Posts from the ‘The Suicide and its Aftermath’ Category

Aug 27

Reflections, Part 8

The New Frontier

As I write this, I’m still doing a countdown to the anniversary of the suicide.

When I decided to do this series of posts, I had not thought them out, and I allowed my fingers to weave the tale of the last decade. I have no regrets in doing this, as the things that got said were what needed to be conveyed.

It is said that grief rearranges the address book. I’ve found this to be true. After Jon’s suicide, some of his friends struggled with what had happened, and people I knew distanced themselves for whatever reason. Most people, instead of saying something, failed to say anything. This was true of family as well. While they did help with the burial cost, there were no flowers—nothing that would have been an outward sign of being thought of. The unexpected surprise was the friend who sent money to help. We’d never met—that would happen in 2019 when I made a trip to the central US. “B,” you will always be in my heart.

The events of those first few days melt together, and I’m thankful for the therapy that I have done. My iceberg—you know, the one I’ve crushed on—kept me safe and allowed me to get to where I am today. She is now resting away.

That Monday I sat at my dining table and asked myself how I, as a disabled woman, would be able to navigate what was ahead. I found out later from someone who is now on the periphery of my life that I had been expected to fold up, board a flight, and move back to the US. I’m an eight on the Enneagram, and eights don’t run from stuff—even if it takes us decades to come out. We must ultimately face it: all of it.

Over the past ten years, I believe I’ve done a really good job of dealing with stuff.

While doing the hard work of recovering from the loss of Jon, I realized that yes, I still miss him at times, and I don’t miss him. As I read through old posts, the things I learned in that real time resurface like old friends reminding me that they still are present in my life. I honor my grief wisdom. I reflect on the Serenity Prayer and the wisdom it offers to all of us. There are things we can change, and things that we need to let be. We can’t change our feelings: we can do the work of acceptance, and that in turn might alter some of the feelings.

I think back to the night of the suicide, and how my friends took me in that night. They offered hospitality in an unexpected manner, and it came with a prayer that turned out to be helpful—well, what I remember of it.

I look at more posts and come across the one about fluffy towels, and I remember the joy. I still feel joy using them. The freedom of not having to deal with the crazy part of things with Jon is a good thing. There are no longer feelings of guilt or compassion fatigue. It is true that the quality of the tears changes in the process, and the first two years of crying jags were awful. And then, the tears changed. I’m a believer in this process. If a person allows the process to unfold naturally, the body and mind will make space for a gentle change. One day you wake up, and you notice that things are different. It’s kind of mind-blowingly wonderful. I can’t tell you exactly when it happened, just that it did, and it was sometime late in my second or early third year.

One huge happening in all of this is that I lost a village and discovered a new one. This village is filled with those that face life courageously and call me out when I need to be called out! They are friends who speak a new and better language than the one I once spoke so well.

I’ve often returned to the metaphor of crossing Styx. It wasn’t something that I read about in a book. Styx is that place we go in grief and loss to do some of the deepest work we must do to discover the new life.

The discovery I’m making on this new soul journey is that I will always revisit things I’ve learned in new ways. I used to joke with Jon about him having the “aha” moment after I’d said it ten times. The truth is that we often need to hear it many different ways until one of those ways sinks in and we sit up and take notice. The human mind is both amazing and goofy. If we can allow our minds to teach us, they will do just that. Once again, we’ll think we’re having a watershed moment when it is just our brains noticing things in a new way.

I started this blog years ago, and the title for the blog came about because of my husband’s psychiatrist. During a session he stopped Jon from talking and listened as I expressed some feelings that needed to be put out there. At the end of the session, I thanked him, and his response was: “You needed to be heard.” I knew I had the title for this blog.

The grieving need to be heard until they don’t need to be heard. We talk about our loss until we come to a point in time when the storms calm, the winds stop raging in our minds, and we can once again stand tall and breathe in the fresh air of life on the new shore and take our first secure steps forward.

Aug 20

Reflections, Part 7

The Deconstruction of a Marriage

Somewhere in my reading on grief, I read that in order to do honor to myself and to the relationship, I needed to deconstruct it before I could even consider moving forward and on to another relationship. This made complete sense to me.

Jon’s suicide came out of nowhere, even though I understood suicide to be a reality of being married to someone who had a diagnosis of bipolar 1.

With twenty-two years behind me, I’d been through it, raged over it in a raw form, wound up in my rose room, and found unstable peace.

Ultimately, if I was to do the honest work of moving forward, I had to take my marriage apart. I was about to make the mistake that so many people make: not fully examining the relationship before moving forward. How does someone look under the hood in this situation? You start with the facts that you know about, and then, as those facts are either confirmed of disconfirmed, you move forward with new information. You are boring through the mountain again, but this time the rock of the mountain isn’t placed on the conveyor belt and sent out to be used someplace else. This time you are examining it for content.

What I knew at the beginning was that, overall, we were friends first, and I had married a friend who would engage me in conversations that could go well into the early hours of the morning. Jon preferred sour candy, and I thrived on the sweet stuff of life. We were both adventurous and would try things, either doing them again or deciding against a repeat. He loved his pumpkin pie, and for me it was lemon meringue. It was pie, and we’d have pie instead of cake on birthdays, and it was a good thing.

I understood that he tried to cope with the bipolar as best he could and struggled with doing so in a dignified manner. I knew I was committed to caring for him as best I could, and that meant clearing the house of objects that could be used as weapons on the self. This was hard, and scary, and went along with some sleepless nights. I developed compassion fatigue. I don’t think you can understand how bad it is inside until you’re on the outside of the situation. I recall telling my mother before her death what it was really like. She asked why I hadn’t told her, and I replied that all you would have wanted me to do was to get out. I didn’t like the volatility that bipolar can bring, and yet, I knew leaving would need to be carefully orchestrated. I had sat with this thought and decision for some time. I had considered divorcing him that summer, but I made the choice to stay for the time being. I didn’t know his mind was moving towards a psychotic break that would decide things for him. He’d told me he would not endure that place again.

I came to understand that, while the marriage was not about his bipolar disorder, the mood swings, with their verbal abuse, were a part of the marriage.

In 2010 I made the decision to call him out on the anger and aggression he was showing towards me. Once he could hear it, he was able to work on it and commit to not behaving in that way anymore, and he didn’t go there again. When he began the DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) process, which includes acceptance for one’s actions, things began to level out in new ways.

What was my part in the marriage? As mentioned previously in the piece on exiting the Mormon Church, I was battling some demons of my own.

I needed to understand how everything I was dealing with affected the marriage. Being raised to be a good Mormon girl and woman had a great deal to do with a lot of who I was in the marriage. How did I enter into this relationship?

There was a great deal of suppression involved in the process.

In the first grade, it was the girl who had the pretty white and pink dress and the jump rope. She wore cute little Mary Jane shoes. I didn’t have Mary Janes, and I wanted some. They were so feminine. I thought it was normal to think that way. As an adolescent I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about boys. I glossed over it and, in doing so, sent it away to not be thought of for years.

Because of my disability and experience at church, I had written off the possibility of marriage.

I met Jon when he came to do a house call on my computer. A friendship developed, and after four years we married.

Being raised Mormon meant that I was supposed to grow up and marry a nice Mormon man. I’d hit the jackpot! I’d married a brilliant man who could have powered the world on a paper clip. It was his out-of-the-box thinking that I loved most about Jon, and he liked that I could go to that place as well.

Still, there was this thing hanging around, and it wasn’t spoken about, and I couldn’t utter the words while he was alive. I don’t get men. I’m supposed to understand men, and I’m supposed to feel attracted to them. I don’t. After his death, the guilt that I felt slowly surfaced. It took several years and didn’t surface in its full ugly form until I’d left the Mormon Church and moved on.

I felt guilty for marrying him, guilty for the sex that really didn’t work well. While thinking all of this, I was also well aware that this was not a one-sided issue. Bipolar disorders affect relationships, and in deconstructing all of this, I came to understand that I was a participant, and there was no blame to be had: just understanding. Blame and guilt are so often miscued in relationships. Looking at this with my own therapist caused me to rethink my thoughts and feelings around having married Jon. In safety, I could admit, actually, that there was no way around this: I like women.

Aug 13

Reflections, Part 6

Read Part 5 here.

The Dissection

Giving that outfit I wore on the day of Jon’s death a send-off was hard, and it opened the door to other life changes. Like the outfit, I gave other changes time and sat with each one over a period of time. The first major life change was my exit from the Mormon Church. It had been brewing for years, and when I finally did leave, I left peacefully. No regrets or looking back: only looking forward now.

The spiritual direction program I became involved in was about my soul journey and being led to a new place in my life. That happened four years after I became a widow and took a full two years to complete. It opened up a new way of framing spirituality in my life. It taught me that “fixing” a perceived wrong in someone is not the only path to healing. Therapists fix; spiritual directors don’t, and whatever needs healing happens. Sometimes the healing comes from within, and spiritual direction facilitates changes in its own powerful way. Prior to 2016, I had not been aware of what power “direction” could hold. I had to be out from my former church for that to happen.

Covid-19 taught me about staying safe and challenged me to accept my own vulnerability. While we as a world sat isolated in our homes, we each came to grips in our own way that this thing could kill us. When I was told by a doctor to not risk going out, I listened, and that choice was a no-brainer for me. It also made me realize that this was one thing I was glad that Jon wasn’t around for. He’d have been unreasonably scared. Part of his bipolar pathology revolved around outside threats. We were all scared of something we couldn’t see, and watching friends and family get sick and die was hard. Knowing it could kill us was worse in many ways. And so, in 2023, when the doctors told me to not travel anywhere where I couldn’t get to a hospital fast, I listened, and I cancelled a planned trip. Four years into the process (2020), I listened because I was learning to make choices that kept me safe. This would serve me well when, in 2023, I listened to a friend, and then to myself. It saved my life—twice.

Walking this new path enabled me to admit to myself that it was time to do the personal therapy I needed to take on. I needed to stop stuffing it in and jettisoning the entire trauma. My captive iceberg needed to be freed.

Looking back on all of it now, I see the chain of events that led up to where I am now.

The freedom of exploring my life after I left Mormondom also allowed me to look at who I am as a woman. As women in the Mormon Church, we have a narrow field of options: sister, daughter, wife, and mother. Being raised in the 1960s and 1970s, the options in adult life were wife and mother.

I knew early on that marriage was not in the plans for me. I understood that I needed to follow a professional path. The problem in the Mormon Church is that you are taught from an early age to trust fifteen old white men. You are at their mercy, and if they are super conservative in their thinking, your options get quelled. In the 1960s and 1970s, women started finding jobs out of the home, and the war within raged as it did with me in the 2000s when I was married. With a prophet in the 1970s telling women to stay home, and a prophet in the 1980s telling women to leave jobs and to go back into the home, women were pulled and torn between what was best for them on a personal level and what church leadership was saying they should do.

I made the choice while in the Mormon Church to pursue my professional goals, and to work as a therapist. This was a personal choice, and one that only I could make. Like other women of my generation, I made the choice that would enable me to pursue the goal I’d set at sixteen: becoming a therapist.

When I married in 1998, the war waged on in my mind. Wife vs. wanting and needing to do what I loved doing: working in my profession. The good Mormon wife stayed home. We didn’t have children, and we’d never have children. I was torn between guilt and what I knew my personal truth to be. Whether it was volunteer work in the early 2000s, or paid work later on, I chose to work.

