Lost and Liking It

When I was 6 years old my family went to Expo 67 in Montreal.  I remember walking over a huge bridge in an enormous crowd of people when I reached up to hold my mother's hand. Grasping her hand, I then looked up at her face -- but it was a stranger's face, and I was holding a stranger's hand. Fear took hold of my entire being as I realized I was lost in a sea of people. I remember the sheer feeling of terror: ALONE IN A GREAT BIG WORLD!

Is this why I hate the idea of being lost to this day?

Except, I think I'm finally getting over it, at age 50, in part, I suppose, because my husband who also served the role of my navigator, is no longer here to take the wheel, read the maps, or guide me along the strange pathways I have to take if I want to keep exploring the world. You see, I love to explore but I've never felt comfortable not knowing just where I am--unless I'm with someone who has greater competence and comfort than me when in strange and unfamiliar places. So what to do when I am the captain of a ship with two children as my passengers and I am committed to showing them, and myself, the world?

Well, first step for me was to get a GPS. I did that a few years ago. And despite the scorn I felt emanating off some of my dearest relations, I knew it would open up passageways for me, ones that would otherwise be blocked by my own fear. Tools! Use them. Everyone doesn't know what you need. GPS saved my scared little travellin' soul. It also allowed me to embark on a 2000 mile road trip with my kids a few years back when my widowhood was new. Liberating. GPS freed me from the irrational fear that I could somehow be lost, and never find my way back.

This year for Spring Break, we headed off on another road trip, same GPS. Me: a little different. At first, just before we left, I felt just slightly down, a little low, a bit sad. Road trips were supposed to be with my husband. Mother, father, two kids. To me, travelling with the hubby and kids is one of the great perks of marriage, especially when your kids become great travel mates who don't wear diapers or go to bed early. So just before we set off, I was feeling a little sorry for my single parent self.

But then, the road beckoned, the GPS (I call her Garmeen) spoke her sweet words to me, Adele sang to us from the CD player as we sang along, and I realized that I don't care nearly as much if I get lost anymore. In fact, I think there may even be a new part of myself yearning to be lost, to not know, to explore a few trails with destinations unknown and untried.

Even my daughter noticed a difference in me when even the GPS kept leading us the wrong way in a city we'd never before visited. "Mom," she said, "You didn't seem to mind this time when we didn't know where we were going. You were laughing and relaxed."

New parts found, old parts lost. I want to go where I've never been.

Death Lesson #682

Perhaps it's those 15 years I spent adapting the works of America's best-selling self-help authors, new age gurus, and business speakers to sell on audiotape (oh how publishing has changed...), but I just can't help trying to find the lessons learned from my husband's untimely death. Yes, I spent 15 years of my working life filling my mind with personal growth lessons from Deepak Chopra who told me there is consciousness in every cell in my body and so my gut feelings are actually a strong form of intelligence, Wayne Dyer who insisted that our intentions create our reality, Tom Peters, who encouraged each one of us to become our own brand within a preferably flat-as-a-pancake organization, and psychic darling Sonia Choquette who insists there is no such thing as a psychic, just psychic potential within each one of us waiting to be tapped.

So here I am: with my own brand of advice giving.  I am death lesson girl, following my highly intelligent gut, still churning out the lessons, six years after my husband's death.

Death Lesson #682

I am all alone and I am surrounded by as much support as I need.

Nothing has ever made me feel as alone on this earth as losing my husband when my kids were little. The raw, crushing sorrow was mine, all mine. The problems, the family responsibilities, the pain belonged to me. It was mine to deal with as I wished. It was no one's problem as much as it was mine. Today, I'm through the pain. But, you know what? On a Friday night when my kids are busy and I don't have plans, I feel that aloneness of the empty house. Only now, I just let it be instead of frantically making plans. I embrace the aloneness. I look forward to it. I think it's important to be OK just being alone in this world, to recognize this bit of truth.

And, never have so many people stood up to help me, as they did when Ken was sick and after he died. I don't think I'll ever feel again as if there is not support for me if I make my need known. We are alone in a world of unlimited potential support.

Stayed tuned for future dispatches from death lesson girl. I can't stop myself, obviously.

One Good Cry

I had the best cry today. Truly.

While registering my son for another session of swimming I bumped into a former colleague of Ken's. They had worked for 18 years together at the same child welfare organization. She is one of the kindest-hearted people I have ever met.

Today she told me that after 24 years, she's retired from the organization. She told me that at her retirement party, she spoke of all the people who had come and gone from the organization during that time, and about Ken, one of her mentors, who is gone for good.

 At that point she teared up. And so did I. Can I tell you how wonderful it was to have a good cry with someone who was missing Ken, someone who knew how wonderful he was, someone he had touched with his good nature and wisdom, someone who had lost a friend who was my husband?

Six years after you lose your spouse, you really shouldn't be spending too many days crying about your loss. But today it felt so good to remember him with someone else who loved him, who misses him, and who knows what a good man the world lost six years ago. Sometimes I miss my tears.

