrible : a knowledge that all the easy meanings I had lived by until then had been suddenly and utterly abolished.

 

One consequence of traumatic violence is that it isolates its victims.  It can cut us off from other people, cutting us off from our own emotional lives until we go numb and move through the world as if only half alive.  As a young person, I found something to set against my growing sense of isolation and numbness: the making of poems.

 

When I write a poem, I process experience.  I take what's inside of me -- the raw, chaotic material of feeling or memory -- and translate it into words and then shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a poem.  This process brings me a kind of wild joy.  Before, I was powerless and passive in the face of my confusion, but now I am active: the powerful shaper of my experience.  I am transforming it into a lucid meaning.

 

Because poems are meanings, and even the saddest poems I write is proof that I want to survive.  And therefore it represents an affirmation of life in all its complexities and contradictions.

 

An additional miracle comes to me as the maker of poems: Because poems can be shared between poet and audience, they also become a further triumph over human isolation.

 

Whenever I read a poem that moves me, I know I'm not alone in the world.  I feel a connection to the person who wrote it, knowing that he or she has gone through something similar to what I've experienced, or felt something like what I have felt.  And their poem gives me hope and courage, because I know that they survived, that their life force was strong enough to turn experience into words and shape it into meaning and then bring it toward me to share.  The gift of their poem enters deeply into me and helps me live and believe in living.

Seeing Clearly

"Give yourself the gift of time in coming to answers for your life. . . .

 

It takes time, and a lot of introspection and soul-searching,

 

to get clear about what you really want to manifest in your life."

 

                                       ~Author David Emerald

A Younger Point of View

Just to briefly, and I do mean briefly, follow up on yesterday's post about the ever changing dynamics of going online to share grief and loss experiences, a friend sent me the below link to a fantastic New York Times story addressing this very topic.

 

I loved this story about Millennials and hope you do too because it introduced to me some new websites I enjoyed discovering plus it highlighted the thoughts and feelings of a younger generation in the midst of trying to figure out the best way to deal with their grief their own individual way while helping others who are also trying to do the same thing.   

Here's the link to the New York Times story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/fashion/an-online-generation-redefines-mourning.html?_r=0

I'm glad it's the end of the week.
I'm beat!

P.S.  Yesterday I had a lot to say and the words got away from me.  So sorry lovely readers for going long on yesterday's post. 

 

Have a great weekend I hope you get to do something fun, relaxing or outrageous!!
 

Internet Loss

Have our electronic devices separated us from each other so much that it's now normal to text people about a loved one's death?

Has it become routine to attend the funeral of a friend or a loved one and start snapping selfies?

Why would someone let their cellphone ring during a funeral service and then answer it and continue talking?

We are in a strange state of communications today.




The first time I saw a selfie taken at a funeral I have to say I was really shocked.

 

I didn't know the young girl in the picture but she tweeted a picture of herself and a couple of her friends at a funeral and it looked to me like they were more at a party than at a funeral service to pay their respects to the family of the deceased.  Her selfie felt sad to me.

Call me old fashioned but I think taking pictures at a funeral is way over the line.

 

But I also realize dear readers that not everyone feels the way I do.  Please share your thoughts on these situations if you would like for I'd love to hear what you have to say.

The anonymity and global reach of the internet has helped people open up to exercising a new kind of dialogue about grief and loss but that dialogue is not without its' extremes.  I must include myself in this online grieving movement because I have been blogging and writing Cry Laugh Heal for almost four years because I wanted to help others and add to the ongoing dialogue and I also visit many other sites where people freely discuss many private aspects of experiencing a loss.

I have found most internet sites to be very helpful in making me feel less alone in my feelings but I only discovered them by accident through my own research.  My support group didn't suggest any web sites and when my husband died ten years ago it would never have occurred to me to go to my computer for comfort. 

At that point, my life and the life of our young son was turned upside down and inside out and I never thought about going online to find a grief chat group or even to begin blogging about my thoughts concerning loss or developing resilience.  I'm sure at that time there were people who were blogging about grief and loss but I just didn't know about them and didn't have the energy for trying to find them.

I was totally consumed with just trying to keep it together.  I went back to working full time after taking about ten days off to arrange the funeral and burial of my husband and our son couldn't wait to bury himself in schoolwork so that he could forget about his father's death.  

 

Today online discussions about grief seem to everywhere with scores of websites and blogs focusing on many different kinds of losses: the death of a spouse, a child, a friend, a partner, a parent or even a pet.  I think this is a great development; a healthy and wonderful thing because for decades people never discussed the emotional effects of their abrupt losses, the shock or trauma they felt seeing their loved one die or what they did to help them get whole again after their loss.

