Recovering from the death of a loved one

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The death of a loved one is one is a hugely impactful and stressful event, and if you are like me you don't even like to think about losing someone so important to you that it will rock your whole world. While it sucks to think about it or talk about it, it is a fact of life that it's bound to happen. I truly don't think you can prepare for some losses, and I also don't think you ever stop missing someone. I believe you go on living because of course you do, but there is no magic cure for someone's absence on this earth. Some things make the grieving process a little easier though.

Don’t bottle up your grief

Bottling up grief is the most harmful thing you can do. Your body needs that release in order to move on and by bottling it up you’ll feel weaker and angrier longer. Allow yourself time to cry and don’t feel ashamed of doing it in front of family and friends or the world at large (hopefully you can make it to the bathroom if you feel a spell coming on at work because if you're like me you'd rather do about 489 dumpster dives in the heat of summer than cry in your office). Grief is completely normal, everyone grieves differently, and you need to give yourself some grace and let it out.

Seek support from family and friends

Having time to yourself is important, but you shouldn’t let yourself become a recluse because it's easier to be alone and not feel the need to attempt to explain how you feel to anyone. The loss of someone close leaves a huge hole, and that huge hole is made worse by cutting out the supports and connections you have around you. Spend time with friends and family and accept any support that they offer, whether it’s helping you to deal with funeral plans or simply cooking you a meal or doing your dishes and laundry. Accept that people want to do things for you in your time of need and let them, however you can. Some people are better at doing than talking. 

Use healthy self-medication

When we mention self-medicating, we often think of the not great/unhealthy methods like heavy drinking or drug abuse and while it's tempting to lose yourself in a haze of whatever, don't. Try instead to embrace healthy forms of self-medication such as exercise, laughter, or simple pleasures such as a hot bath. All these activities will provide an endorphin rush that will help you to feel better temporarily. Coping is done in a series of minutes strung together to make a day. Get through those minutes in small segments. 

Consider talking to a counselor

If you need to talk through your feelings, grief counseling could be worth trying. A counselor can act as a neutral party – there may be feelings that you don’t feel you can open up about to anyone else and a counselor will listen and not judge. Loss can create all kinds of complex feelings from anger to guilt. It's rarely ever a case of straight-forward sadness and it's hard to work through any issues you have related to someone who has passed when that person is no longer there. 

Consider joining a support group

Support groups could allow you to talk to other people who have dealt with similar losses as you. Having other people who can relate to you could help to combat the loneliness of grief. Look out for support groups local to you and support groups online. 

I hope you don't need it soon, but if you do, I hope it helps.

Still, like air, I rise

For many years I've told everyone I know I'd need a week off when my dog died. I thought I would be a saint-style stoic person until the moments surrounding the actual death, then lose my shit and take a week off of work to ramble around my house like Miss Havisham.

It happened in reverse. I lost my mind over a declining dog for over a week, remained stoic while my dog was dying, found peace in the moments after, and needed to go to work the next day for some semblance of normalcy.

I am working consciously towards my new normal. That tag is on that tattoo for a reason. I'm here. I'm okay. I can bend, stretch, be compressed, withstand. I am resilient. If I think honestly about who I am and what I'm made of, I realize that resilience is what makes me the most me.

I heard from so many people after Geege died. People I know, but also a lot of people I don't know. Broken hearts over dead dogs brings people out. All the dog people were so great in letting us know we were not fucking nuts for feeling so bad over a dog. Amanda told me that many times leading up to it and I am so glad I had those words in my head because I felt legitimately insane for reacting like this. I pride myself on moving ahead with dignity, and doing so quickly. There is not even one fuck to give for appearing put together in this incident.

Grief is one of the great equalizers, and it exposes us in a way that allows real connection. But man, it's uncomfortable, showing your pain to the world. And it's really fucking uncomfortable for the world to hear about it. Have you ever listened to or read someone express their pain plainly and cringe a little, inadvertently turning away from it, like it's something you need to shield yourself from? I have. You just want them to stop talking about it, to get over it, to move on. We do not want to sit down to a plate piled high with raw emotion because it requires us to respond and it's easier not to. Just pass the ketchup and let's eat in silence.