Once I left the Mormon Church, it all opened up! I didn’t have to play a role. I could enter into life not having to ask if I should walk a path that would allow me to be seen as Gail the woman, and not the wife, the woman who was not a mother, the woman who loves her profession, the woman who is even free to explore her sexuality—no matter who she is. This was just as liberating as the day in September of 2016 when I walked into the hair salon and announced that I wanted to go grey. Oh my, the women celebrated my newfound freedom from the bottle. That journey took six months and has been something I’ve enjoyed. Yes, Jon, I will never bottle my hair again.

And so, like the grey hair, I settled in to enjoying the real Gail.

I stand in my petiteness, and I claim myself as I am. I understand that who I am is mine alone to claim. I honor the process of releasing the trauma of my life—all of it had to go. I sit here and recall the mail I got right before the therapy session. My therapist sent it to me. It was the story of an iceberg. I crushed on the iceberg. “She” gave me courage. With her in my thoughts and at my side, I tore into the trauma, and I set it free. I owe my happy iceberg a huge thank you. I owe myself a thank you. Where will this journey head to next?

Aug 6

Reflections, Part 5

What I Wore

If there is one thing my sister Beth and I agreed on, it was that Joyce got all the cute clothes. We took the issue to my mother when we were adults, and her response was that Joyce had the personality for cute and bold, and we were pretty and feminine with our clothes types, and so, while Beth could sew and make herself originals, I got pretty from my mother.

To be fair to my mother, she was right. Joyce got the doggie dress that Beth and I wouldn’t have known what to do with. Joyce, on the other hand, would react when someone said that her doggie dress was cute, and then she’d extend the dress to its fullness that revealed a wiener dog. She took delight in the surprise. No, her two older sisters would have failed miserably with that task. Mom just got clothes, and she understood that her two oldest daughters didn’t have the personalities for what Joyce could pull off.

My mother’s side of the family was filled with women who could sew for themselves, and they all sat at machines and sewed their clothes. But cousin Gwen said it best: “Your mother sews circles around all of us.” She did. While my aunt could create tiny things with personality, my mother created what I came to call dresses with personality, or “dressenality.” She sewed lasting creations that would get stored in memory. I knew when I got it and when I first wore it, and it became hard to grow out of clothes. Well, that’s one good thing about adulthood. Unless I grow, I can wear it for… forever.

A trip to the fabric store was all about the right pattern and the right fabric to go with the wonderful new dress. It worked like this: first look at all the pattern books, find what I wanted, and then, and only then, could I move to the fabric. Rows, and rows of wonderful fabric. If I wanted stripes or pleats in the dress, the dress requirements were much different. Florals? Would it look right? Mom always understood. Sometimes I’d buy fabric and wait for the right dress or top to show itself.

In first grade, it was the fall colors of the flowers, and the yellow trim, the pleated skirt, and the joy that dress brought me. It was mine, and I loved wearing it. When I was seven, Beth wanted to make the dress. Mom let her. It was a purple twirly dress with long sleeves and a Peter Pan collar. It also had a sash that tied into an incredible bow. I wore it for a “daddy–daughter” night. I also wore it for my school picture that year. Growing out of the purple dress was a sad thing.

As a teen it was the pantsuit. Dark pink pants, a seersucker top that was multicolored, and white slingback shoes that I purchased while working for my father. Working meant I could buy clothes, and I did buy fabric. Why wear what others might be wearing?

When I wasn’t living at home, I’d buy clothes from specialty shops that catered to petite-sized women. They were nice, and I had my sentimental favorite. But, once again, it was what my mother would create for me that made me happy. It was the gift of a skirt and top. The print was on this electric blue background, and the flowers were rich reds, greens, yellows, and purples. The neckline was scalloped, and I had a red belt to dress it up. It was Jon’s favorite. When we moved to Germany, and then to The Netherlands, I thought the sewing would stop. It didn’t. On a home visit, I went shopping at Vivian’s Fabrics. She had to clean out and send it all off to loving homes. Her grandchildren were the recipients of much of the stash. So was I. The last vestiges of my mother: a blue dress that is pure style. I love it. Hopefully, I’ll have it forever. I wear it on special occasions.

With all the happy memories of clothes, how I got them, and where I wore them, I had to tell myself that the one that hurt I could part with.

August 28, 2016. It was the day that turned out to be the worst day of my life. What I wore is burned into my memory. After I showered, I chose to put on a skirt with a black, brown, and white print, and a light tan tank top. Because of the minor stroke I’d had in 2014, there we days when wearing anything with a sleeve wasn’t possible. This was one of those days. It was hot and humid outside.

I wore this as I walked down the stairs to have the final conversation with Jon. I wore this as I binged on Law and Order, and I wore this on that fateful walk into my kitchen—the place I never made it to. I greeted the police in this outfit. I wore it to phone the two sides of the family.

The memory of what I wore on this awful day was pounding in my mind. I was already dealing with trauma: this was the cherry on top. An outfit of a skirt and top had been put into the trauma caldron. NO, not clothes. Gail’s rule number one about clothes is that they are sacred and can’t be damaged. This skirt and top had become tainted.

I tried to wear them separately and together, and even though I wanted to keep them, I finally knew that I’d have to send them off to a home where they could be loved.

When I think back on this series of events now, I realize that it is more complex than just parting with clothes. This is about how we handle parting with something, and also recognizing that there is damage to our souls, and coming to terms with setting it free. This is about doing the deep grief work that is often overlooked in the process of getting to the new place. This is the place where new outcomes and life paths become real.

Jon and I were together for twenty-two years and married for eighteen of them. When you’re with someone that long, it is vital to sort it all out.

At the beginning of the process, all I thought about was that I would never marry again. It just hurt to think about doing that or being in another marriage. By about year three or four, I realized that I needed to take the relationship apart to examine it with no restrictions on what I would not look at. I remember being here at my desk and seeing the sun hit the window on the other side of the street. I started to think that if I didn’t take it all apart, I wouldn’t be able to move forward in a healthy way. Like the skirt outfit and dress that had to go (I sent the pretty dress I wore to his cremation to the secondhand place as well), I needed to be honest about my marriage. I needed to give it a real look under the microscope.

The first big thing I had to come to terms with was that I was dealing with compassion fatigue. While I understood this earlier in the process, I had not allowed myself to step back, pull it out, and dissect it for what it was: trauma. If I ever got to a point in time where I’d want to explore something new, this was a biggie on the road to figuring out a part of my marriage that I needed to see clearly.

The fact of the matter is that many grief journeys omit this step. This isn’t about speaking ill of the dead—though some of that might need to happen. It is about giving the relationship an honest critique, and understanding what made it good, and where the bad points were.

Breakups happen in marriages and long-term friendships. We’d be wise to look under the hood to see where we went right and where we went wrong. In most situations there are always two sides. Being able to look at something and accept the responsibility for our part of the “wrong” is difficult and painful. It is brutal work that needs to happen, and the payoff is worth the pain we go through to get there. This work is not for wimps. Ultimately, when we get through the hard stuff, it brings clarity to everything. Examination also means that we won’t leap into another relationship before we’ve done whatever work we need to do on ourselves to fix what we can.

I think that many people confuse grieving with crying many tears and being ready to move on. NO, the tears and the mess are only a part of the process.

What if the grief process is also a call for a life redo? What if the life we build after a death or loss of a partnership is one that takes us on a new path? What if we’re on a life journey, and this is just one significant stop in the process?

Jul 30

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Reflections, Part 4

Note: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is also known as the Mormon Church. Therefore, I’ll use the name Mormon in this post. For definitions of terms included in bold type throughout this post, please see the Definitions section at the bottom.

In 2008, I knew I needed to listen to what Jon was learning about the Mormon Church (please read my previous post here), and so, my own journey down the rabbit hole began.

Ultimately, I began to realize that it wasn’t what I’d been taught that bothered me as much as what the church represented, and how people were treated by each other. Could I remain in an unsafe place? At this point in time, Jon wanted to quit church over academic issues. I wasn’t ready to quit yet. The struggle for me was values.

People of different races, LGBTQ people, the mentally ill, and the disabled were not treated well. Women weren’t treated well. It was a Jesus thing with me. Jesus the street preacher would not only be present—he’d be calling it all out. I’m big on calling it out. Jesus would be ministering to the people on the margins and expect that others would do the same. Where were the ministers? They were in the main crowd. I found myself thinking about how exclusive Mormonism was, and that Jesus wasn’t running a country club for the exclusive use of some. Church is a place for all who want to be present, and for those who need to be welcomed in as they are. This is when what I’d been taught really hit me: Mormonism was not the exclusive club I should live in. Jon had told me I had a privileged Mormon upbringing, and he was right. Despite the mistreatment, I had access to people most Mormons don’t have access to. My father had been one of them. OUCH.

With Jon’s suicide in 2016, I stayed put and didn’t make any major life decisions. Going to the US in 2017 would send me down a new path. I had not thought about leaving my faith of birth, and I wouldn’t for several more months. Sunstone altered my thinking. Sunstone US is the grandmother of all things that people of the restoration faiths can gather at, and several faiths come together there. Mormons, former polygamists, and Community of Christ all gather under one roof for a long weekend of exchange. I went to see friends and made some new ones. I returned home, and the events of the conference kept nagging at me in my petite mind. I had attended two sessions that touched me deeply, and one of them was being put on by Community of Christ. Finally, I wrote a letter to someone who belonged to another church. I told her, “I don’t normally do this, but I need to write this.”

I started attending an online group for those in Europe, and I liked what I was hearing and learning. And no, don’t ask me to join your church or do anything like it. They didn’t ask me anything; they let me sit and explore to my heart’s content. Slowly, I wanted some involvement, and they were glad to have me participate.

In March of 2018, while sitting on my pretty blue bed, I realized that I’d have to leave the Mormon faith. I sobbed. It wasn’t all bad, was it? I’d learned the value of service, and that sometimes we’re stretched to do things, and doing so can causes us to grow in ways that we wouldn’t grow otherwise. I’d also learned the basics of public speaking as a very young child. I’d gotten to sing in the choir and enjoyed it. It was the culture that tore me apart, the good stuff and the negative all bundled up together, and I had to leave it behind.

What about my eternal marriage to Jon? As I thought this, the words came into my mind: “I have your back on this.” The words were clear, and I understood it was OK to leave for a new something. It still took me six months to make the move. In September of 2018, I was rebaptized as an adult, and then confirmed into my new faith. I flew home that Sunday evening and got online and resigned my Mormon membership.

At the time of the exit, I thought I understood why I needed to make the move out of the Mormon Church. Like so much in our grief and life journeys, we never see it all until we’re on the river and navigating something new, and then we turn around and gasp a “WOW! Did I really do all of that?” The answer is always a resounding yes. I’m still in the gasping place. It is a good place to be.

In 2026, I think back to the woman who sat at her dining table, who didn’t know how she’d do one year, let alone ten years.

Doing an exit from the Mormon Church was one very unexpected twist in my grief journey. I’m thankful for what I’ve learned, and thankful for how I’ve changed and grown over time.