However, our electronics can sometimes serve to disconnect us and a very sad event this week in the news brought this to mind.  As friendly and open as the internet can be to unfettered dialogue about loss, it can also be cold in its execution. 

I still find it hard to believe that Malaysian Airlines chose to text the relatives of the 153 passengers aboard Flight 370 to tell them that no one on board survived the plane's mysterious disappearance.  What happened to exercising some human contact and compassion?  The airlines should have had a room setup with grief counselors and put someone in charge of personally giving them such tragic news.

While it did not look as though anyone had survived the strange crash, no one gives up hope until there is evidence to do otherwise.  Texting the information was cruel.

Cellphones ringing in church?  This has happened a few times at my parish during Mass and it never ceases to surprise me that people act casual while the phone is ringing and they don't seem to be in a rush to turn off their phones.  Instead, people let their phones (no matter what the ringtone) continue to ring during Mass or a funeral service.  It's plain rude.  What about when people answer the phone during a funeral service and continue to make conversation?  "Hey! How are you? Yeah I'm at a funeral right now.  Um, I think I'm okay.  How about I call you later?"  Turn it off before you get into the service.  Put it on silence.  Please.  It's not that hard.

Our actions with electronic devices and our behavior on the internet only requires some thought about how our decisions will affect others.

Let's be careful out there.


 

L'Wren Scott

One of my sisters and I were talking on the phone the other day about the tragic news that fashion designer L'Wren Scott had been found dead in her New York City apartment at the age of 49. 

 

We talked about what the news stories were reporting -- that she had used a scarf to hang herself, that she designed such beautiful, beautiful clothes, that she was so glamorous herself and that she was the longtime girlfriend of  Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones.

 

L'Wren Scott and Mick Jagger

More importantly, we reiterated to each other that no matter what was happening to us, we would always know that we could call each other in case of a personal trauma.  That there should never be the feeling that anything could be so utterly hopeless.  That if we found ourselves in a place that made it difficult to reach out that we could depend on each other to intervene and help. 

 

Of course we don't know L'Wren Scott personally and all that we know about her is what we read in the newspapers and see on television but there was something about her that came through in the pictures taken of her that gave you the feeling that she could be one of your friends and if you did meet her in person you would like her and probably go to lunch with her and have a lot of fun.

 

The way that her life ended just seemed so incredibly and heartbreakingly sad.  The idea of someone being alone, feeling that they were so very alone, desperate for a way to deal with their life at that point and to take their own life brought home how vulnerable we as human beings can be in the midst of our problems and especially how life can sucker punch you when you least expect it.  No suicide note was found in her apartment but reports have speculated that she was having financial problems with her business and was possibly as much as $6 million in debt.

 

Dark thoughts can sometimes creep into our psyche but we have to be on guard to fight them and make sure that they don't overtake our feelings and actions.  We also need to make sure we talk to others about our fears.  Suicide is particularly difficult to come to terms with and is much more complicated than the way I am writing about it today but it's hard to imagine that there wasn't someone out there who could have helped her; it goes against our instincts to think that suicide is even an option.

 

We may never know for sure what drove her to that isolated place that day.  We live in an highly competitive and fast-paced society that can take a toll on the sensitivities of some of us.  I choose to think that if she had confided in someone about her anxieties that they would have offered her a strong and helping hand.

Please rest in peace L'Wren.

  

Giving Comfort

Yesterday was a snow day in Washington, DC with the local and federal governments shut down and people resigning themselves to once again bundle up and go out and shove and clear their cars of winter's one two punch: ice and snow.

 

Before I braved the outdoors, I indulgently hung out in my pajamas and worked on the computer, answering emails and checking out Twitter for Oscar gossip.  I also made use of my snow day by tackling a large stack of magazines in my home office and in hopes of ridding myself of some unnecessary clutter.

 

I came upon an old 2007 Town & Country magazine which featured a special section on grieving.  Ah! This must be the reason why I had saved this issue I said to myself.  I remember being surprised at the time that I bought the magazine that Town & Country was tackling such an uncomfortable subject since most of its articles are about lighter subjects such as traveling, beauty and celebrity trends.  But in this particular issue, I found an informative and insightful section on dealing with grief.

 

 

 A column about grief and loss titled "How To Comfort" by Kate Lardner popped out for me upon rereading the section.  Here are a few to consider:

 

-- "We live in a culture that is afraid of illness and death.  There's judgment from every direction, and it slows down the healing process.  Trust your own experience, and be with people who aren't telling you  to pull yourself together." ~ Cynthia O'Neal, cofounder of Friends in Deed, a crisis center in New York City.