That was one good cry.

What Will You Do Without Your Grief?

I am a firm believer that writing out your feelings about grief is a wonderful tool for developing self-awareness, for expressing emotions, and for cultivating emotional health. Think of writing down your feelings as exercising your emotions. Just like a body will get stiff from inactivity, your feelings can get stuck together until they are formless and unrecognizable to you. By writing them down, you sort them out. You see them for what they are: feelings that arise and come and go and change. The Heartbreak Diary isn't a sob story. It's simply a place to bring feelings out in the open.

Here's a simple sentence completion exercise for anyone who is ready to move to a different place in regard to grief or anyone who wants to imagine what it would be like being in a different place.

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Take 3 minutes to write down a series of answers to the following question. Don't think too hard about what you're writing down. Just go with it.

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITHOUT YOUR GRIEF?

I will be happy without guilt.
I will feel more gratitude for life than I ever have previously.
I will be less afraid to take risks.
I will be more compassionate to others who are in pain.
I will let it come visit me sometimes.
I will have a lot of empathy for others with grief that is fresh and new.
I will know that when things are going well, when there is no crisis, life is especially good.
I will treasure my good health and do what I can to be well.
I will know the difference between what matters to me and what does not matter to me.
I will be lighter.
I will not want to suffer again; but I will be prepared to go there.
I will try things I haven't tried before.
I will feel sad about my loss still.

One Plus of Being Widowed: The Offsite Boyfriend

Widowed women get to date and have a boyfriend. Yup. You know, it really stinks to lose the husband you loved and depended on when you're 44 with two young kids, so there should be some kind of bonus delivered after all those years of worry and pain. Now I get to have a boyfriend at age 50. So there. I'm enjoying it. I haven't had one since 1992.

Having a boyfriend is really different than being married. First off, we don't live together and we don't have any kind of contract in writing,  so I don't have to get all irritated at him for leaving his socks on the floor or not fixing the sticky lock on the back door, or being late coming home from work, or pissed that he left it to me to cook dinner for the 10 trillionth time, or left a wine stain on the counter, or won't help me figure out the damned health insurance morass. No, that sort of conflict is for married people. If you have an offsite boyfriend instead of being married, at this age, you don't get all pissy over household tasks and general maintenance and administration. Nah, I'm already used to doing every single one of those things by myself. However, if my offsite boyfriend does, on the other hand, CHOOSE to help me cook dinner walk the dog change a lightbulb fix a broken table drive my kids: HE'S A GREAT BIG HERO, because he doesn't have to do any of that stuff. It's not part of the deal.

I've been thinking that maybe married people should pretend that their spouses are actually just boyfriends or girlfriends and have maybe a few less expectations around the household maintenance, administration and organization. I've realized that I can actually get on quite well with unchanged lightbulbs and sticky back door locks but, boy oh boy, when that boyfriend walks in the door, I'm so happy to see him and the first thing I do is NOT grimace at him and tell him what he needs to do for me. I think when you're married it can be easy to forget that your spouse does not exist to fulfill all your unmet needs, mop up where you spilled, and be a sponge for all your free-floating garbage. The offsite boyfriend is out there in the world independently of me, living his life, doing what he needs to do. It's kind of easier to see him for the individual that he is when we're not spitting in the sink together or wondering who's going to finally clean the mudroom.

The other benefit about the offsite boyfriend when you're middle-aged is that you don't have to see each other every day,  thus eliminating any kind of "Oh, it's you again" feelings that just might possibly maybe crop up after you've spent the last 8,978 days in a row sharing the same space. Married people: I think you might want to consider getting away from your spouse on a regular basis. I don't know how you might do it, but I think I'm onto something here.

Now, tonight, the boyfriend is trying to get me to go Swing Dancing! Is that crazy or what? I mean, it's Tuesday night, after all.  He has already once before convinced me to go Tango Dancing, an event which I found frightening and fun and one which had me laughing pretty much the entire time out there on the dance floor. With the boyfriend, you try some new activities. Hey, research shows that long married couples have to reinvent date night because doing novel things can make your relationship more exciting, while simply going to that favorite restaurant AGAIN can feel as old and tired as...changing a lightbulb. You can read all about that study here http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/health/12well.html

The Offsite Boyfriend: he's not my husband, my kids still don't have a father, and he doesn't live here, but he's got a lot going for him. I look forward to his next visit.

Twelve Reasons Why I Write About Grief

 Many times over the years I have asked myself why I continue to write about loss. One day, I suppose, I will stop, but I'm not there yet. I don't write because I'm still actively grieving. I don't write because I have no one to talk to about my thoughts. And I don't write for pity. Here are 12 reasons why I keep on writing about grief.