The great thing about life is that it greets you with the unexpected, and that it teaches us, and molds us in new ways. The discoveries are the best, and the thrills are around all the corners. It’s just that sometimes we don’t fully appreciate the surprise until we’ve gotten through the hell that it takes to get to the wonderful center. Oh, and I do love my creamy centers.

I’m glad I said yes to this change. I’ve expanded in ways that have filled my life in new ways.

Definitions:

Mission: Women serve eighteen months and men serve two years, at the missionary’s expense. Missionaries are sent out to convert others to the faith. Presently, both women and men can go at age eighteen.

Leave: You can’t just leave the Mormon Church. You need to resign by writing a formal letter to Salt Lake City to have your name taken out of the Church database.

Marriage: The Church doctrine on marriage espouses the belief that a man and a woman can be married in this life and the next life. A marriage done in a Mormon temple is done for time and eternity. To leave the Church means you are no longer “sealed” together, and the bond is broken.

Baptism: Mormons baptize children at age eight. Children are not equipped to understand the commitment they are making at eight. Community of Christ offers the option of a redo, to show commitment to Jesus. It is not a requirement for membership but can be a step towards it. I had a redo as an adult and was then confirmed into Community of Christ.

Jul 16

Reflections, Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

The Healing Journey

In July of 2023, I got sick. I wound up in the emergency room of the local hospital, and my kidneys were shutting down. They were at twenty percent function. I was disoriented, scared, and really not understanding how bad it was. At one point in the process leading up to my hospitalization, I became so confused that I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the bed. I couldn’t even think to turn the light on. That is sick, and that is scary. I found out after things settled that this is common for people facing this type of shutdown. Back to the narrative. A friend finally convinced me to call the doctor, who came and had me admitted, and by then it wasn’t good at all.

I was in the hospital for a week, and then a taxi took me home. I was disoriented coming out of the place because the hospital I was in was new, and I hadn’t seen it before. With low vision, this is a real issue.

I walked into my house, sat down my bag, walked to the sofa, and let out the tears. I sobbed, and then listened as my body and mind told me it was time to heal. It was time to do the work that led to healing all of it. All the trauma I’d stuffed. I had some therapy of my own to do, and it was time to find the therapist who would travel with me as I called the people to the encampment of the battleground. Funny how it works. It took another ten months to get to May of 2024, and to begin the intense work of cleaning out my mind and moving forward.

The healing process is an interesting thing. I’ve seen people who come to me and aren’t ready to do the work, and so they run away rather than to what can help. Others believe that grief and loss can be worked through in six easy sessions, and that there is a magic formula that the therapist can dispense. The fact is that this is a soul journey. It is a journey of the mind, the heart, and the spirit, if you will. It leads us to someplace else, and that someplace is the place of wonder and, ultimately, healing, such as it is.

On August 29, 2016, I sat at my dining table and looked at the lights that had been installed so that I would be able to see in my home. I wondered just how I, a woman with low vision, would be able to survive in a country where my limited Dutch would only get me so far. The only thing I knew at that time was that I couldn’t and shouldn’t make any major life decisions for a year. That is something my father had told me, and it was wise counsel.

And so, the journey of healing and discovery began that day, and in many ways it will never end. We may work through our grief and loss: we’re changed by it all.

The social system here set me up with someone to clean the house. At first, my then church came with meals until I realized I needed to cook for myself. If I needed to not work because I was compromised, I needed to do something for myself. I needed to let the process of grieving take place.

On Friday the thirteenth of January 2017, my mother died of a heart attack. We’d giggled, grown together, and experienced the death of my younger sister Joyce together. My mother was also an eight on the Enneagram. We understood this shared experience in life, and she taught me things despite not knowing about her beloved number. She just did life well in many ways. Because of where I was in the process of grieving Jon, I didn’t see and get fully the fact that my siblings telling me not to fly over for the memorial service was really bad advice. I’ve regretted that, and would do that one differently if I could.

By June of 2017, I felt ready to plan a trip to the US to see family and a friend. What I didn’t know then was that the trip would change the course of my life.

In late July of 2017, I flew to Salt Lake City to see some friends of Jon’s and attend a conference called Sunstone. At the conference I ran into people who were not Mormon, and it flipped a switch. I felt, and knew, that I had to check this other church out.

I then went to Oregon to visit another friend, and travelled on to California to see my family and visit the beach.

Staying at my brother’s place first and then moving on to my sister’s place was interesting. At the time I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d see both of them alive.

We made some good memories, and my sister and sister-in-law insisted I take my mother’s green quilt home. Now, they know of my love affair with blue. That green quilt would cause me to do a total room makeover. I painted the room blue, purchased a new bed that was blue and that the quilt would fit on, and realized that I had the piece of my mother that loved green. It has turned out to be one of the things I enjoy seeing, and it serves as a link to her and the love she had for me.

That trip also created a memory of my sis that I could never have done without her help. She got me on the flight with five boxes for less than the price of five extra boxes. I stood there at the airline counter, shut my mouth, and watched in amazement as she talked to the guy. I know when to shut my mouth. So, that quilt and other things came with me to be with me here in my new life.

The trip to the US changed my ability to sleep. In that first year, everything sleepwise changed. I didn’t sleep at normal hours, and family would question me as I called in the wee hours of my Netherlands morning. “Gail, what are you doing?” Well, when I can’t sleep, I call you.

Planning for the anniversary of his death had taught me that if I thought about it in advance, I could maybe, just maybe, control the tears and what would happen. It worked well for year one and failed for year two. What I really learned was that with the body, what we’re grieving will push its way to the surface and force itself on us in ugly ways. The life lesson: let go and don’t try to control what needs to happen. Healthy grief lets grief drive the process so it can heal. Even if grief must be put off because of life that must be done, it will surface, and when it does, embrace it!

What I’ve learned about the first two years of loss are that the tears change in quality and quantity. Looking back eight years, I can see all of the journey better now. How different it was and now is. In letting it all go, I freed myself to trust the grief process in ways that opened my heart and mind to healing, and because of that, I was carried to where I am now. July of 2023 had to happen so that I could write this in July of 2026. I see that now, and that is one of the huge things this journey has gifted me with. Wow, what an amazing place I’ve gotten to!

Jul 9

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Reflections, Part 1

Note: This post contains details related to suicide.

This last Tuesday, I made a call to a friend and asked if he could drive up north and help me empty out the shed—the shed where Jon ended it. I wasn’t expecting him to come up as fast as he did. He said he could come Thursday morning. I was stunned.

I contacted him at eight, and he told me that he had been talking to a friend and mentioned what he was going to do for me. The friend asked if he could help! So, two nice guys came to call on me to clean out, or clean up, a space that has been nothing but dread for me. Not a bad gesture at all.

Then they offered to buy me lunch! This is radical hospitality on their part.

The last ten years have been spent avoiding the place where Jon ended it: the shed. The shed has been a place I unlock, enter quickly, and then lock up again. There is still a place where they couldn’t get the blood out of the concrete despite the deep cleaning they did. They removed what they had to and left the rest.

Several years ago this same friend came, and we sent things off to the trash. I wasn’t ready to do the final clean-out. That took me doing the work of discharging some loyal soldiers.

Mind-cleaning takes time, and it has taken me ten years to be able to deal with the fallout. Now, I was able to make the call to have the rest of it hauled off to a garbage grave.

These two guys told me to go back to the house, and they’d take care of it. When they needed me to get in the car and drive to the disposal site for the first round, they came and got me. It all takes me back to that August Sunday.

Jon came in and woke me up and told me he needed to talk to me. It had been a difficult weekend filled with our last night out on Friday, and a very lazy Saturday. My gut told me to pull back and to let him be. He was on the computer the entire day. I can’t recall what I did most of the day; I do recall that I was quiet.

We went to bed at a decent hour, and I was tired, so it felt good. Then he woke me up that morning to talk. What I didn’t know then was that this would be the pivotal conversation that would alter my life as I understood it.

We sat on the bed because he had this thing about talking to me and looking into the mirror. I didn’t understand it but I honored it.

Jon was enrolled in a DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) process. It is commonly used for those who are dealing with bipolar disorders and borderline personality disorder. DBT teaches some great life skill techniques, as well as advocating that the person receiving treatment take full responsibility for their life and actions within that life (see An Impossible Life for details on DBT and an amazing story of one woman’s journey). We sat on the bed and he asked me how long he thought it would take for him to complete the treatment. I hesitated just a second, and he then said, “You don’t know, and my doctors don’t know.” He’d been in treatment for two years at that point, and the psychologist was working with him, and being conservative. He got up and left the room.

What I discovered was that in that one second delay he’d made up his mind.

I got up and ate breakfast. It would be the only meal I ate that day. At 1:00 pm he came to where I was and said that he needed to talk to me. The conversation lasted less than five minutes, with him having his back to me. In that short time, he tore open my soul, announced that “this isn’t going to work,” and left the room. I followed him. I was angry and stunned as I watched him empty his pockets, and then announce that he was going on a walk.

At that moment I thought: That does it. I’m done. I’m getting a divorce. That was one step too far. I’d been a caregiver and was at that point in time suffering from compassion fatigue. I let him go, and I went and began to binge-watch old Law and Order episodes. As I watched, I was able to calm myself, bring myself to a logical place, and finally realize that it had been two hours, and he had not come back. I realized he could be very suicidal.

I called a friend to confirm the process for getting the police involved; he confirmed what I knew, and then called the 112 number to get the local neighborhood police to go looking so I could get him committed.

I now realized I felt hungry. It was going on 4:00 pm, and so I walked downstairs to head into the kitchen. I never made it into that space. On the table was a note. I can’t tell you how it all happened. I know I called my friend back, told him, grabbed the key to the shed, and I couldn’t open it. I went back inside, and not more than a minute or two later the police came to my door. I led them to the shed; they broke in, and they saw the body. They told me to go back to the house. I never saw the body in the shed.

Dutch police don’t put the yellow crime scene tape up. They did what they needed to do to remove the body from the shed and came into the house to talk to me. The mortician came and took him away. They put hard paper up to cover the broken glass, and that next morning it was all cleaned up.

Meanwhile, I’m in shock, having to call family on both sides, and my friend arrives to be with me. By now it is time to start calling the US. This will take several hours. It is now dark. I end the Skype calls, walk back downstairs, and get told: “You aren’t staying here alone tonight. I’m taking you to our house.” I complied. It was the first kind gesture in my experience that I’ll place in the “please do” thoughts. The last week, he came with another kind person to clean out the rest of the shed. It is done, and my reflection can continue in a new way.

The last ten years have been difficult, an education in new life lessons, and at times both horrifying and joyous. For the most part, I’m thankful for what I’ve learned. What have I learned?

Wow, everything on this blog!

I’ve learned that grief is not about stages. Grief has seasons, and we’ll loop through them many times. It isn’t about getting there, because there is no destination to arrive at. It isn’t that the tears stop: they change, and I’m sure I’m in for some as the fateful date approaches. Ten years. I hope it can be said that I’ve become a better person for living through it.

I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that grief is a teacher, and it shows us ourselves in new ways if we become open to letting it. We get a nice peek into ourselves at our worst, and our best. We get called out on the difficult stuff, and at the same time discover strengths that we never would have found if we had not gone down this path.

I’ve done horrible stormy nights and bright, sunny days, and both have taught me to stand up and be me.