 

-- "I was terrified of my sons' impending deaths from AIDS.  What helped the most when they were dying was to do whatever I could to open up my heart, instead of shutting off from the fear of the anticipated loss.  I talked to mothers in hospitals who were visiting sons with AIDS." ~ Brenda Freiberg, chair emeritus, AIDS Project, Los Angeles.

 

-- "Be with a grieving person quietly, and offer the stability of your presence, which is not the same as trying to 'make it better.'  Much more important for the bereaved is to feel the actual loss in the moment.  Human beings are amazingly resilient; we think we won't be able to survive, but we will.  Grief, the hurt, is a good sign." ~ Acharya Eric Spiegel, a Buddhist teacher in New York City.

 

-- "Think twice before telling anyone that they ever get over the loss of somebody close; on a feeling level you never truly get over it." ~ Sanford Pepper, M.D. San Francisco psychiatrist.

Beyond His Clutter

Oh my goodness I can so identify with the story that I am sharing with you today.

 

It's a story titled, 54 Drawers, and it's about a daughter who thoughtfully and lovingly is going through the drawers and drawers of file cabinets containing huge amounts of paper her recently deceased father stored in the office of his house.

 

In my case it was and still is the papers that my late husband left in his office.  Over the years, I have made a lot of progress and thrown out lots and lots of boxes containing everything from old bills, old checkbooks, handwritten notes, pictures, and receipts to zillions of stories printed from websites along with multiple copies of stories my husband beautifully wrote while working as a prize-winning science and space reporter for The Washington Post.

Thomas O'Toole hard at work at his Washington Post desk

If you have never found yourself in the position of going through a deceased person's belongings please let me tell you that it is not the kind of activity that happens quickly.  No way.  It is dicey territory.  Don't let anyone tell you that it is the same as when you say you are going to clean out your closet, desk or any other room in your house.

 

It takes time, especially if the things belong to someone you cared about.  It is an unpredictable, emotional and even intimate journey, just as Olivia Judson so eloquently writes in her story, 54 Drawers,  recently published in The New York Times.  For those of you readers who have found yourself in the situation of going through someone else's belongings after their death, I hope you agree with me that initially you think you are ready for the task and that it shouldn't be too difficult.

For me, it quickly became evident upon going through the first box that it was going to be harder than I thought.  His things took me back to him and I was back inside my husband's head reading his written thoughts, completed or not, and some pieces of paper were out of the blue surprising, revealing some things about himself that we had not ever discussed.  He may have even forgotten that he wrote these thoughts.  I'm not implying that I uncovered any deep dark secrets but just that I came upon things that he wrote in the emotion of a moment and may have wanted to keep private.

Throwing away some of some husband's stuff felt like I was disrespecting him even when it was just an outdated piece of paper or a report that was not of any importance.  I knew that I wasn't doing anything of the sort but it certainly felt that way.  Then there were other times when going through his stuff felt like a game.  I would read whatever it was I had found and stare at it for awhile wondering why he had kept it in the first place.

" Is there something of importance here that I'm missing?" I would ask myself.

And then I realized that the answer to that question was yes.  I was missing him.

Please read Olivia Judson's story, 54 Drawers, by clicking on the link below: 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/54-drawers/

Say Yes to Empowerment

The essence of resilience is bouncing back to a healthy place after you have been counted out.

Emotionally resilient people recognize that some good can come from even the most traumatic events.  Not only are people resilient but cities can be too.  Look at New York City.  In the 1970's, New York City was a dangerous place.  It's economy was on the verge of collapse and its streets and subways were full of crime and gangs and homeless people.  People could not find jobs.  Traveling to New York City today, there is hardly any evidence of its darker and grittier side from that time.

 

This transformation didn't take place over night.  It took years of hard work coupled with coordinated community support and a collective spirit of determination that things were going to get better, that New Yorkers were not going to put up with such a desperate way of life.

People in the midst of loss can feel this kind of desperation too and during their mourning period there sometimes comes a point -- and it's different for all of us -- when they decide they are sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I have felt that dragging sorrow when I was so immersed in in the upside down of my life that I couldn't see the possibility of anything good happening.  But a voice inside myself pushed me to put one foot in front of the other and with help from family and friends I did begin to see that there just had to be something else out there for me, something that was a more hopeful way of life.

Having a sense of hope is crucial.  Tell yourself it could be right around the bend or in the next conversation or in the next day because with hope we can find the strength to hang on and push through, finding a new direction and a new way to rebuild our lives.