1. Nothing has awakened me to life more than my loss.
2. Pondering grief makes me appreciate how lucky I am to be healthy and alive.
3. Loss is lonely, until you find others who understand. I write for others who have had a loved one die.
4. Loss connects everyone. No one gets through life without experiencing a major loss.
5. I still find it to be an interesting topic.
6. Writing about what loss means to me makes me a happier person.
7. I can't do anything to stop loss, past or future. But I can process it and accept it more gracefully through writing.
8. Our death-denying culture is unhealthy. Embracing mortality can help you live more fully.
9. Writing about how my husband's death has affected me makes me feel connected to him in a real way.
10. Losing my husband at a younger than normal age has altered my perspective on life.
11. Every step of the way, through crisis, illness, and defeat, I've found that writing benefits mental health for the writer, and builds positive connections with readers, even when the subject matter is difficult.
12. I hope that more people, when faced with a loss, will try to use writing as a tool for recovering.

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That's why I write The Heartbreak Diary.

Rethinking Grief. And Then Rethinking Grief.

Are you ready to stop thinking about your late husband or wife on a regular basis? Will you ever get enough of those old memories? Will next year's anniversary of the death pass by without psychological mayhem? Will you ever stop wanting to say his or her name aloud around those who knew your wife or husband best?

Probably not.

Even though my husband died 6 years ago, and even though I have a really loving, handsome, good man in my life, and even though I now feel pretty happy and well-adjusted to life after a major loss, I still think a lot about my husband who died.  I think about how radically different my life feels without him and the life I had envisioned for us, and I still think it's really lousy that he kicked it at age 52 when our kids were young. I really like being with people who knew Ken; it's comforting when they are willing to talk about him or share memories.

I think about him, and about losing him, quite often.

Turns out, thoughts and feelings about losing a spouse can last a lot longer than you might imagine. For those of us who have had a wife or husband die, the idea that grief reactions endure will come as no big surprise.

An interesting study on this topic, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology a few years ago, confirms what many of us know through experience. You can find happiness again after being widowed, but the thoughts of your spouse and what you lost can last and last. The study is called: "The Time Course of Grief Reactions to Spousal Loss: Evidence from a National Probability Sample." Its major finding? "The widowed continued to talk, think, and feel emotions about their lost spouse decades later."

This isn't bad news. It's just the way it is. It's normal. If you lose your spouse here on earth, you can pretty much guarantee that he or she is going to stick around in your thoughts. Some of them will be sad. Some will be happy. Some might even promote some personal growth.

Here are just a few of the findings from this national study which included interviews with 768 widowed men and women whose spouse had died anywhere from less than one year to 64 years previously:

 *  Even 20 years after the loss, it was common for a typical survey respondent to think about his or her spouse at least every week or two, and to talk about him or her every month.

*  The frequency of upsetting thoughts about one's loved one decreases over time, but happy thoughts don't decrease, and they may help to maintain connection with the spouse who died

* Intense anniversary reactions can occur for years after the loss; they are common, even decades after the death.

* Over time, personal growth often arises from surviving the loss of a spouse. Growth can come from positive memories or finding other positives stemming from the loss, from spirituality, and from taking on new tasks that one's spouse used to handle.

For those of you who have been widowed, whether you've remarried or not, whether it's been one year or 20 since your spouse died, know that the thoughts you have about your loved one are normal, and they aren't likely to go away completely during your lifetime. In fact, your memories are a very real bond that connects you to your love.

If you're a friend or family member of someone who has lost a wife or husband, know that the one who died is rarely far from the thoughts of those left behind. It's how we love them after they go.

Just Get On With It (Life) Already!

Shortly after my husband died, my six-year-old son said the words that would pretty much mark his style of grieving, so much different than my own.

"This is our family now," he said emphatically, giving me and his sister a big hug.

Whoa, boy! What do you mean? Could you possibly be saying that we must, right now, face the reality of what is right in front of us (three people, not four)? Are you saying that your father is dead and we have to go bravely forward without him? I think that's exactly what he was saying, and he continues, six years later,  to preach this kind of stoic, fact-based, feelings-be-damned approach.

Poor boy. His sister and I were all for grief groups and therapy, writing down memories of his father in a journal, participating in much bittersweet reminiscing of days past, and getting all worked up as the anniversary of his death approaches each year. He really does, I think, find it tiresome. Granted,  he doesn't remember too much about his dad...but still....does he have a point?

I think it's really easy for young widows and widowers to get a little "woe is me-ish". (Guilty as charged here.) We didn't sign up for the early death of spouse or single parenting or having to start all over again, or grieving. It was completely unexpected and out-of-sync with most people we know. It's also easy to stay stuck in the past longer than might be necessary, because change is hard, and enforced change can feel unfair and nasty.

Still.

I think my son has a point. This is our family now. This is our life now. This is my life today. Worth remembering. Worth....a writing exercise!

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Sentence completions are one of my favorite types of writing prompts for visualizing your own thinking. Take each prompt and time yourself for two minutes while answering each one. There are no right or wrong answers, and sometimes your answers may even contradict one another. It's really a clearinghouse for your own thoughts on a topic.