I’ve grown in all ways: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and maybe even physically.

Here I sit on this cool day, celebrating a post I knew would be written before the day it happened.

Would I do it over again? Would I marry Jon and end up a widow? I can’t say what I’d do, because once you go down a path, it changes who you become. I like where I am now. This becomes about learning from a mistake and learning to find the good in it all. And for me it has been a challenge. I can be hard on myself. OK, I’ve learned that I can really be overly critical of myself at times while telling others to cut themselves some slack. I’m working on it.

I think back to the days when I was so raw, and what that felt like, and how forward movement has happened. I think back to when I wrote “Navigation,” and how it blew my mind. I think right now I’ve cycled though some fancy boats, and maybe I’m in a small boat on a new stretch of river that I don’t fully understand now.

We get to new places and must face new lessons in new ways. My new lessons are about being able to learn the value of new relationships. For the first time in ten years, I’m thinking I might want to open up to such a thing. Considering the hurt I’d gone through ten years ago, this is remarkable.

We can’t put life on hold as we grieve. I think that is a good thing. What does happen is that we fall apart. We can’t concentrate or think straight, and sometimes we can’t even do simple tasks. Our dysfunction shows up in the fact that something is terribly wrong in our lives. If we were totally functional, that would be off, and we’re not OK, are we?

So, shed the tears. If you can’t do the trash, maybe a friend can do that for you. The laundry might get scary for a few loads, and the kitchen might need help. Your friends and family need to check to do the things you can’t.

No time limits: it just is, and it will move forward when you’ve done what you need to do to move forward on your own path.

All the above being mentioned, you are not alone, and if you need to find a serious support group or a great therapist, we’re here. Grief is serious, and there are times when you need to bring someone into your space to care for you.

I know asking for help can be difficult, and that it can feel as if a burden is being placed on someone. Real friends can and will step up to the plate on your behalf. There are also times when old friends don’t get it, and new and unexpected people come into your life to show that they care and understand what you need during this time in your life.

I’ve witnessed this in my own life, and it has been a true gift. Thank you for the giving, as it’s made the hard times seem worthwhile.

Mar 5

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Dotted Trauma

Before I move forward, here are numbers for the year of Jon’s death by suicide. According to the WHO, there were approximately 817,000 deaths by suicide in 2016. I am a survivor of a loved one’s suicide, and I’m an expatriate who resides in the EU. This post is about how grief shuts us down, and then slowly turns the lights on in our lives—again. This is a post about dots.

In the 1990’s it was a pretty dress with blue and white dots that I loved to wear. The white top with blue dots sparkled, and the skirt, with its reversal of blue and white dots, delighted me.

In the late 2000’s it was a brown and white dress with a small sash that made me smile. I wore that one until it needed to see other uses.

This past weekend I ordered a new dress with dots. It came about because a friend of mine has such a dotted dress, and she said that I needed to order one myself. I think my joy over seeing her in the dress caused her to tell me to order such a dress myself. I had not thought of acquiring a new dress of joy. The fact is, suicide can shut a person down. It is a different flavor of death and grief. My brain lay dormant for ten years of grief. Gail wasn’t functioning as Gail once did, and the joy of the dots got wiped out. Think of it as a functional shutdown that allows the person to look as if it is all going well. The machine works but not as well as it could. It is why I shut down fully for several years and didn’t work as a therapist. You don’t work with people when your head isn’t all present. Sometimes it’s a day, and at other times it is longer.

My shutdown experience may be similar to others, or it may differ greatly.

First off, there are no rules in grief; there is only what you need to feel, and the rest can be set aside until you need to revisit the feelings. This kind of death and loss sends you to places that no one should have to go to, and yet, in order to get through it, you must go there. You must be willing to face a rawness in your life and come out on the other side of the tunnel that carries you underground. You will cross Styx and come out on a new shore, and just when you think you are safe from it all, you will wake up to a new realization: trauma. You didn’t see this coming because, unlike your typical death and grief, there aren’t liminal spaces in this type of death. Unlike the death bubble that hosts the liminal space, you can’t hop back on the conveyor belt of life and treat life as if there haven’t been radical changes. This time, someone in your life decided that they were going to exit, and they succeeded. In 2016 I became one of the people that entered into this place due to the loss of a loved one. And so, like with other forms of traumatic and unexpected death, those of us who encounter this hard place must settle in for a long and not-so-cozy journey. This is about navigating the river of life and being willing to explore new environs. The good thing about this is that each time you explore the new places in your soul, you get new skills and a sleeker boat that you can navigate with. It is true that no matter where the water is, there will be rapids, and learning to run them is rewarding. Yes, it is painful, and grief is not for wimps. But it is worth it!

It has been said that death rearranges the address book. In suicide, death alienates the address book. It is not just about people not knowing what to say: it is that the unthinkable happened, and now a hard reality besets the survivor(s). For me, I was well aware that my husband could end it all. What I was not aware of was how different this type of death experience is. The shocker was that I didn’t see it coming until after it had happened, and before I found the note on the dining table. By the time I found the note, I had a feeling he was going to do it—he ended it all before I could find him to stop him. He made sure of that.

The next hours and days were a blur, and it has taken some two years of therapy to reconstruct this trauma. It hasn’t been easy or pretty. It took me admitting that I was dealing with PTSD, and being able to let go and trust the competent therapist I found to do what he does so well. It has been worth the painful periods I’ve had to face.

And so, I shut down to pretty dresses and dots. The dots faded away in my mind, and I forgot about the happiness that wearing dots brings to my heart. A wall of the mind took its place as if the real Gail wasn’t ever there, and this person who was there wasn’t the fully complete Gail. For ten years she has slept. Now, I am awake, and I’ve arisen from a slumber that I didn’t know how to deal with. I have dealt with a death by suicide and will continue to be aware of how his death has affected me.

All things said, this type of grief journey is a cycle. Sometimes the thing needs to be said in ten million different ways, until the one time we really hear it, surprise! It is like we experience it as a fresh and new discovery. Whatever past grief collective there is, they are laughing at us for the millionth time as we “discover” again what hasn’t stuck. Maybe, they all say, she’ll get it this time. Grief is like spiral dynamics. We discover and loop through it on a new level.

Grief can shut the mind down. It can shut the soul down. What some experience doesn’t have words, and it is as if there is an unspoken code that says that yes, I’ve travelled the path, and yes, we’re in a strange group of people. Only we know this because you can’t always put words to the experience. Sometimes the words do make it out, and when they do, you say them.

Coming out of where I’ve been will be my story alone. I claim the trauma, and I claim the healing. Yes, I was one of 817,000. We haven’t all been down the same grief path.

Dec 18

Bored Through and Not Around the Mountain

Years ago I wrote a post titled “Please Do.” I’ll have to title this one differently. I realized while writing another post that I have things to say in a short but new way. So, here they are.

Please take your time caring for yourself in the grief process. Don’t rush the process because it will mess with your mind.

Please understand that while this is hard, and I’ve said before that grief done well isn’t for wimps, it will go as needed.

Please understand that you will never get over this person: you will get through the process. Please hold on to that thought.

Please understand that while your contacts list may change, the people who need to be in your life will remain, and new people will show up for you in ways that are helpful.

Please, if at all possible, don’t make any major life decisions for one year. Death is traumatic. Give your brain time to sort itself out.

Please allow yourself time to miss your loved one, and take your time entering into new relationships. There’s a good reason for this. After their death, you have a freedom that you didn’t have while this person was alive. You now can fully and completely autopsy the relationship. A good look postmortem will give you insights into the relationship as nothing else will, and you may decide that there are things that you don’t want in your next relationship. You can’t decide this if you’re too busy finding someone else.

In the almost ten years since Jon’s death, I’ve seen more than one person I know rush into something, and then crash and divorce. Too late, a second relationship goes bust. This is also true of divorce.

Please honor your own needs. No matchmaking do-gooders allowed! The last thing you need is that kind of mess.

Please accept help in the beginning of the process. You’ll be glad you did as long as people also give you the space to test what you can, and can’t, handle. In the beginning it is easy to become overwhelmed. There can be a tendency for high levels of dysfunction to set in. The living space can go; your sleep is all messed up; your diet becomes a non-diet. Say yes to meals, and let people know what you can’t eat. Also, eat with others. Eating with others will keep you honest.

Please get professional help if you need to. Find a competent therapist who knows more than what one can read in a book when it comes to grief.

Please remember that there is no right or wrong way to do this process. The day after Jon ended his life, I would have told you that everything I thought I knew about grief was being tossed out. I got a new playbook. While there are some common threads, each process is individual.

Please understand that the crazy tears of the passing will fade in time; slowly, the quality of the tears will fade. As time moves forward, honor the tears that do come.

Understand that bringing someone new into your life will not wipe out the love that you held for your deceased partner.

While time can take the edge off the pain that a loss leaves us with, it is living honestly and facing the reality head-on that enables us to do the real work of grief. This blog is filled with posts about my process and what I’ve learned from going through it, and not around it. I think that the greatest life lesson I learned from going through the suicide and its aftermath is that as painful as it’s been, I’ve learned things I needed to know. I suppose that in many ways, and after ten years, I really do see gifts on my end. I get how strange this might sound. There are things I miss. Our conversations were incredible, and I’ll never have that with anyone else in just the same way. On the other hand, the violence of bipolar will not be missed. His death enabled me to discover who I am in new and powerful ways.

Given the fact that he is no longer suffering, and I’m a much different person than I was in 2016, I’ll keep things the way they are. I’ve bored through the mountain. Life is good on this side of things.

Dec 11

Meeting Ourselves in New Ways

The holidays were once a magical time of the year. Maybe growing up changes it all. I think about the Gloria Estefan song “Christmas Through Your Eyes” and I wonder.

Downstairs, I have the container where the tree is stored, and another box that contains the treasures for the tree. I’ve got everything out and will slowly set the tree up and string the lights.

Ah, stringing the lights! My mother and I got over 3K on our family tree one year. That tree was lit up like a masterpiece. It took us all morning, and the effect was spectacular! We didn’t repeat the act, as it involved twist ties! What a wonderful memory. We took pruning shears to the tree to dismantle the lights. Like I said, never again. Looking back on it, we must have taken an insane capsule.

Last night, as I stood in my living room, I longed for all the pretty bows that I had on my first Christmas tree. I was an adult living single in Oakland. Oh, how I long for those bows.

As I stood there, I realized that things have changed. The past three years have taken me on a soul journey. While it began well over two decades ago, it didn’t pick up speed until after Jon’s death. His suicide, and all that followed, have altered my life in ways that I could not have expected.

With the wisdom of age, I realize that I wasn’t ready for this as a younger adult. Change happens when the conditions are right. We need to be ready to explore ourselves in new ways, and we need to greet the exploration with eagerness for the new path forward.

I’ve softened as I’ve explored who I am. Looking at your shadow has its upside! The only downside is that if you’re not ready, the shadow work won’t take. I suppose that is what opened me up to looking at the demons. We all have them, and mine resided on the battlement for decades! This time the admiral on that boat out at sea knew it was time. My iceberg has really melted.

This year, the gift of Christmas is a deep inner healing. This year, I realize that I had to be fully ready to do the deep soul searching that would lead to real peace.