Throughout this I kept asking myself why the fuck I was putting this all out there, not once or twice or on one medium but on many. It's showing more of the man behind the curtain than I am usually comfortable with. I have no answer aside from the fact that writing is a great purge. Even so, I certainly do not share everything in this space that I write. I don't know why I shared this grief stuff. I don't know why I'm still sharing it. I'm not asking for permission or forgiveness, I just truly have no idea why I refuse to write about most things more than once but this I've theme I have let have free rein. If it wants out it gets out and it gets published without getting a re-read so good God please don't let there be grammatical errors.

Maybe someone will need it in the future, and here it will be. I don't know.

Grief is weird.

Here are some pretty frank descriptions of my thoughts this week. These are not solicitations for sympathy. In fact maybe there's something that makes you laugh. Grief can be ugly but it can also be funny. In my world nothing can get better until things can be funny.

Sunday: 

-Attempt real things after Geege's body is taken out but end up on couch in basement where I never go because it sucks down there hiding from MFD, Gus, Mae, life. 

-Spend afternoon obsessing over ordering a Geege bracelet and painting my toenails because what if I die from a broken heart and people see my toenails like that?  

-Leave house simply so I can return to a home without Geege for the first time even though that means subjecting my family to my surly company. My husband is much nicer for them to be around, as always. 

-Fear hugging my niece because I don't want her to feel my sad. 

-Interrupt mourning to receive phone call from Dunkin Donuts owner in an effort to secure social justice for her workers, succeed, go immediately back to sulking

-Tired of life and in bed before 9

-Talk to Geege before bed like he's still there

-Ignore all phone calls, 9/10 facebook comments, and some texts

-Survived

Monday: 
-Wake up and cry because I immediately remember Geege is not here.
-Forget sunglasses which makes crying on the train awkward.
-Cry twice in the office before 8:30 a.m.
-Exhausted to the point of propping myself up by 9 a.m.
-Tell one coworker so she can spread the news. Most people avoid me, which I prefer, except for those who have put dogs down, and we whisper in my office because we can't speak and cry together four different times like a secret club no one wants to belong to.
-I eat literally all the brownies that come with the staff lunch and since I work with great people no one says a fucking word or tries to take one.
-I fantasize about acting out all of my small, mean thoughts on people who do not deserve it then worry this will happen on public transport. Contemplate working from home for the rest of the week/my entire life.

-Should I wear a my dog just died sign to explain possible erratic behavior?
-Try to care about things, fail.
-Wonder why the fuck I am so upset when I know dogs don't live long and I have never been so upset about a human dying
-Have to face the wall when I tell my boss who is a huge dog lover and who has been there, it is really awkward because we are both almost crying and that is totally not what you want to be doing on a Monday afternoon with an employer
-Consider contacting TOMs and telling them a pair of plaid shoes in my size that are no longer in stock might help heal the heart of a woman who just lost her dog, realize I am opportunistically insane and refrain.
-Spend time looking for myself in the mirror because my face feels physically different from crying so much for the past seven days
-Begin to identify with a straw person someone puts on a bench as a fall decoration because I am lacking human response today.
-Answer most people but avoid one on one interactions like the plague.
-Spend the evening lost in a book.
-Notice Mae is really in distress and vow to do better tomorrow.
-Survived.