This is my life right now and I need to:


This is my family now and I enjoy:


The past is gone. What I see in the near future is:


Since my spouse died I have made positive progress and change, for example:

Laugh about Death (Ha Ha Ha)

Grieving is heavy. Ugh. It's such a load on your back. It's all depressing and sad; it makes people want to turn away from you, change the subject, have a drink or drive really fast or eat too much or too little food just to get away from the heaviness of it all. (Ha ha ha!)

The sadness of grief can last a long time, longer than anyone wants to know. When you've lost someone integral to your daily life, especially: a spouse, a child, a sibling, a parent. Maybe you feel like you've got no right to be happy when someone that close to you can't be happy anymore, can't be anything anymore, has to be dead. Perhaps pure joy, silliness, levity, excitement, enthusiasm for your own vital future feels a tad wrong or out of place. (Ho! Ho! Ho!)

Grief changes you. It sucks the lightness from your life and hovers over you like a giant shadow, arms outstretched, threatening, looming, staying put. The shadow can block out the sun; with no sun there is no growth. (Tee hee!)

Major loss keeps rapping on your skull: hello in there, guess what, shit happens! It can happen to you -- again, so beware, don't trust and don't get too comfortable. (Hardy-har-har!)

Last night I had a great experience at Willow House in suburban Chicago www.willowhouse.org, where once a month I go to help facilitate grief groups for children and their families. Usually, a mother or father has died too young leaving young children and a spouse behind to carry on without them. The theme for last night's group was laughter, a wonderful theme, a fantastic departure from the weightiness of death, for people needing support as they heal and move forward past that heavy, heavy load of loss.

The evening was filled with exercises and activities that either had participants literally laugh together (on demand about absolutely nothing in particular), then share happy or silly memories of the loved one who had died. Oh! What a relief to laugh about death and to revive happy times! The energy last night was life-affirming and joyful. I couldn't help but think that the dead mothers and fathers would be grateful for their children having a good guffaw in their permanent absence, and that they would wish for more and more of these moments for their children, and their spouses as well. They would want their children to remember them in their funny moments and happy times, and not for messes left behind or scary moments of crisis. Being dead, they must be thinking...geez, get happy, you're not the one who died. LIVE WHILE YOU CAN!

So lighten up folks. Have a laugh thinking about the one who died. Let the funny and the happy push away that big old ghostly cloud. Put a smile on it. It's not that serious. It's just death and it ain't going away in your lifetime. Laugh about death for a change. Do it frequently. (Snicker.)

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Now's the time to get out your journal (what do you mean you don't have one?) OK then get out a piece of paper or since you're on the computer now, open up a new WORD file, and write for a full ten minutes. Here are a few prompts for you to use...use one or use them all, or make up your own.  It better be funny.

Remember five different occasions when your loved one made you laugh and write about it.

Describe some of the ridiculous habits of your loved one.

What did you and your loved one do for fun? When did you have the most fun?

Describe an amazing adventure or vacation you had with your loved one.

What kinds of gestures, gifts, or surprises did your loved one give you or do for you that made you feel loved and important.

Sometimes It Feels Like Everything Will Fall Apart

When it finally hit us that Ken was likely to die pretty soon, hope continued to blind like being wakened by a flashlight following major surgery for multiple gunshot wounds. We were stuck in a hospital room across the country from our home, our friends, and our kids. Ken had been in that room for almost a full six months of stem cell transplant complications. We were exhausted. He wasn't going to get better.

Still, it was almost impossible to discuss what his impending death meant. To me. To him. To our young family. To our children. Discussing it would have meant that it was real and true. Talking about it felt like giving up on hope.

In the end, we didn't talk too much about what his dying meant to me or to him. It was one of those things that was just too terrible to face; it was a time where words just couldn't do the talking. But, there was one reply he gave me that I will never forget, one reply from my husband, a trained and born therapist whose world of work navigated the world of emotions. His words were inexplicable, obvious, hard to grasp, disturbing, comforting and true all at once.

"Ken, what if everything falls apart after you're gone?" I asked.

His simple reply was this:  "Sometimes it will feel like everything is falling apart."

Sometimes you feel like everything is falling apart. When you are there, in that feeling, you can know that you won't always feel that way. Emotions come and go and change. What a gift he gave me. He didn't try to falsely assure me that everything would be OK, or tell me that I would survive or happily move along. Ken told me what he knew from experience. If my life ever felt as though it was ruined, and it probably would, the feeling would not be permanent.

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Sometimes it can be hard to imagine you will ever feel differently than you do right now. What difficult feelings are you holding now? Write them out where you can see them. Sometimes you feel this way; you may feel this way now, but it is likely that these feelings will not last forever.

The Web of Memory

Nineteen years ago this month, I married Ken. It was inevitable because after we met we were happier together than we were alone. We made our decision to marry while standing outside the wolf pen at the Lincoln Park zoo on October 31, 1992. Our wedding would take place just two months and two days  later with seventeen attendees, all family. I always liked the way we decided to get married in the company of wolves who mate for life.