And so, I wondered last night if I should put it all away and leave Advent out. I’m keeping it all out, including the 500 lights that will get put up on the tree. I’ll have to do it alone. That won’t be fun. What an end to 2025.

In 2026 I’ll mark the tenth year since Jon’s death. I’m ok with this. It feels right to move forward in life. There are some not-so-good-things to rush into after a death, and I’ve taken my time not rushing into anything. To be honest, I like certain things about living single once again.

This is a post about a grief journey as much as a soul journey. Just as navigation of the river of life has amazed me, and I’ve had my WOW moments, I’ve also had seasons of recognition. Grief has seasons: so does life. I think I’m doing autumn now in a better way. Once again, this season is gifting me with a great redo!

Life is about meeting ourselves in new ways. Each time we pass through the hard stuff of change.

Haven’t I begun a post like this before? Another loop in time. Here I go again!

Jan 14

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Editor’s Pick: Eighty-Four Months

When mental illness takes its toll on individuals who are afflicted, caregivers can be easily overlooked or even forgotten. I’ve chosen this piece, which considers caregivers’ needs, originally posted in September 2023, as my Editor’s Pick for the week.

-Claudia

During the summer of 2016, I sat in my office and realized that I needed to make a hard decision: do I leave Jon, or do I stay? Leaving him would mean that I would be able to pursue my own path, and I’d exit the caregiver role that had taken up so much of my emotional energy for the past twenty-two years. I was worn out. Staying in the marriage would mean that I’d continue to do what I’d been doing for most of our relationship.

Leaving him when he was not able to stand on his own yet could mean suicide. He was doing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. DBT was created from Marsha Linehan’s work. I’m thankful that she had the insight to bring this forward for the mental health community. For Jon, it was a slow process, and one that would take many more years. The therapist needed to help him resolve family-of-origin issues, as well as provide him some life skills that would help during times of crisis. In the long run, I’d benefit from what he was doing.

What no one knew in July of 2016 was that in six weeks the horror of suicide would confront me. He was entering into another psychotic episode, and this was the one thing that would cause him to end his life. He wore a mask of fear around facing another psychotic episode and recovering from the damage it would cause. He had disclosed to me that if he felt himself moving in this direction, he would end his life. Not one of us who might have seen it coming saw things for what they were.

As I think back, compassion fatigue had burrowed deep into my mind. I was physically and mentally exhausted.

Looking Back

Where was I? If he told me to gather up the objects that would enable him to end his life, I would go through the house and do so. I would store them away until he felt safe from himself. When he stressed and had a crisis, I talked him down from it. Sometimes it took hours to get him to a point where he would swallow an extra dose of medication. Then I’d need to make sure he slept. When he overspent, I could no longer fight it. I had no energy to go up against the crazy. Everything combined took its toll on me. I felt like I was abused, and there were no bruises to show for the abuse I was enduring. If he felt something, I felt is as well. I was becoming nuts in my own way. How could I not feel for him? He was suffering in ways that cut deep into his soul. I couldn’t sense this in its fullness as it happened. Our humanity leads us to compassion for suffering of this magnitude. Compassion calls us to act when we can’t empathize with something that we haven’t experienced. I will never know what it is like to feel the level of darkness, dysfunction, and despair that he felt on a daily basis.

I asked questions to understand. It is one of the reasons I’ve placed his writing on this site in the form he constructed his blog Jon’s Hideaway. Jon struggled with sharing the little he did share. I’m glad he was courageous.

There were the comments, and the assumptions. I was told that I wasn’t putting enough into the marriage! Holy hell, I was dying inside!

Being raised in a patriarchy and a high-demand religion wasn’t helping me in any way whatsoever. I raged inside as there was no place for me to turn. Had I gone full disclosure to my family, I would have been told to divorce him. I loved him, and I couldn’t see a path that would have served us both well. What I needed was mental and emotional relief from the situation. When you are dealing with compassion fatigue, you can’t understand the pulling apart of your own soul that is taking place at the time. The fatigue blocks it out.

The Needs of Caregivers

What do caretakers who deal with the bipolar population need? First, and above everything else, we need safe places that allow us to disclose our needs. We need a supportive friend who can listen and keep us objective, and also show empathy. We need someone to spell us off so that we can get out and get away from the stress when the stressful times increase. We need others to come in and help with housework or meals when our energy is low.

One of the huge issues I had with Jon was around keeping his dignity intact. Jon was a brilliant man. Mental illness robs people of dignity. As his caregiver, I fought to shelter him from people who didn’t understand. He was well aware of how mental illness is viewed. We talked about it often.

How do you explain to people that bipolar isn’t the person going creatively mad? Most of what bipolar brings into a person’s life is darkness, dysfunction, days and nights of sleeping, and not being able to care for yourself. Showering can be put off for days. Brushing teeth might not happen, and if a person is alone, they might not eat, or they might overeat.

During the time I was out of the home for a vision rehab program, I had people set up to deal with the crisis end of things. I didn’t have people set up to check in on him. At the end of one of my four days away from him, I walked in on a scene that scared me. He hadn’t fed himself, showered, taken out the trash for pick up, and had I not come home it would have become worse. I called the psychiatrist and got him in. Then, I took a week off from the program in order to stabilize things at home. I wasn’t worried about him attempting suicide: he didn’t have that kind of energy. I needed more help than I had.

What Else?

There is also the obsessive-compulsive factor that surrounds bipolar. Not all bipolars are also diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD); however, there are components of the disorder that show up for many people. For Jon it was being able to make his guitar. He needed to have the perfect neck for him to play. So, he never really played his guitar: he researched, purchased tools to “fix” it, and then never got to fixing it. There was also the thought that he would record his own music. So, he began to build his own recording studio. Trying to reason with him became a war zone. I stopped fighting with him. I didn’t want the war to resurface in our relationship.

Then the issue of me cleaning our house came up, and I wasn’t allowed to clean the house because I couldn’t see it all well enough to do the task right. He would put it off, and every once in a few months would take several hours and clean. I sunk further into despair. When we moved out of our home due to bankruptcy, and people came to help us move, I was the one blamed for the messy house. Once again, no one asked the why question, and it wasn’t safe to explain it all. As my mother used to say, “Assuming make an ass out of you and me.”

One thing led to another, and by the time he took his own life, I was beyond worn out: I was numb.

Aftermath

While I was able to understand on some level what the marriage had done to me, I wasn’t able to understand it in its completeness. It would take years for that to happen. It has taken over eighty-four months to write this post. It isn’t that I was unaware of compassion fatigue; it is about the fact that grief work involves sifting through so many aspects of life. For me to fully process this has taken almost eighty-five months. For some of you it will happen much sooner in the process.

When I look into the mirror, I see a face that isn’t stressed, a woman who can smile, and a life that is taking me along paths that I never imagined I’d walk. It is enough.

Sep 2

Three Minutes

The summers come and pass into falls; the ground hardens, and winter calls the earth into its slumber. Awake, and come forth out of the ground, sweet spring! The cycle continues. And so it goes with grief. We spiral through the cycles of the years. With time, the tears change in quality and quantity, until one day, when we least expect it, we notice ourselves standing on new shores and feeling new emotions.

The longer I move forward, and as the years fade one to another, I realize that if I’m doing this well enough, I’ll find myself challenged in new ways. At the beginning I thought the process of grief was to arrive on the new shore and celebrate something. The something to be celebrated never came. What I came to understand was that doing grief well enough is not for wimps.

The further out I move from what happened eight years ago, the more I find myself in the forest of uncertainty. That place where the monsters of exploration and uncertainty dwell. In a strange and surprising way, this summer gifted me with sanctuary. I wasn’t expecting any of what has happened in my grief journey this summer.

Three minutes of my life have affected me for eight years. In July of 2023, a sequence of events began to unfold in my life that set me in motion towards resolving three minutes of a conversation that had scared and wounded me in a way I’d never been hurt before. I’m healing from his suicide in a way I could not have imagined a year ago.

I tell people that there is grief, and that all grief is difficult, and some of it is filled with unexpected trauma because life is not predictable in any way. We may not see a death coming. We don’t see a person who exits life by suicide coming. They’ve done the unthinkable. They thought of it and carried a plan out. We’re left with a puzzle. Why?

If they left a note, it explains their thinking, or sometimes the lack thereof. Jon left several notes, and they did explain the why. It has taken me eight years to unravel the crazy of the last three minutes of our life together.

He was sick, and while I was in the room with him in that moment in time, I didn’t understand just how sick he really was.

Healing this wound has required me to examine our relationship, and it has led me to a place of forgiveness for the last three minutes of our married life. Forgiveness should never be done without thought. When we forgive, it doesn’t mean that we won’t remember what happened. We’re human, and humans can’t forget things. In time the pain can fade; the relationship can heal to something new. You can’t go back. That will never work.

Forgiveness is about being able to move forward with a new understanding and a new normal. It is about seeing an old rainbow in new ways. Forgiving is about growth and understanding by all parties involved. It is about authentic acceptance on both sides. It is also about realizing that the other involved person or persons may never be able to get to a place of doing authentic forgiveness.

There are reasons why someone may not ever be able to authentically forgive, and so the process backfires:

They are being rushed or pressured to move to the “forgive me or forgive someone else” place.
The religious may see forgiveness as a sign of healing and progression and lack the insight and understand that this can only happen when enough healing has occurred.
“Hug your brother or sister and say you’re sorry.” This one is a doozy! What this actually teaches children is that they don’t really need to think about the wrong they’ve done if they do an action and say two words.
Forgiveness stems from our hearts and souls and has a spiritual base.

There are also readiness factors for accepting someone’s apology:

Has enough personal work been done on the receiving end so that the matter can be discussed and resolved?
Is there clarity about how the new relationship will move forward? Have the appropriate changes been made?
Is there understanding that a new trust will need to be earned, and that trust takes time to build?
Can both parties agree to work on the trust in in an open manner?

Jon isn’t here for me to talk this out with him. I understand now just how sick he was, and that those three minutes of my life happened due to the fact that he was in unspeakable pain. If he were here, I’d now accept his words asking for forgiveness, and the relationship would move forward with new understanding, and we’d both grow. Today I miss Jon.

Apr 22

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I Miss (Revisit)

Originally posted on June 1, 2022.

Last night while reading, my mind was blown by what was on the pages. It seemed as if I had been sent sailing into the outer limits of my mind, and that I was needing to process all the fantastic thoughts that were coming to me. I realized that my out-of-this-dimension-process-person was gone. OUCH!

In realizing this, I also noticed that I wasn’t shedding tears, I wasn’t angry, or even sad: I just missed him and the easy access to processing wild thoughts. Now who do I do this with? The one person who might go there with me no longer speaks to me due to where my life has gone. (That’s an entirely different post.) What do I do now?

The prospect of finding a new conversation partner for exploring the out-of-the-box things that need to be spoken, pondered, turned over in the mind, and configured into working theory and thought is difficult. He is gone.

I began to reflect on those long conversations that took us into first one and then another subject, until the wee hours of the morning when my intellect was stimulated and all we could do was collapse into bed, not remembering exactly where we began—only knowing where we wound up.

While walking on the treadmill this morning, I realized that somehow, without my knowing it, something inside of me had shifted. What piece of the grief puzzle, the loss, the resolution, had gently moved into place?