Veronika Scott and her sleeping bag coat
Photo Courtesy of ABC News

I write about empowerment today because of my discovery of Veronika Scott on YouTube.  Veronika Scott lives in the infamous yet troubled city of Detroit, or Motown, a city that once was known as America's automotive center but was recently declared bankrupt by a judge.  Veronika Scott cultivates resilience every day, not only within herself but also in others looking for work in Detroit.

This Youtube video featuring Veronika and her project inspires me and I have watched it at least 20 times because each time I watch I am struck by the simplicity of her idea, the passion she has for her work, the hope she is giving to others and the power of a sewing machine.  Please check it out:

 

Pulling Together

I began writing Cry Laugh Heal in December 2010 to start an online discussion about grief and resilience, in particular to talk about the many ways we process it and how we can arrive at the realization that we can find strength and a different kind of future through our pain.

 

My husband died in 2003 and I found that grief was not a topic most people wanted to talk about.  What a surprise right?  Of course, it was a subject I could go on and on about but in general it really makes people feel very uncomfortable and they would much rather talk about anything else. 

 

I decided that by going online I could help myself and hopefully others as we tried to figure out what loss feels like and how we can somehow go on with other lives without that loved one being with us.

 

It is a difficult path but when you reach out to others it can make a difference in your outlook on what to do next.  Psychologists often cite isolation as one of the many dangers of grieving.  I am not totally self-reliant and, as far as I know, no one else is either.  It's a wondrous thing that we need each other.  Truly it is.  Loneliness is not a sign of weakness.  We as humans are hard wired to connect with each other and loneliness is a signal that we need to bring people into our lives.

 

Being vulnerable can be scary but I have found through an honest discussion of my grief feelings that it has given me a sense of renewal; a feeling that I can go forward as I continue to process and extend my hand to others because we are all in this blessed life together.

 

Yesterday, a wonderful friend sent me a link to a post from another widow who through her writing was extending her hand to others and letting them know that she can still can be taken back to those feelings and memories many, many years after her husband's death.

 

I am sharing below the touching post today from Carol Joynt (www.caroljoynt.com) and thank her for opening up and sharing her vulnerability:

 

01/27/2014

This Is A Rough Week

 

I write this for lots of reasons but in particular for a woman I met last night who just lost her father.

We sat next to each other at dinner. We talked about death and grief for  quite a while. And that's what this is about. Death and grief and healing and moving on.  She's worried about her mother, now left without her soul mate after 34 years of marriage. 

 

That's why it's  a rough week for me. At this time 17 years ago, my husband of 20 years was spiraling toward his death, which came on the morning of  February 1. I held his hand as he died.

 

Yes, 17 is a lot of time. But, then again, it isn't. No matter how many years pass, these few weeks of winter, with their tell-tale signs, bring back the three weeks he was on life support at the Washington Hospital Center. I shuttled back and forth between home and the waiting room, usually in a daze, when I wasn't sleeping on the waiting room floor, or crying, or begging God and doctors. Outside was ice and cold and an overall bleak landscape. As now. So it comes back in memories stirred by January.

 

The loss of a loved one is awful in duplicate, triplicate and  a compound of that. I wouldn't wish my loss on anyone. But you do move on. The pain does become less sharp. I mean, what's the option? 

She asked me what I miss. I miss being loved, having the best friend, the reliable other, the person who had my back,  who believed in me when I didn't, who made me laugh when I couldn't, who was a handyman and a bon vivant and was happy just staying home, the three of us. I thrived on his view of the world and his sense of humor. The fact he loved me as much as he did was the cliché: wind beneath my wings. These aren't small values. 

 

Every day since is uphill. But you do it. Me and every other woman and man who has  lost their soul mate.

 

So, if I'm not all smiley this week, or if I seem inappropriately morose, it's not you. It's me. A brief pause in the past. And then, forward.

 

Confessions of A Mediocre Widow By Catherine Tidd

The title of Catherine Tidd's new book suggests she is a mediocre widow.

 

Don't believe it for one second.

Catherine Tidd is quite the opposite.  Catherine Tidd is in fact a courageous, smart and very funny woman in search of herself and an entirely different life while raising three young children after the death of her beloved husband, Brad, in a tragic motorcycle accident in 2007.

Her book is refreshing and down-to-earth and is full of painful and funny personal insights about what happened to her after the death of her spouse: the hospital, the funeral, her in-laws, the whole crazy upside down aspect of picking yourself up and putting yourself back together.  As a widow myself, I truly understand the tightrope walk of processing grief, raising a child, working a full-time job all the while trying to figure out what the hell is going to happen next in this so-called uncharted territory called a new life. 