Many things I'll never forget, like the excitement I felt driving to his place in Ukrainian Village, a neighborhood which in 1991 I had never heard about or visited. The drive there from my place in East Rogers Park, when we were just beginning to date,  was always this wonderful journey on an adventure I couldn't wait to begin. There, right on Damen Ave just south of Division St., he was growing peaches in his yard and tulips in his garden, in a neighborhood where, back then,  anything not chained was likely to be stolen. Once, the iron gate to the yard was ripped right off its hinges, and one year, to Ken's deep chagrin, even the peaches were taken.

Most often when I arrived at his place, I could see him through his sliding glass doors, talking on his cell phone, dealing with one crisis or another in his work in residential treatment for children.  Maybe a young girl had run away to be with her much older boyfriend. Maybe it was a call to deal with a suicidal teen. The calm with which he handled these frequent calls was impressive. Here was a man who could handle tough situations with ease, and with empathy. His empathic nature was like nothing I had ever encountered in my life. He was an emotional home I had never known.

January holds not only Ken's and my wedding anniversary, but also the anniversary of his death which falls on our daughter's birthday. The power of emotional memory this time of year is like a vast spider web, lightly descending and enveloping me.

He's been gone six years now, a long time. His children are growing up without him. His son hardly remembers him. And me? I am doing my best to accept a different life that feels vastly less secure than it did before that day in February of 2002 when we found out he had cancer and my dreams became inhabited with coffins flying through a black universe or vast holes suddenly appearing in the foundation of our home.  Sometimes I wonder if one of the most amazing things about a great marriage is the illusion it can give of a safe, secure world. I don't think I'll ever feel as safe or as secure ever again, the way I did before cancer stripped me of the center of my life.

There's a part of me that likes the way this time of year throws me back into a place of memory and sadness. Conveniently, it corresponds with the holidays, when everything shifts out of the typical work/school schedule and there is added time for rest and reflection. I like knowing that the tears are still there. I want to feel how much Ken meant to me back when he was still here.

Soon, the year will move along. We'll all get busy again and I will need to remind myself that: "I can do this!" "I am not afraid anymore!" "I can handle this solo-parenting life I never expected to be living!" "I am happy!" "I can be a breadwinner for my family!" I will be my own cheerleader, my own motivator, my own engine.

Every Friday night I drive my son into the city where he plays a card game called Magic with a bunch of guys much older than himself at a storefront that caters to such activities. I drive there, I drive back to Evanston, and then I drive back to pick him up. It's a lot of driving; fortunately, one of my pleasures is driving while singing and listening to the radio.   This Friday, my top favorite song ever, Stevie Nicks' Landslide, played as I drove.

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Mmm, mmm, mmm

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older and I'm getting older too


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Sometimes I feel bolder. I definitely feel older, as are my kids. I built my life around Ken, and what's left is simply change and how to handle it, as well as I can.

Happy New Year to all. If you're with a life partner, well-chosen, may you truly appreciate what you have and step lightly over perceived imperfections as if they don't exist at all.

Funny, but the idea of No Closure has given me some closure.

They've had a rather stunning effect on me, those words I heard on the radio when Nancy Berns was discussing her book called, Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us.

The words bear repeating because I think they are incredibly wise. It's just taken slow me a long time to get it: You don't need closure to heal. You don't need closure to heal. You don't need closure to heal.

These words have given me an enormous sense of peace and permission to enjoy my life, feel happy and content, AND to hold on to the vast and unending sadness that is the loss of my husband Ken. Adults who have lost something really big and important in an untimely fashion, like a husband in mid-life, for example, become re-made; the structure of their life disintegrates, the expected shape rearranges,  and slowly they rebuild. What comes gushing out of the pipes of security, safety, control, and certainty, trickles over time into a pool of perspective, peace, gratitude and acceptance. It sits there shimmering. You can soak in it. It can really be quite lovely. Until you start thinking about how you got there...how everything had to be destroyed before you finally let yourself swim.

But, it's OK. I lost my husband. I can't believe it happened to me, but it did. I can't believe I'm a single mother in a great big world doing all this on my own. It's simply horrible that he's not here, particularly for our children. I've grown so much. I've learned so much. The most important thing I've learned in the last few weeks: You don't need closure to heal.

It's like a mantra to me, and I wonder if it stirs others who struggle with the complex and contradictory feelings of hope, sadness, guilt and renewal that arise when one is ready to move on from active grieving. Here's how those words make me feel:

It's like after the structure of my life tumbled down and then amidst all that chaos the rebuilding had to begin immediately, if not slowly, and then finally, finally, that huge amount of dust that got stirred up and landed on every available surface, settled. Oh, once it settles, it's so much easier to breathe. There's more work, there's more clean-up, there always will be. Everything just looks better. Thanks Nancy.

You Don't Need Closure to Heal

A widow friend of mine recently mentioned a new book about grief (which I haven't yet read) called Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us by Nancy Berns. The author was speaking on NPR recently and her final words were: You Don't Need Closure to Heal.

How I love these words!  You Don't Need Closure to Heal. These words explain so much to me. They explain why I sometimes doubt my contentment when I can still shake my head in disbelief that Ken actually died. They explain why I can still become sad in the fall, the time when Ken began his decline to death, when hope and dread and stress swirled around me and all of our family.