Is it that in our journeying and self-discovery and the multiple examinations of the past relationship, we resolve the ugly, the painful, the hidden along with the happy and joyous parts of the relationship?

In contemplating this, my thoughts turned to the fact that death is for the most part traumatic. It is traumatic for the dying and for those left behind. We don’t expect it will happen when it does, or how it happens. We don’t get to have closure. Yes, if there is a terminal illness involved, we might be able to have some of those conversations—but not all of them. We move forward, and in time, shifts happen and things change.

There are no certain answers with the grief process. There is no ready formula that creates resolution and stops the tears. There is no end point. Time doesn’t resolve the pain and loss. There are people who are in the same struggle ten years after they’ve lost someone—the pain is just as intense. I think there are things that can stimulate forward movement. I’ll talk about a few of them in no particular order of importance.

Be open to the tears, because tears tend to cleanse our souls and open new paths of healing. If we fail to care for ourselves by honoring times when we need to let the tears flow by pretending that shedding the tears is weakness, we shut ourselves down to legitimate growth. It is natural to cry in pain, to feel the hurt fully, and to allow our bodies to respond naturally when we’ve been assaulted by physical, mental, or emotional pain. Tears are a cue to the self that all is not right within us.

Shrines are damaging, so don’t build them. Shrines to anyone tend to block progress. They stifle our development by keeping us in a memory loop that can lead to not being able to move forward. We become trapped in the past life we had with this person.

Reclaiming a space that may have been the domain of another person is difficult and emotional work. It is a good idea to go into a bedroom or workspace with a supportive friend or family member to enable the beginning of the process of restructuring the new space.

Photographing things we want to remember enables us to move forward and hold onto memories. It also allows us to create new spaces for the living. I think people create shrines in fear of forgetting. This doesn’t mean that we go in and take everything away. What all of this means is that we give careful thought to finding some of their possessions new and loving homes. We become selective about what will really mean something to us. We might store some things in order to determine at a later time what we want to hold onto. There is an element of realism to this. In sorting through things, we can remember and face some of the work around remembrance that must be done in all relationships. I had sufficient space to store some things until I could realistically come to terms with what I wanted to do with them. Intentionally packing things away, asking others about some of the items, and coming to terms with how I felt about things enabled me to not erect any type of shrine that would be unhealthy.

In stating the above, it does not mean that I’ve wiped my husband out of the home. There are photos and other special memories tucked away that I can enjoy when I want to do so. No shrine.

Stare it all down. If we’re not willing to look at something, we need to as ourselves why we’re avoiding doing so. If we’re in a rush to explore everything, why is it a rush? Would allowing time and a gentle approach serve us better? There are some realities that we’re forced into dealing with, and meeting them with courage rather than denial does wonders for us and others. Denial, in its own way, is a shrine to the unknown.

Recognize that if you listen to your heart, your head, and your gut, you will gain insights into the when and the how of looking at issues. You will also have a better sense of when you are stuck and need to seek help in moving forward to the place where you become unstuck. For most people, the process of looking at it all and facing the reality of whatever loss it is seems to be the most difficult. We’re not animals who are designed to move on. We’re humans, and we function differently than out pets, who may remember and miss their pet housemates or human companions, but who will move on as the scent fades with time. We’re wired to remember, and we should!

Speak the person’s name! Speaking of memories and uttering their name is a good, healthy thing. Burying the person is one thing and keeping them alive in a healthy way is another area of work. Out of sight is not out of mind. Talking helps us all process the loss.

There will come a time when you will be able to remember and reframe the relationship that was lost in a better and clearer manner. Allowing for gentle time, courage, and uncertainty as to when it will all come together is key in moving on. Yes, I miss him in a different way now, and it is both sad and good at the same time.

Feb 6

After the Raging Storm

The wind blows, and I’m inside, sheltered from its intensity. I live in a windy place where storms travel across the North Sea and greet me. Sometimes the raging winds howl outside, and I wonder if my windows will break to admit the destruction into this home. At other times it is a softer wind that I hear, and I can look outside to see the umbrella cover being moved: that is how I know there is wind outside.

Beyond the walls of my home, the storms can rage. There are times that mental storms rage for people, and the fix or cure is to talk them out. Sometimes you need a professional to do the listening, and to provide the safety of shelter from the storm.

Grief can rage with an intensity, and at the same time can be the quiet storm that calls us to a peaceful reflection. I’ve experienced both sides of the storm. I’ve known the intensity of the wind as I feel it might break through all of me and leave me splattered on the ground.

I remember a night early on in the process where the storm raged outside of my home, and inside it brought up the question: How will I survive this alone? I raged at myself, at Jon, and at God. The rage wasn’t about how this could happen to me. The rage was about the unknown I was facing. At the time, it was November, and his death had been in late August. I was waking up to what was. I was raging at myself because I was now alone. A disabled person who had relaxed into having another person present to help when I needed a pair of eyes that worked well. Now he was gone and I thought to myself that I’d been foolish to relax my independence. I’d become lazy in relying on him. NO MORE.

I raged at Jon for exiting and honoring his own need to not live through another psychotic episode that would take years to walk out from. Yet, in that rage, I knew the trauma that he had chosen to avoid. It would have been too much for him, and too much to ask me to hold as I cared for him. At the end of his life, I was suffering from compassion fatigue. I wasn’t in a good place.

I was raging at God because I could safely let God hold my rage. This wasn’t about God. God didn’t do anything to me or to Jon. That is not a God I could ever believe in. I just needed to rage on that stormy night. It was enough. When the tears faded out and the body stopped shaking, I was able to rest in the bed we had shared. It was a beginning of closing out the old and entering a new space where that bed would be replaced for something that was all mine.

The bedroom went from a milk-chocolate brown to an ice blue.

I purchased the new bed on a stormy day. That night, sirens blared at accidents that had happened. The snow stayed for days, and I hunkered down as the powerful wind howled beyond my office, rattling the windows, and I wondered if I’d survive it all. Somewhere out there, the storm I was surviving was raging in someone’s head. By then, the head storm of that November night in 2016 had passed, and I understood that I could do what I had to do if I was smart about it. Jon’s storm had ended, and my storm had begun.

We’d talked about how his suicide would hurt me, and others. We’d talked about it in the very room I slept in. He knew what it would do to those left behind. I couldn’t hold it against him, because to stay would have meant suffering mental terror that no one should suffer. Psychosis is traumatic.

When you are in the storm or trauma, you can’t look to the edge and see much hope. This is why grief can be the unwelcome storm that rages out of control. We have no control over any of it. We can manage some of our behavior as we gain experience in meeting the winds. We are not in a place to stop any of it. Storms, by their nature, tend to blow themselves out when they finally get to a point of dying down.

Grief by its own nature will calm itself when we allow our bodies and souls to do the work that must be done. We navigate harsh waters; we travel underground, and we bore through mountains. In the end, we stand on new ground.

The rage inside and outside has stopped. We question how it happened, and we can conclude that the process of it all, while useful to understand, isn’t needful to focus on. In many ways it is enough to respect the wind for its power to carry us to a new place in life where we come to believe that we can face the other storms that come our way.

Oct 9

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Fluffy Towels

Memories flooded my mind this past weekend. My mother, my brother, and my sister all came up for me, and then the towels, and Jon.

Oh, those towels! I think back to when we purchased them. We needed to replace towels, and I wanted fluffy, warm towels that would feel good after leaving the heat of the shower. We disagreed. After his runaway spending, he couldn’t justify fluffy towels in his mind. I relented, and we got towels that I didn’t like. There would be no argument that way, and keeping the peace was important for my sanity.

I sit here now crying over towels and the wreckage of bipolar in my life, and in our marriage. Crazy what brings one to tears, and even crazier that of all the things that could bring tears to my eyes, it is towels, and the memories, that surface.

It’s the non-logic of bipolar that traps the partner into the crazy. You don’t see it coming, and when you’re in it, you can’t figure out how it is that you got to this place. Seven years without Jon has enabled me to autopsy the “how” it happened.

We were in his car driving home from my work. Driving south on 680 headed homeward, and to this day I can’t remember what I said that triggered the rage. Whatever it was, he went off, and to me, having never witnessed that type of anger, I didn’t get that it was the bipolar talking. What had I said? I was somehow guilty of something, and I had to respond with an answer that would pacify him. He had me right where the dysfunctional mind wanted me. I’d been sucked into something I didn’t understand. His demand for an answer didn’t make sense. In that state of mind, when he was in that place, nothing made sense. Somehow, to him, things made sense, and so he’d demand answers.

I was raised with love, and gentleness, and had not experienced this type of anger or seen it in a relationship. Here it was. I was faced with something I didn’t want, and didn’t understand. This brilliant guy was showing me a side of himself that didn’t make sense. It was borderline narcissism, and it was manipulative rage.

I was years away from understanding what I needed to do in this situation. My response was to attempt to comfort him. What I should have done was leave the rage and let him work it out for himself. I was trapped in a car, and I couldn’t leave easily. It would take his psychiatrist telling me to walk away, and that was over a decade away.

That session was the most helpful session we had with the psychiatrist. This was a man who really cared not only about Jon—he cared about me. He turned to Jon and asked him if my leaving during a rage would be helpful, and Jon, much to my surprise, said that it would be very helpful. For me, those words lifted a burden, and a layer of care. I was already suffering from compassion fatigue, and here was someone telling me to let go!

This wasn’t the first time this man would tell me to let go. In November of 2011, he took the time to talk with me in length about fully letting go and trusting that Jon would do what Jon would do, and that I needed to let the process unfold. Whether he chose life or death, it wasn’t my call, and I couldn’t do one thing to make it right.

In December of 2011, we walked outside to a waiting taxi, and I was off on a fifteen-month adventure at a rehab center where I learned some skills that enabled me to do more for myself as a visually impaired person. This was also a time of contemplation around the issue of being able to let go, and to let Jon live or not live his life.

I didn’t go to the Loo Erf without a plan for him. I had people that were willing to help and, with that, I could leave Jon at home.

I understand why people leave their partners when there are mental health issues. For those of us who stay, it is both a choice and a hope that things can get better. For Jon, that hope came with a two-year Dialectal Behavior Therapy (DBT) program. It required him to change his psychiatrist and take on a psychologist. DBT teaches skills, and for Jon, it moved him closer to an understanding of how to escape the crazy of his behavior. This switch did not occur until I was done with my vision rehab in Apeldoorn. Slowly, the burden of caretaking was lifted. It was helpful.

What was most helpful was Jon realizing how the rages had hurt me. His promise that he would not rage again was something that he kept until the 28^th of August, 2016. With a psychotic episode looming near, there was one last burst of rage before he ended it. This was not the rage that I’d experienced that first night; it was the rage of escape, and ending. It is a rage that hurt, and it will stay with me forever. His three-minute outburst would justify his doing what he did in the final moments of our living relationship. It took me to a level of anger I had not allowed myself to feel for him in the twenty-two years I’d known him. I needed to cool down.

I sit here wondering how to conclude this. I think about the three other deaths that have affected me post Jon doing what he did. My mother died after a long life of love and giving to us as young children and adults. My brother died, leaving his wife and adult children. His death caused me to ask why he wouldn’t care for himself better. Why? My sister’s life came to an end after a courageous battle with liver cancer.