 

 

Putting those intensely private and sometimes heartbreaking experiences down on paper for others to consider and understand is a difficult task but not for Catherine Tidd.  She has written an amazing book that I couldn't put down and I would recommend to anyone whether they have lost a spouse or not because she is straightforward yet humorous (my husband is dead and Keith Richards is alive?) about how her new life unfolded in the months and years following her husband's death. 

 

Many times while reading, "Confessions of A Mediocre Widow Or, How I Lost My Husband And My Sanity," I found myself putting the book down and saying out loud, "Yes! That's exactly right Catherine.  Yes! You nailed what it feels like at that particular stage of grief."

 

I have to reveal that I was familiar with Catherine's sense of humor before I read her book.  Her uplifting blog, "Widow Chick," (www.widowchick.blogspot.com) was the first blog about grief that I discovered online.  Right away I loved the name of her blog and read every post, sometimes laughing at the things she vented about and sometimes shaking my head in agreement with her about the emotional push and pull of navigating single parenting, anniversaries, birthdays, and the dating scene.

 

But her new book is chock full of more Catherine and it has given her the time and space to expand on how loss affects you and those who care about you and to really dig deep into a discussion of life on your own as a widow with children, a subject that tends to make most people feel very uncomfortable.

 

Catherine Tidd



Here is how Catherine explains what she wanted to have happen to her in the midst of dealing with her overwhelming grief: "I wanted to  walk into a padded room and throw the grocery list, the bills, the back-to-school forms, the insurance paperwork, just chuck 'em at a wall over and over until the paper was crumpled and soft.  I wanted to scream until my throat was raw.  I wanted to kick at those padded walls until my legs were sore.  I wanted to pull an Office Space and take a baseball bat to every appliance in my house that had the nerve not to work properly.  And sometimes I wanted to take my emotions out on an innocent teddy bear."

Catherine also writes about using retail therapy as a way of coping with the loneliness and isolation following her husband's sudden death.  She would buy tons of stuff, decide to keep one thing and then return the rest the next day.  This didn't make her very popular with the salespeople and her therapy went on for months until she got fixated on a new purchase: a Mazda RX8.  As in a car that doesn't have a back seat, is low to the ground and not child friendly at all.  I loved that she did this even though it was extravagant.

Here in Catherine's words are why the Mazda RX8 was such a necessary, yet temporary, purchase: "For a while, that car was the best therapy I could have had.  It was where I could go and just pretend for a minute that my life was not actually happening.  I could drive around and forget for seconds at a time that I had three kids at home who were in the throes of toddlerhood.  I felt empowered that I had bought that car completely on my own.  I would listen to music I liked, turning it up so loud that it would almost drown out the thoughts in my head.  And the tinted windows would show nothing at a stoplight if I just needed to sit there and cry for a minute."

Even though Catherine spent her 11th wedding anniversary planning her husband's funeral, she found the inner strength to move her life forward and "Confessions of A Mediocre Widow" is a candid book about the reality of becoming a widow and where the exhausting, emotional adjustments took her and her family.

The bottom line, Catherine writes, is the ability to become self-aware and realize that it doesn't matter whether other people understand your journey or not.  You will find the way that is best for you.  It may be a slow process but inner peace can come if you accept what your life is today.  She states a core truth about being a widow when she writes that there comes a point in every widow's journey when she has to make peace with the death of her loved one "and finally accept that, yes, this has happened to her.  Most of the widows who seem to all of a sudden turn a corner have one thing in common: they stopped fighting widowhood and started to work with it."

Thank you Catherine Tidd for sharing your heartfelt story in this beauty of a book, "Confessions of A Mediocre Widow."  You made me feel as though we were friends in this widow journey and I know your new book will help many others (widows or not)  understand that you have to put yourself out there and live life with as much love as you can find.

 

"Confessions of A Mediocre Widow" will be available in retail stores on Tuesday, January 7, 2014.  Copies can be ordered on Amazon.com at this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Mediocre-Widow-Husband-Sanity/dp/1402285221/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387507432&sr=8-1&keywords=confessions+of+a+mediocre+widow

 

or at Barnes & Noble at this link:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/confessions-of-a-mediocre-widow-catherine-tidd/1114864435?ean=9781402285226

A Buddhist Rice Bowl

It's Something To Think About. . . .

"In Zen Buddhism, there's a concept called 'zen mind,' or beginner's mind.'  They say that the mind should be like an empty rice bowl.