You Don't Need Closure to Heal. These words help free me from guilty feelings of leaving Ken behind to live my own time-limited life. They help me understand why today I am a stronger, better person with a surer sense of right living -- even though I owe so much to the man who isn't here to reap the benefits of my improved self.

These six words give me permission to feel happy, to grow, to enjoy life and to honor and respect what I've lost with a gentle bow of reverence.

And for all the people who I imagine might think: your husband died in 2006 so get over it -- now I have six words for you: You Don't Need Closure to Heal.

I hope the rest of the book matches the wisdom of those six words. To hear the author, Nancy Berns, a sociology professor at Drake University, talk about the concept of closure, copy and paste this link to your browser: http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2011/10/17/closure-the-rush-to-end-grief-and-what-it-costs-us/

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Take a few minutes to respond in writing to those six words: You Don't Need Closure To Heal. What do they mean to you, right now? And by the way, do you have a journal for writing down your thoughts about grief? If not, try it. It's just one tool for finding your way back to life.

When Grief Fades

When my husband died almost six years ago:

I could not imagine how I could possibly ever be happy again.
I felt like a loser.
I felt extremely unlucky.
I was scared, anxious, worried, sad, confused.
I felt out of place and out-of-sync with others.
I felt desperate to recapture my old life --and this, an impossible task.
I felt alone in the world. 

Six years later, I find that grief has FINALLY taken the back seat to living. Here's what it feels like at the beginning of this new phase of life after major loss:

I feel so much more aware of how lucky I am to be alive.
I am far less likely to get aggravated or stressed out about daily living.
I am more appreciative and less critical of my own performance and contributions.
Surprisingly, I have become a more hopeful and positive person, despite my incredible back luck!
I have more faith that I am living my truth -- liking what I like--doing what I am supposed to be doing.
I am more open to the unknown and less attached to control.
Sometimes I still feel alone in the world, but, as when I was a much younger woman, I enjoy my own company.

And, yes, if I am going to reveal all the feelings that surround the idea of "grief fading", there is also some guilt, some sadness, and some concern: guilt that I am still alive and he is not, sadness to move forward into a territory where the loss of my incredible husband no longer dominates my world, and concern for how I can continue to honor him and keep his memory alive.

Write a Letter to Your Dead Spouse

It's an obvious exercise, but it's a good one. If you want to know what you're thinking and what you're feeling, writing is one great way to figure it out, and writing a letter to your dead husband or wife can be an excellent way to put it all out there. After all, who was once your most trusted friend? Who did you talk to about your most important thoughts and feelings? Well, you can still do it (although, sadly, it will be entirely one-sided.) Never mind about that.

Here goes:

Dear Ken,

It has been 5 years and 8 months since you died. Such a long time ago. It feels different today than it did a couple of years ago. I'm not sure how I feel about the distance that has grown between us -- the distance of years, and time, and experience -- my years of living while you have been dead.

I used to spend so much time wishing you were still living on this earth, still my husband, still a father for Natalie and Alec, still here to share a certain life we had made together. I wished that what had happened to you and to us had not happened. I was really very afraid.

I am still afraid sometimes, but not nearly as much. I also know that I can't live in a wishful state, wishing for something that will never be. I've worked from the very beginning on acceptance. Acceptance has been my mantra so that I could go on living without you.

You feel so far away from me. I've had to make too many decisions without you. I've had to go it alone even though you were once my most trusted, most loved partner and friend. I've had to go it alone.

Sometimes I feel sorry for people who are lost and asleep, who don't realize that they need to live without imagining that there is a better, different, more interesting place to be than right here and right now.

Sometimes I am afraid that I can't keep you alive enough Ken. Whatever I can do, it's not enough. You deserve so much more but you got exactly what you didn't deserve. You got to die.

I'm lying. I do wish you were still here. But there is nowhere to go with that wish. Nowhere to go. It's like wishing for my own immortality.

I'm sorry that you aren't with me or your children anymore. I'm sorry that your story had to be a tragic one. I'm glad we chose one another from the moment we met. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for giving me your wonderful family and for making two amazing children with me.

We didn't finish our story with a satisfactory ending. I hated the ending of our story but the beginning was wonderful.

Goodbye for now Ken. I am so sorry to leave you.

Love, Jill


***************

When Hope Becomes Nope

When Ken was first diagnosed with cancer I was 40 years old; our children were 6 and 3. It was a busy, full time in the life of our family. We were scared, yes, but we were full of hope because given the statistics, he was more than likely to survive. That hope stretched out for four years, even when the statistics started looking less and less in his favor as one recurrence then another invaded his body.

How did we express our hope? So many ways. We continued to travel, he invested in his work, we'd set off on our bikes with our little kids, my chemo-bald husband and me. We got a new dog. Ken was a coach for Natalie's soccer team. We envisioned a future still. We lived. We got the best medical care America could offer us and fought for it even when the insurance company tried to deny us.