Looking back on all of this, I shake my head in wonder, but not in disbelief. I’ve lived through it all: all seven years of it.

Yesterday I sat at the computer and realized that putting it off wouldn’t fix the towel issue. What did I want? Fluffy towels! I needed three sets.

Looking at the choices I had, and the price I’d need to pay to replace the old, worn towels, I thought about what I wanted. I’ll take a yellow set, a blue set, and a light pink set. In the cart, to the checkout, confirm the order with the bank, and the confirmation mail hit my mailbox.

Towels: and I’m crying again.

Sep 19

Eighty-Four Months

As I think back, compassion fatigue had burrowed deep into my mind. I was physically and mentally exhausted.

Looking Back

There were the comments, and the assumptions. I was told that I wasn’t putting enough into the marriage! Holy hell, I was dying inside!

The Needs of Caregivers

What Else?

One thing led to another, and by the time he took his own life, I was beyond worn out: I was numb.

Aftermath

When I look into the mirror, I see a face that isn’t stressed, a woman who can smile, and a life that is taking me along paths that I never imagined I’d walk. It is enough.

May 29

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Leaving the Bench for the Second Time

The past few weeks have given me opportunities to reach back and reflect on my own process of grief and arriving at a new waypoint. What happened? The more I live, read, and experience, the more I understand the journey I’m on with building a new life.

I’ve reflected on the many people who post early on in support groups. Their partner is newly deceased and they are asking after one or two weeks, “When will the tears end?” I understand why they’re asking this. This type of pain hurts physically. The people who respond, who have had more time in the grief cycle, usually tell the newbies that things will change, and to give it time, which is not what anyone wants to hear when the physical and emotional pain are so intense.

Here’s my question for people who jump into these groups so soon: Why are you here so soon? That is the first question I ask as I read. I answer it with a list of reasons they might have: times have changed, and society is no longer connected like it used to be. People have lost communities of support.

I’ll say this until I don’t need to say it any more: the Western world has become a place of instant everything. In the West, we’re losing the skill of self-soothing. The need to sit in silence has never been so needed, and yet the volume levels are turned up so that we fail to hear what our bodies, hearts, and heads are telling us to do: sit in quietness and be still. We’ve also lost community. Community enables us to soothe ourselves, and in time turn to others for what we aren’t able to do for ourselves. This is a huge reason people show up to a Facebook group. Instant community that isn’t community. Some of what is there is helpful, and at times some things on these pages are not helpful.

This last weekend a friend said goodbye to her mum. It has been some time in coming, and when the end came it was a peaceful ending. I’ve been aware that she and her family are in a “thin place.” I sometimes call it the funeral bubble. It is a place of reflection, where time stops while the rest of the world continues on. For those in the thin place, things are altered. We cry; we touch the spiritual; we reflect; we can think new thoughts, and in some ways, it can be rather mystical. It can be a place of solace. Eventually, we’ll leave the thin place and get back on the conveyor belt. It is when we enter the fast-paced arena of life that we demand the instant stopping of tears. We want the pain gone. We fail to realize that just like physical pain telling us and our bodies to take notice of what is going on, emotional pain is telling us the exact same thing: take notice, sit down, you are hurt.

Sitting here, I reflect on the day of August 29^th, when I sat at my dining room table wondering the unthinkable: How will I survive? I wasn’t thinking of tears or the path I’d need to follow. The crazy crying jags appeared on the scene right on schedule: as soon as the emotional numbing thawed out. Looking back on it now, I think I was more scared of the crying than questioning when the tears would stop. This type of crying is physically violent. You feel it well up inside, and like an earthquake you hear the rumble of the approaching event. Ready? Shake. Hold your breath and wait for the thing to go away. And then the aftershock hits just when you think it’s over, and it starts up again. These crazy crying jags happen anywhere, nowhere, and some are triggered by memories while others have no rhyme or reason. They happen, and we who survive become embarrassed by the crazy state that doesn’t make sense to us. We leave a grocery cart in a store as we exit stage at right and bolt for the car in hopes of a safe place to let the tears out. We want them gone. Our minds are sending us a clear signal that we’re in pain.

At this point we might be well into the grief, and well-meaning friends and family want to help by fixing it, and so they offer up help that might not be helpful. The catch here is that they may not understand, and you may not be able to explain any of what you’re going through. The words may arrive on the scene when the pain has lessened. You don’t fully understand any of this until you are years down the road. Don’t rush it—you’ll miss the essential nuggets and treasures that will be so valuable to you in your new future.

In that new future the pain dims, and the quality of the tears changes to something else. We cry until we cry rarely. We remember with joy and fondness the good and wonderful things. We can objectively look at the relationship with its strengths and weaknesses. We gain understanding. We question; we contemplate; and we ask questions about the paths we didn’t travel down. In our questioning we become open to new pathways. We act by beginning to move towards something new.

This movement is healthy and essential to living our lives in a new way. Along this new path we might begin to smell the trees and flowers. We meet those on this path and either engage with them or move on. Maybe we find a lovely place to sit and notice what is going on in our lives.

We leave that space and move forward. We might make some changes, or we may choose to wait and see what changes come to us. I allowed life to be gentle with me. I realized somewhere along the path that I needed to practice better self-care. I needed to honor myself.

One of the deepest realizations I’ve had to sit with is that grief and its aftermath have allowed me to consider options for my life that I had not thought of ten years ago. How I see myself now isn’t the view I once held. This time, while sitting in a lovely spot on the path, something came along and challenged it all. I returned to the crying. I was able to call up the feelings I experienced as a new widow. I remembered. Now I write this. The difference is that this time I’m not in severe pain, and I realize that what I’m feeling and thinking is “get up off the bench, move—this is not your place now.” The tears are gone, and I stand up and step onto a new path—one I had not seen for myself.

Mar 20

Reflections on a Sunday

Yesterday my Sunday peace was shattered by the sound of sirens. I live one block or so away from the police station, which is very quiet, and safe. Needless to say, I’m located in a safe area of town. That wasn’t the situation yesterday, and first one siren shattered the silence of the peaceful Sunday afternoon.

I noticed that the siren came closer, until I thought that it must be nearby, even on this street. I lowered the shade and looked out, seeing a police car with lights flashing parked on the other side of the street. Then more sirens, and within several minutes, two ambulances were parked there as well. Injury? Domestic violence? I don’t know the people in that house. It was only then, standing and looking at the police car and the two ambulances, that my brain took me back in time to 28 August of 2016. You never get over suicide; you get through it. I sat here at my computer and continued to work on the project I was doing and slowly began to let what was surfacing in my mind out. I had been a part of the disruption to a quiet Sunday that day. I know the police were here, and I know the mortician showed up, but I don’t know what other cars were here. When the nice police officer told me to go inside, I went, and I would not emerge from my home until after 10:00 that evening. I was on autopilot then, doing what I was told to do.

I won’t ask what happened, because I don’t want to know what act of “whatever” shattered my day and sent me back in time. After all this time, stuff still emerges. The peace and forward movement seem to be an illusion that a look in the mirror can shatter in an instant, and yet, if we avoid the mirror, we avoid life.

Lately, and as I continue to age, I’ve discovered that not all “old people” have wisdom. I’m taken back to the lyrics of Neil Diamond’s “I’ve Been This Way Before” and reminded that “Some people never see the light until the day they die.” Now I understand that many people will die clueless about themselves and their lives. When I first heard the words, I thought to myself, I don’t think that is a wise way to live a life. And so, I look in mirrors and I choose to stand rather than run from the images there.

Standing at the mirror is hard work, whereas running from the images will claim our lives in different ways. What? What’s this you say, that if I run from the mirror, doing so will alter my life? Yes, when we face the mirror, we must look hard. What do we like? What aren’t we pleased with? Why? Then we need to explore the reasoning behind the expectations we hold for ourselves. We are faced with new insights such as “I’ll never get into those jeans again because I’ll never be sixteen again and my lifestyle has changed.” How about this one? “I’ll have an older-looking face because I’m older and have lived x number of years.” The recognition that the mirror brings to our lives is good. It calls us to reality.

I know a hospice chaplain who shared with me one of life’s and death’s realities: “How we live may determine how we die. Anger doesn’t make for a peaceful death.” I had not really given it much thought until she said those words. I love my sister, and yet the last fifteen minutes of her life were the most violent she’d ever seen. It is true that she died from liver cancer, and that the cancer was destroying her body, and it is also true she was one angry person. I don’t know for certain that there was a connection there; what I do know is that I’ve known peaceful people to die peaceful deaths. The exceptions would be the violence we can’t control.

Reflecting on all of this takes me back to Jon and his death. He spent a great deal of time with the mirror because he had to sort out the bipolar and the family—and, ultimately, his life. He told me that he’d researched the how so that if he made the decision to end his life, it would be a one-time action.

There is a part of me that will always have wanted to send him off with love, and yet realistically that is something that could never be. I’d be doing jail time.

We may get through a death; we can face the good and the bad realities of a relationship and choose to move forward. We never get over the reality of what happened. We don’t get over it because you don’t get over someone you loved deeply.

If you get through it, what do you do to get beyond what has happened? You look in mirrors. That means you commit to asking some really hard, and sometimes scary, questions. Getting through the bad stuff in life means that we have to commit to deep changes, such as not running from the reality the mirror is showing you. Yesterday, it meant that I lowered the shade, stood at the window, and allowed the peace to be broken and the memory to return. It can make us squirm because of what we must do. It also causes the peace to return when I realize that I can continue to do this hard thing well.

Mar 14

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One of Six

This last week, I began to complete my Continuing Education Units (CEU) for my license renewal cycle. I need to be properly informed. A course per day keeps me that way.

For most of the needed hours, you can choose what to learn; you must comply with the legal requirements for the license renewal cycle. This year, along with the regular legal courses, there is a requirement to complete several hours on suicide assessment. I cringed. I don’t want to go there; I know things about assessment that no instructor MA or PhD is going to know.

It began on Thursday with two hours on suicide and grief. Geez, dude, it never ends! I’m glad he said it. He disclosed his survivor status and I thought, OK, a person who’s been through it. I was still in caution mode. What does this guy really know if he lost his brother when he was eight?

Suicide is a delicate subject, and so is death in general. You have people that believe that children are too young to know the truth. Children who have to face active shooter drills in school! I think adults underestimate what children can process given the correct, age-appropriate information. Death, and death by suicide, are no exceptions. We need to have honest conversation with children about death in all its forms when it arises. Kids have questions.

There is a culture of fear around suicide. While I don’t support anyone actively dying by suicide, I support honest discussion on the subject. I believe that those of us who have faced this in our own lives tend to understand it better. Talking about it can enable the person having suicidal feelings to explore them, discover the facts, and separate the truths from the fiction.

Here are some facts and fictions that matter:

Fact: When someone feels a sense of belonging, they are less likely to die by suicide. The feeling that a person belongs, and has someone or someplace to seek companionship, can make the difference between life and death for many people. Places such as the Utah-based Encircle organization are excellent examples of this. These places provide services and a safe haven for LGBTQIA+ souls who otherwise might be at risk for suicide. Creating belonging goes a long way.

Fiction: Saying you’re going to commit suicide is an attention-seeking act. Let’s not judge this too quickly. The saying of the words are an opening for discussion. Someone might want to open up the conversation in a real way; they might want listening. They could need professional help; they don’t want you to fix them. If this is being repeated, it calls for gentle prompts to seek more listening than you are qualified to provide.