If it's already full, then the universe can't fill it.

If it's empty, it has room to receive.

This means that when we think we have things figured out, we're not teachable.  Genuine insight can't dawn on a mind that's not open to receive it.

Surrender is a process of emptying the mind."

                                  ~ By Marianne Williamson, "A Return To Love,

Reflections on the Principles of A Course In Miracles

 

Photo Courtesy of Josh Bulriss



Nate Berkus Moves Forward

When I share stories on this blog about my travels with grief over the past several years, I do so in the hopes that it will help others cope with their losses.  Grief can be isolating even though I believe most people want to connect with others and especially those who have been where they are when they experience a loss.

I think everyone wants to feel that someone, anyone gets what's going on with them; especially at this time of the year.

One of the ways I found a connection was through reading.  In the beginning of grieving the loss of my husband, I read everything I could get my hands on about what this whole grieving thing was about.

I was hungry for information about the particulars of grief because no one I knew had lost their husband at a young age and was also trying to raise a child.  I wanted to know how long would it last, would I always feel so full of pain, would I ever stop crying, would I ever laugh again, how was I going to get myself going again.  And these were only a few of the urgent issues swirling around in my head at that time.

I have since learned that every loss is unique, that each of us grieves in our own way and what helps one person doesn't always work for another person.  That is why I am always searching for stories about how other people have handled their loss and what helped them to find meaning in their life once again.  You never know what's going to click.

Nate Berkus

Enter Nate Berkus.  Yes, Nate Berkus the designer.  Nate Berkus, the talented cutie who you've seen on television as he goes into people's homes and beautifies their rooms with new design solutions and a refreshing down-to-earth attitude about design, living spaces and life.

You may not know this but he's also the same Nate Berkus who in 2004 survived the Indian Ocean tsunami.  Tragically, his partner, photographer Fernando Bengoechea, Berkus' did not survive.  They were traveling to a small surfing village in Sri Lanka when the tsunami hit.  Nate Berkus shared with oprah.com earlier this year his wisdom about how his loss affected him and how he went about  processing it.  I just discovered this story and felt Nate Berkus' answers still resonate with help for all of us. 

 

Please read Nate Berkus' insights about moving on with your life after a loss in the following link:

 

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/When-Life-Hits-the-Reset-Button-4-Things-Nate-Berkus-Has-Learned-Abo_1?TW=tw_omag_berkus_rebuilding_video

Kris Carr's Golden Ticket

I recently wrote about some of the good things I learned about surviving a personal trauma in the ten years after my husband's death (No Lifeguard On Duty).  After that post was published, many people told me they found it helpful to know how things feel ten years after a loss.

 

No matter how crazy and afraid you feel after a loss, it's essential to keep trying to find the support you need until you discover a different way to live.  Even though change is the last thing you want to do, change is possible.  It feels as though nothing will ever go right for you ever again, but that my friends, is a feeling that eventually will pass if you give it some time.

There is always hope.

 

The idea of changing and rebuilding your life, working on personal development or sustaining a lifestyle change over a ten years period is so interesting to me.  How do other people do it?  What keeps them committed to their new way of life?  I was Googling to see if I could find out more about how others mark their personal benchmarks of change when up on the computer screen popped the name of one of my favorite inspirational people: Kris Carr.

 

Photos Courtesy of Kris Carr

 

Kris Carr is truly amazing to me.  I have written about her many times on Cry, Laugh, Heal and never tire of her enthusiastic, original and generous way of approaching life as a person diagnosed with a Stage 4 cancer. 

 

Kris Carr is a New York Times bestselling author and wellness activist who brings you to the idea of change in a best girlfriend, let's do this together kind of way.  Whenever I am in a rut or feel the need to kick myself in the butt to get motivated, I either pick up one of her books or read her blog, Crazy, Sexy Cancer (www.kriscarr.com).  Kris Carr recently went in to the doctor's for her ten year check up and talked about it on Oprah's amazing weekly program called Super Soul Sunday.

 

Please watch this short YouTube clip and listen to Kris Carr talk about her changed life ten years after being diagnosed with the Big C:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5cE3OnOZR4&feature=player_embedded

No Lifeguard On Duty

If you had told me ten years ago that it would take me this long to navigate my conflicting feelings of loss and truly come to grips with the fact that my husband died, he's not coming back and I'll never see him again, I would have thought you were smoking something and totally out there.