We got a boat.

Yeah, we got a little aluminum fishing boat with a 15 hp motor. Ok, I'm all for hope, but why did we have to be THAT hopeful. I wasn't meant to have a fishing boat ALONE without my husband. Uh-uh, that was a couple thing. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH A FISHING BOAT!

Yes, it was nice while it lasted,  tooling around on Whitewater Lake with our two little kids and our crazy Airedale terrier. Ken tinkered with the motor showing Natalie and Alec how to steer the boat while I pointed my nose into the air, taking in the cool breeze, fully enjoying the ride. I saw parts of the lake that I never got to in our canoe or while swimming. Speeding along with other boaters reminded me of my own adolescence going to cottages with my friends in Ontario on rocky Georgian Bay or Muskoka where we'd spend days (and nights) maneuvering through the shoals, hanging out with boys under the stars, or just kicking back with water below and sky above. A motorboat felt like freedom, felt like fun, felt like good times, felt like youth.

Today that boat we bought with hopes of enjoying it for years to come sits on the dock of a house on a lake, a house that reminds me of better times and happier, carefree days with a sunny future with my husband, who was more than happy to drive me around in a boat. The boat, motor and all, now sits on the dock, on land,  no matter what season it is. In the winter it fills with snow and ice. In the spring, it thaws out. In the summer, well, this summer it has grown a nice little coat of moss inside, there are dandelions growing in it as well as a weed that looks a lot like parsley. The seat is covered in black dots of mold. It's a relic of times past. It's a shame.

Sometimes hope becomes nope. That's just the way it is. I'm not telling this story because I feel sorry for myself. I'm telling it because sometimes what you hoped for doesn't happen. Sometimes there is evidence. The evidence tells a story. You might want to tell that story. Why? Because it can help you let it go.

_____________________________________

What object or place reminds you of hope that turned to nope? Take 5 minutes to write about it.

Moving Beyond Grief: The Final Hurdle

Yes folks, it's true. When you finally feel as though you've recovered from losing your spouse, you might just have one last hurdle to jump.

You can tell yourself that you feel better, that you're no longer drowning in grief, in fact, you just might feel, like I do, more fully aware of life's gifts than ever before, but still, at the base of it all lies your dead husband, the one whose death sucked all the air from your body and left you flapping in the wind like a dry husk. He's always there, always there. He's always dead. He's always never coming back.

I don't know how long it's been for you since your spouse died. For me it's been five and a half years. What I want to say is: "I feel better now."  Or "I don't wake up everyday feeling like crap anymore." Or "Some days I don't think sad thoughts about Ken at all anymore." Or "I'm thrilled to be alive and to see what happens next." Or "Fear has finally left the building."

It's really amazing when you get to this point, but it's kind of hard to fully embrace it sometimes. I'm wondering if this is the final hurdle to completely overcoming the loss of your spouse -- when you can admit you're OK without him or her, you've made it, you're happy again, life is good --and you don't feel guilty about it anymore. I'm not sure I'm there yet, but I'm closing in on it. Perhaps another sign of vaulting over the final hurdle is when you can say "I feel happy again" and you don't feel like you have to add something like: "but, of course, I'll miss him forever and it will always be terrible that he died."

I'm wondering if when we allow ourselves to fully grieve, to take the time it takes you as an individual to do what you need to do to process your loss, perhaps then it is easier to cross the final hurdle. Can you picture yourself leaping over it, arms raised high in a victory leap? I can see myself there now, or almost nearly there.

I fell so many times along the way. I was filled with fear, anxiety and pain. I was envious, sad, jealous, bitter, confused and misguided. I wrote about it. I talked about it. I got help. I figured out how I needed to live through it.

I couldn't envision reaching this final hurdle five and a half years ago. I thought I would never want to be in a place where I could be happy without Ken. In fact, I believed that getting to this point would be impossibly difficult and impossibly sad and horribly dismissive of Ken's life and what he meant to me. I also felt, way back then, that I didn't want to experience and feel and process all the grief that his death would bring my way. I knew it would take a long time, and I wasn't sure I wanted to spend years doing it.

But now, years of grieving later, I get it. Grieving fully brings your life back to you. That's why you do it no matter how long it takes. Eventually, you see the last hurdle approaching. Then you get ready to jump.

***********

What does it feel like to imagine being at a place where you are happy again? Take 5 minutes to write about it. If you can't even imagine it, write about that.

A Different Kind of Happiness

Driving down the half-mile, single-lane, dirt road with Lac Des Iles sparkling blue on one side and the  Laurentian forest shimmering green on the other, I couldn't help but feel wistful. Here we were arriving at the lake house built by Ken's great-grandfather, where Ken and his brothers spent time every summer, where Ken's mother spent her summers, Ken's grandmother and so on. And now we were traveling the winding country roads in rural Quebec toward this special place, but without Ken for the seventh year running.