Tuesday:
-Wake up certain I am in a different stage of life as I no longer physically feel like every part of my body is a nerve ending, nor do I feel sunk into myself. I feel lighter. The bags under my eyes do not. Yikes. Eye cream applied.
-Still talking to Geege like he's here, realize I might do that forever, realize I am fine with that
-Mae goes to the vet and as suspected nothing is physically wrong with her, just the loss.
-On the train I am angry about something on a neighborhood facebook page. Self? Is that you?
-Post some feminist post on Instagram. I know this woman. 
-At lunch I am angry over the shitbox healthcare burger they're attempting to serve up again so I call my Senators. Self! That is you.
-At work I listen to a coworker complain about her husband without thinking shut the fuck up don't you know my fucking dog is dead! I actually feel sympathy because seriously why can't they just fucking call someone to fix something instead of pretending they are going to fix it
-I make a list for the weekend. I'm back. 

-Watch Geege videos and smile. 

-Hug my Dad without crying

-Observe Gus sniff the entire house relentlessly looking for Geege without crying 

-Re-engage with people 

-Go to bed at 11 and realize I have not cried all day for the first time in eight days

Today? Today is a new day and my hair stylist will remove the 314159 grays I have gotten over the last week which will bring me great joy. I will return to the shore alone and that might be hard. I will miss Geegie boy forever. I will be in real pain for a while. I expect to burst into tears at inopportune times. But I will do those things while laughing as much as I can and feeling joy. Joy and pain can co-exist in me if I allow them to. I don't have to choose one or the other. 

I had an idea in my head not only of how I grieve compared to others, but how and for how long I grieve period. I gave myself a hurdle that I then had to get over when I had no strength to do so. I think we have an idea of how we should properly grieve and that holds us back from grieving how we need to. Fuck proper. Grieve in your own way, every time. Even if it's different from the last time. And look for the laughs because they will move you forward.  

L'shanah Tovah, friends. I'm ready for a new year myself.

TWTW - the one with the circle of life

Friday I worked from home: homemade donuts (recipe tomorrow) and furry coworkers. When I work at home Gus stands on one side of me and whines, Geege stands on the other side, and Mae lays on the dog bed and stares at me like a creep.

Kim arrived from Boston and we attended a Friday night viewing for our friend Mike, then we slunk through Target and ate our sad feelings at Brother's.

Saturday morning mass and funeral luncheon. It is always so great to see everyone and always so terrible when the circumstances are a funeral. People live in my memories and I can always see them at various points in our lives, but the first thing that goes for me is a what a person's voice sounds like. It was good to hear so many voices again. Mike wrote a song way back when and two of the other Mikes sang it at the luncheon. It was very appropriate. I used to not understand post-funeral lunches. As an adult I understand how important it is to gather, remember, and share a laugh in an informal setting after a funeral service. It's the turn for most of us. And I was extremely happy to finally meet KVSR's little angel baby Natalia.

I spent the next hour and a half crying up the NJ Turnpike. I just needed to get a big ass cry out and I did. It was cleansing and exhausting. Not so exhausting that I couldn't hoard Laura & Chris's baby for the next hour and a half. The newest Michael in my life was born on Friday at 10 lb 13 oz. I adore that his initials are MBD - which in his case of course also stands for Major Big Deal - and I love him so much already. That black square is covering up his don't steal this baby monitor. Technology is awesome.

Kim went north to Boston and I went south on the Garden State Parkway to the shore. It was a shitty, rainy drive, and I was over it by the time I got there but wired from swirling emotions and coffee in addition to renter noise so I was up past midnight. Sunday I slept in until almost 10 and then hit the beach and the boardwalk for a little. If you go to Ocean City, you should check out the L.E.H. soap shop on the boardwalk. The two I got smell delicious.

The rest of Sunday I spent cleaning up the efficiency, cleaning out the alley, going to Big Lots for cutting boards/coffee/dog toys, painting my nails, and eating a meatball sandwich from Voltaco's with CSI Miami in the background. Missed you, over dramatic Horatio. I left the shore around 8.

Weekly food prep: breakfast is english muffins topped with PB and bananas; lunch is Wawa salads; and I'll figure  dinner out along the way. 

And it's the week before Memorial Day. Spring is still a fart in the wind and the temps this week make me think we're rolling into summer.

Happy birthday to my cousin Tracy today!