In the beginning, I was just trying to survive which meant working a full-time job and raising a thirteen-year-old boy by myself.  I honestly didn't think beyond the day I was in.  That's all I could manage.  I constantly told myself that other women have done it with more children and younger children and I could do it too.  But still it took all of the energy I could muster.

  

Photo By Sheila Hayes

Day by day, slowly, I put one foot in front of the other, sometimes falling, sometimes crashing, but always finding a way to get back up and put myself out there again.  There were times when I felt  as though I were swimming without a lifeguard on duty.  That I was screaming "Help" as loud as possible and no one heard me.  No one was there to jump in and save me if you know what I mean. 

 

And so I find that in between the making of daily decisions about working, taking care of the house, the car, and all of the other pressing responsibilities of motherhood and adulthood, somehow ten years happened.  Ten years of soul searching.  Ten years of living fully to the max. 

What did I learn?

         -- No one is going to do it for you.  You are allowed to wallow in the unknowns and unfairness of your situation for a short amount of time but then you have to stop.  As the saying goes, there comes a point where you have to pull up your big girl pants, take a deep breath and just go out there and live.  As screwed up as you feel, you just have to keep going and trust in yourself.  You are responsible for yourself and you will find your way to recover.  You will!

         -- Don't have regrets.  If it's not worth your energy, then push it aside and move on.  But if you have something to say to someone, then say it.  I'm not suggesting that you be mean or abrupt but if you have a point to make or a compliment to give then do it.  Don't wait around for a reason to do something.  You can't be afraid to try something new.  You are already living in uncharted territory.  You can make it happen.

         -- Nothing happens the way you think it will.  I don't know why it happens that way but it does.  That can be a good thing and it can also be an incredibly frustrating thing.  I worked on shifting my perspective about certain parts of my life and then sometimes ended up being pleasantly surprised.

         -- You have to take care of yourself; physically and mentally.  You need to get lots of sleep, eat well and definitely, definitely exercise.  Exercise is my saving grace.  On many days when I felt like everything was melting down I forced myself to get on the stationary bicycle, go outside and run or take a walk.  Sometimes I would walk with a friend and other times I would put the trusty ear buds in my ears, turn up the music, and try to work through some of my feelings that made me think I was constantly screwing up and that life was a mess.

           -- Reach out.  Definitely reach out.  Yes, your family and friends are more than uncomfortable with what has happened to you but you just have to keep talking and hoping that you can help them see what it feels like.  Strengthen your emotional support system.  Find a support group or volunteer to help a cause you are passionate about.  I think you will find it hard to make good solid progress if you try to push your feelings down inside yourself.  They will not go away on their own.  I know you think that you can ignore the chaotic emotional mess that's churning around inside of you but guess what?  You have to push through to the other side of the pain.

Ten years of hard work later, I feel I am in a better place and I have made huge strides in rebuilding my life.  I am writing this today in the hopes that I can lend a helping hand to others who are also on a journey to heal their hearts.  Cry, Laugh, Heal is here to let you know you are not alone in the emotions surrounding the loss of a loved one.

 

Perhaps more than anything, even as everything hits the fan, I have learned to try and stay positive and hopeful, to keep my heart open to all kinds of love and good times and the wonders of living a full life. 

 

Our loved ones would want us to find happiness without them and even though life doesn't feel the same, there is always, always the possibility for a different kind of life.  It may not be a life you had initially thought of for yourself but you are talented and special and deserve to find joy and inner peace . . .  and maybe even fall in love again.

Anything is possible!!!

Fantastic Fiction

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page

and feel a little as if you have lost a friend

~ Paul Sweeney

 

 

The above quote captures the way the way I felt when I recently finished reading, "The Light Between Oceans." by M.L. Stedman.

 

If you are looking for a book of fiction that will transport you to another time and place, then I would highly recommend "The Light Between Oceans" to you.  It is beautifully written and for a first novel, an amazing piece of storytelling.

 

Essentially, it is a story of stunning loss, healing, the resilience of love and the consequences of choice.

Tom Sherbourne, who has just returned to Australia after four combat filled years on the Western Front, takes a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock for the stability and peace of living on an island.  Janus Rock is nearly a day's journey by boat to the nearest coast.  Tom falls in love with Isabel, a young and headstrong girl who returns his affection.  They get married and Tom brings Isabel to the isolated island. 

 

Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries somewhere near a beach.  She discovers that boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

 

I won't tell you anymore for you need to read it for yourself.