Returning brought on a sense of longing for what is gone, for something lost that cannot return; a lingering, used up sadness. That's the way I'd been feeling leading up to this trip, to this place, one of my favorites of anywhere I've been in the world with its pure, cool, silky lake, its quiet, its enduring tradition. Why wouldn't I feel wistful heading toward a place that held such joy for Ken, a place I wouldn't have known without him?

But then, in just a day or two,  the beauty of it got a hold of me: the clear, black lake, the sweet air, the loons crying and the visitors arriving by canoe or breaststroke.  Ken said that memories of the  Lake could bring him happiness during his arduous stem cell transplant.

I realized in this heavenly place that I didn't want to feel wistful about my life anymore. I didn't want to keep longing for what could never be: the life I had with Ken.  In fact, as the days of this vacation went by, I felt very happy, perhaps happier than I've felt in years. Even my laugh had taken on a new, heartier sound.

I've shed another layer of sorrow and taken on a new dimension of joy, that comes from surviving loss and being grateful for what simply is. It could be so easy for me to dwell in the state of wistfulness indefinitely, but I don't want to anymore. Instead, I think I've found a different kind of happiness.

This different happiness doesn't have anything definite attached to it. It isn't predicated on any particular outcome or end goal. It contains no certainty about what comes next. And it isn't counting on everything going just right, or perfectly, or without a hitch. I don't even believe in that kind of happiness anymore.

Today I'm happy just to have a greater understanding of my own essential nature, and to follow it where it takes me. I'm happy to be open to experience and to be open-minded about what it means to work, to love, to serve and to grow.

When I lost Ken, I lost my fairytale, my happy ending, our nuclear family, but to my surprise, eventually,  I found a different kind of happiness that might just be fueled by uncertainty, surprise, the unexpected and the unknown. It took a while to get here, about 50 years. I'd like to stay for a while.

Why Widows Get Mad: A Do-it-Yourself Rant

We got screwed out of our happy ending. We were raised to fall in love, get married, raise kids, and grow old together. So much for that. We don't want to mow the grass, change the lightbulbs, fix shit, barbeque, do all the cooking, driving, worrying and planning. We don't want to sleep alone at night.

Widows get mad because we have a historical reputation of being kind of loser-ish. In some cultures, we might as well just throw ourselves into a good, hot fire.

We want someone to take care of us, buy us presents and flowers, take us to dinner, give us backrubs, tell us we're beautiful, tell us what great mothers we are, leave notes around the house for us, remind us that everything will be OK, brush off our fears.

We find it hard to raise our children alone. We find it hard to watch our children without their father and other children with their fathers, and we feel guilty that we can't be father and mother both. We get mad because we don't want to take the kids camping or build a bonfire or make something cool out of wood or butcher a fish. We are mad at ourselves because we are not men, especially when we have sons.

We are mad because sometimes mad is easier than sad, easier than acknowledging that little piece of us that will always be in mourning for everything that will never, ever, ever be. We get mad because no one can understand us, because no one wants to be us, because even though you all know how lousy our situation is you still expect us to get over it. We are mad because we know we have to get over it too but we doubt we ever will fully get over it, so get over it.

We get mad because we were so damn unlucky, our kids got cheated, and our dead husbands were even unluckier. We get mad because our future is less secure and more uncertain. Widows get mad because we want the future we had imagined for ourselves when we finally found the one.

Widows get mad because we never feel like we get enough help with our kids, our decisions, our finances, our daily to-do list. Widows get mad at people who complain too much about their perfectly good spouses. Widows get mad when you say that your husband never does anything anyway as if it's almost the same as not having a husband at all.

Widows get mad because they can't be angry if they want to be happy. Widows want to be happy. They can be. But sometimes they feel angry.

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Ok. Your turn. Why do you get mad, widow? Take 5 minutes and put it on paper. Then shove the paper down someone's throat.

The Lost Husband

I lost my husband
but unlike a cellphone
or a pair of glasses
I won't find him.
Unless, perhaps,
he shows up:
in my daughter's sweetness,
or my son's competitiveness.

He is missing; he won't be recovered
until I stand in the garage to ready the bikes,
water the plants inside the house,
or tackle the weeds with gloves and clippers.

I will never again live with his patience, his understanding
except for when I use
the good deal he left to me,
finally just keep my mouth shut,
choose kindness, be an optimist.

Never again will I see him
proud on Damen Avenue,
or perhaps in my repetitive dreams,
arising in the building where he invested his hope
where our niece lives now,
where we lived once, where we got married,
where I try to keep the dream alive,
even when it scares me
when I don't understand why I am alone in it.

He died at the Evanston Hospital
which is just down the street from our house.
Every time I go there
for an appointment, or to visit the sick,
or remember how I gave birth to our children there,
he wavers and shimmers
like a ghost, here and gone.

He will be absent at graduations, weddings,
vacations, family meals, health scares, proud moments,
storms, and floods.
Then I will say or someone will think
that you should be here, and you arrive.

In Santa Fe once we fell in love
with a painting we didn't buy.
I can still see it hanging over our mantel
where I still admire it
where it makes us happy,
where it never was,
where it never will be again.