 

I would like to point out a particular passage from the book which struck me for its simplicity, clarity and truth.  This will give you a flavor of M.L. Stedman's insight and beautiful touch with regard to the power of letting go of a hurt, a loss or of a heartbreaking tragedy:

 

"She was about to go back inside when she caught sight of the Cape gooseberry bush, and remembered that terrible day after Grace's return when her daughter had wedged herself behind it.  As she sank to her knees in the grass and sobbed, the memory of a conversation with Frank floated into her awareness.  "but how?  How can you just get over these things, darling?" she had asked him.  "You've had so much strife but you're always happy.  How do you do it?"

 

"I choose to," he said.  "I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget."

 

"But it's not that easy."

 

He smiled that Frank smile.  "Oh , but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting.  You only have to forgive once.  To resent, you have to do it all day, every day.  You have to keep remembering all the bad things."  He laughed, pretending to wipe sweat from his brow.  "I would have to make a list, a very, very, long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount.  That I did a very proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No" -- his voice became sober -- "we always have a choice.  All of us."

 

Dear Sugar. . . You Make It So Much Better!

Cheryl Strayed is one of my favorite authors.  I discovered her when I received her New York Times best seller, Wild, as a present this past Christmas.  From the first page, I was all in and couldn't stop reading and definitely didn't want her journey in Wild to end.

I was totally drawn into every aspect of her memoir and in reading Wild, came to respect the amount of introspection and hard work she put herself through to bring that compelling story out of herself.

No other writer that I know of delivers the goods about life and loss the way Strayed does.  Her writing is clean and honest, direct yet compassionate.



Cheryl Strayed

After I finished reading Wild, I went through some kind of Strayed withdrawl and had to go back and read various parts of Wild again because I really needed to feel I was in a "life is more" zone that she courageously created in Wild.

But then I found another book that Cheryl Strayed had written.  This one, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life From Dear Sugar, was written by Strayed before she wrote Wild.  Dear Sugar is an advice column that appears on the website, The Rumpus, and is not anything like Dear Abbey or any other advice column you may read.

Simply put, Dear Sugar is a million times better. 

 

But only if you are prepared for someone to give you the unvarnished truth.

Dear Sugar is a powerful book because the answers that Strayed gives to people's questions about what to do when they find themselves in troubling situations are the simple and direct truth but her guidance is also sprinkled with love and concern for the person seeking help.  Strayed takes from her own poignant and joyful life experiences and uses them as a place to begin a dialogue with the person seeking support with a problem.

It's not a "you should do this" kind of advice column but more of a "this is what happened to me, this is how I felt and this is what helped me feel better and maybe it will help you" kind of advice column.

Today I write about a letter that a young man who calls himself Bewildered wrote to Dear Sugar seeking advice on how to emotionally support his girlfriend whose mother died many years ago.  Since her mother's death, his girlfriend has moved forward to find and build a wonderful life for herself but naturally she sometimes she misses her mom and talks with him about the emotional hole left in her life because of her mother's death.  The boyfriend says he tries to empathize but "feels lame in the face of her grief" and just wants to know how he can be a better partner when it comes to handling grief.

I think that's something we all struggle with and need to know more about.  

 

Please listen below to this amazing Soundcloud link that features Cheryl Strayed reading the letter that Bewildered sent her and her amazing and insightful answer to Bewildered's timely question about handling another person's grief feelings:

http://m.soundcloud.com/audibleuk/the-black-ark-of-it-from-tiny

A Touching Moment at CVS

I was in the CVS near my office a few days, popping in to buy something for an officemate.

I was buying only one item so I stood in the self-checkout line.

But then the regular line opened up.  A young African American woman behind the cash register waved for me to come on over to her register so I did.

As she scanned my CVS discount card and my purchase, her eyes looked at the pearl necklace I had on.  Since her hands were full, she tilted her head in my direction.

"I like your pearl necklace."

"Thank you!  I found it at a fair that a local church was having."

"It reminds me of my mother.  She passed four months ago and she loved pearls."  Then she put down the scanner and gently touched her ears, pointing out the pierced pearl earrings she was wearing.  I knew exactly what she meant for we all have special things that we keep because they remind us of someone we cared for deeply or someone we miss more than we can express.

"My Mom gave these to me and now I see your necklace and I'm thinking of her."

"Ohhhhh," I said.  "I am so sorry."

Her eyes started to tear up and then she added, "Yes.  I miss her a lot."

My eyes were getting teary too.  I wanted to talk more to her but now others were waiting.

I looked directly at her and said, "I know she is with you."

"Thank you," she said quietly wiping her face.

We looked at each other and then I had to leave her line.

It only takes a minute, I thought to myself, not much time at all, to share in another person's journey.

All I have to do is stop and make time to listen.