Fact: Suicide can happen when the person perceives resources are gone. Notice the use of the word “can” here. Some people who die by suicide are in therapy, feel a sense of belonging, and ultimately still choose to end their lives. This is particularly true with the bipolar population. It is also true of other mental health diagnoses. Sometimes, despite the resources available to someone, the mental suffering and anguish are so great that the perceived ending of the suffering becomes an option. This was Jon’s situation, and I understand why he did it.

Fiction: If they get help, it will solve all problems and the issue of suicide will disappear. As cited in the fact above using my husband’s death as an example, help doesn’t always meet the need. He had help, but there was the pain of waking up every day and feeling the depression. It didn’t let up, and at the end it developed into something else that caused him to die by suicide.

Fact: A person may spontaneously decide to end their life and carry out the act in less than five minutes. One thing that can alter this is having a safety plan in place. Who can a person call? Are the numbers ready at the touch of a fingertip on the phone? Is there a place they can go to so that they are somewhere else for a time? Are weapons, and other lethal methods, out of reach?

Fact: They may feel like a burden to others. This is real and should not be discounted. A person in chronic pain, with a chronic illness, or with other issues needs to be heard deeply and be given authentic information that supports them staying around.

Fact: For every suicide, there are six people affected directly. There are more affected in an indirect manner. In my situation, there were more than six people directly affected. This isn’t about dishing out blame; it is a fact. The fiction here would be that if you mention this fact to someone, it will stop them from dying by suicide.

Fiction: We can prevent all suicide. We can’t, no matter how much we may want to do so. There are some situations where even best efforts are going to fall short of prevention.

Debatable: No rational person ends their life. This last item is the reason why there are laws in states and countries surrounding the ending of one’s life. It is why it takes two medical doctors to give the OK on such a thing. In countries where this is legal, the use of this form of euthanasia is lower than most people would guess. It is also something that most physicians don’t want to do for a patient.

Back to the main focus.

I want to bring up the stages of grief, and why they don’t work here, and will never work here. The stages of grief focus on the living and those who are dying. A hospice chaplain or mental health practitioner will have the skills to guide the dying and those who are loved ones, and in some cases friends, to a resolution around the impending death. The living are given the chance to make peace with the death that will occur. They can plan for it.

Given the above information on Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s stages of grief, once it happens, there is no resolution. We can’t resolve issues in the same way we can with the living. If we’re doing the work of exploring our grief and pain well, we’ll also uncover new thoughts and ideas that we can’t explore with the dead: they’re gone.

The fact is that stuff resurfaces in different forms. What you thought you had worked through rears its ugly head and you are faced once again with the death, the fight, the misunderstanding, the thing they did or you did. You might rehash a feeling of “if only” and realize that you can’t take it back.

Ultimately, the resolution comes to us when we accept that there is no resolution for death, and suicide in particular. You never get over this; you do get through it by not going around it. Navigating our lives will change, and while we’ll move on, we’ll never move over it. Some people feel that forgiveness can resolve the issue. I’m of the opinion that there is nothing to forgive. They did what they did, and while we might carry unresolved guilt around not being enough, once again we need to cut ourselves some slack, offer up a huge helping of grace, and then we can move forward with our lives.

Aug 24

The Photo

Each year since my husband’s death in 2016, when August rolls around I dread it. It is creepy, and while it is getting better, it is still something I am dealing with. Earlier this month I posted on my Instagram account. When I saw this shot it gave me the creeps. I have been in this creepy, stormy place in my mind. Having to go in once again didn’t thrill me. Then something happened.

When I showed this photo to a friend, he exclaimed: “I’ve stood in this very place!” He proceeded to tell me about this spot, which was in Maine, where the villagers watch the storms that come in. As he talked about his childhood, and what that place meant to him, I began to see life and love in the photo.

Maybe it was time for me to attempt a rethink of August. In having these thoughts, I wondered how that could happen. When I think about August now, the rush of memories of where we were and what was happening during those weeks leading up to his death assaults me every time I open the calendar on my desktop. Was it even possible to consider a rethink as an option?

In my personal work around his death, I’ve reached the place where the good days far outweigh the bad days. My appointment book and calendar are filled with things that make me happy and inspire me.

So, I got thinking that this round of August was going to be so much better. It was—until my individual appointment with the person I work with on a spiritual level. She took me into this familiar place. As the tears came, I realized what I’d been fighting and I talked through it. Several hours later as I sat at my computer, the depression crept up strongly, and the urge to shut it all down was great. But I didn’t.

As I sat on my bed dripping soothing eye drops into both eyes, it hit me: This is not where I want to be now! My calendar and appointment schedule are doing what I hoped they’d do when I returned to work. I’m happy about where I am and the work I’m doing. Four years later I can accept the awful that I’m feeling in the here and now, but it doesn’t have to stay around. While I know what that dark, stormy place looks and feels like, I’m not in that place anymore. I’m seeing things in new ways!

I can’t tell you when the shift happened. I can’t tell you how it happened. What I can tell you is that it was slow and gentle, and it involved my willingness to stay on this path that I’m walking on. It involved confronting the old self, being willing to engage with questions, and visiting change. Some things weren’t new to me, and others were.

Grief and loss call us to an encounter with ourselves that can be rather revolting at times. As we look in the mirror, we are asked to converse with the person staring back at us. Sometimes we must admit that what we are seeing is not something we like. At other times the image we see is one that we accept with surprise and amazement. Is this really the real me? In the moments of amazement, we are greeted with the realization that yes, I’m really doing this! Yes, what I thought would never change is changing. Then we’re taken to that place where we ask the “how” question: How did this come into being?

I believe it is a combination of both actions and events that propels us into these new spaces. Small successes that build self-esteem and allow us to reconstruct what might have been damaged by death or loss, or in other ways. The courage to dare to stick the toe into the water and test it to see if the water will tolerate the tiny toe. When we discover that first level of safety, we can progress. The testing of the waters is a small event. It is one that signals safety and that it might be OK to consider a tiny action. For some people the tiny action might be making a meal, going out to lunch, or picking up a book to read. It really depends on our personalities. My first foray back into the land of the living was a three-week trip to visit the U.S. and it was huge in so many ways. I returned knowing I could navigate places that were foreign to me: new public transit systems and other new places. Just shy of the month of August 2017, I realized that Jon would say I’m “rockin’ this!” To tell you the truth, I was terrified! It was a huge first, and it would take another year before I’d do it again. But this time, much closer to home. The second trip was a journey to Glasgow and Wales. It was all new and, once again, with the support of new friends, I made it—and I did well.

The landscape I called life changed with that trip. I wouldn’t trade it for anything! It opened up my mind and heart to new experiences, and as the next year unfolded and 2019 rolled around, the tears lessened, the new friendships began to take root, and now my legs were immersed in that water. It would really take all of 2019 for me to fully begin to swim in life’s waters again.

Now, as I write this with August in full swing, and 11 days left in the month, I stop, take a breath, and rethink the photo I posted earlier in the month. Yes, my life has really changed. Yes, Jon would love that I’m “rockin’ it.” Yes, the tiny events turned into larger actions. Yes, it has been hard. Yes, I’ve found ways to move on. Yes, I’ve met the old me and have kept much of her. She is new in many ways. I choose to stand tall and strong in this new place I call life.

Aug 4

Revisiting Being Heard

This blog has a title that dates back to an incident with my husband’s psychiatrist. At the end of our conversation, when I thanked him for listening to me, he replied, “You needed to be heard.” His acknowledgement that this issue had to be addressed was huge for me. I left his office with my husband and realized that I had a title for the blog I was working on publishing. That exchange created a bridge of trust with me. I would need that trust as the years went on.

That one incident opened me up to a new understanding of how validation through truly hearing with the heart and mind can alter someone’s life path. A good decade or so later our exchange still stands out in my mind. That doc really took the time to hear, respond, and accept my truth.

Having said all of this, I’d like to share more on this subject as it relates to another healing moment in my life.

Something happened to me after Jon’s death that was so hurtful I had to put it on the back burner for two years. I won’t share what happened because to do so would expose several people who, to this day, think they did a really great thing. It wasn’t a great thing. In 2019 I began to address that hurtful act. It took one year to completely resolve the issue. It wasn’t fun, and I’m glad it’s over.

The catch—and there always is a catch—is that I had a well of pain that was connected to people’s behavior towards me. That wasn’t so easy to wipe out of my mind, or to repair. The reason why is that several misguided people thought that they were helping me in my loss when they were, in fact, doing great damage. The key to the resolution was, and is, gaining enough perspective over time to be able to step back and decide how to best handle the matter.

This is complex in that telling someone what they’ve done isn’t always the best resolution for them. They most likely won’t view the event in the same way that you do, or have the insight to think it through. You might come up against strong resistance when explaining how hurtful such actions are. I tested things out with one of the parties involved. This person couldn’t understand why I was so angry. I realized that it was not productive to force the issue.

The rage and pain were very much present. What can you do in a situation like this?

Death rearranges the address book. In my case, Jon’s death did a grand Viennese Waltz through the pages of my book. People who I believed to be friends disappeared. Family who couldn’t cope with my new reality disappeared. It left me staring at once-full pages wondering how—and if—I could rebuild with new people in my life. It served as a witness that grief, and the lack of comfort others have with it, brings great pains to those who must walk through the lonely terrain.

Fortunately, I’ve begun to build a community of new friends who view life as I do. I’ve paid a steep price for these new beginnings. It was towards this new group of people, who are becoming friends, that I turned, seeking a listening ear. But I needed more than just a listening ear; I needed to be fully heard. I found that person. I was heard in a genuine and caring manner. It allowed me to let go.

Not being heard can cause someone to become stuck in the quagmire of pain, loss, anger, trauma, disappointment, and so many other things that I won’t list here. Not being fully heard can cause us, as humans, to shut things down, to cling so tightly to the pain in our souls that we can’t find the ladder out of the quagmire.

Being heard—and truly hearing another person—may require that we face some painful places in our own souls while accompanying them through a darkness they want out of.

Being heard means opening ears and stopping the responding and questioning, in order to allow for understanding. Hearing and being heard involve authentic empathy from the person doing the hearing. It is a skill.

I am by no means perfect at doing this. Sometimes I blow it. When I realize I’ve blown the “hearing,” I go back, apologize, and work even harder at doing a better job during the next hearing.

If you’ve been fully heard, you understand that one of the feelings that opens up for a person in this process is liberation! We are liberated from our burden, the trauma, the pain, the struggle of the choice we’re making—we’re set free to explore new and colorful options. Maybe we are enabled to take that first step on a road to someplace new. This hearing might allow us to stop the repeating “sound bite blasting” in our heads about what we could—or should—have done.

Being heard entirely is a gift. It is one that we unwrap with joy, understanding that it is not as common as it should be. It frees our spirits, calling us forward to new ground. It opens us to new relationships of understanding and trust. When we engage in the power of complete hearing, it changes us because our views and hearts are altered. We can no longer choose to unhear or not see what we’ve become a witness to. Each time a person is truly heard, it changes the world.

Jun 1

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The Path to a Peaceful You

Peace? Right now it seems elusive.

I’ve been thinking about the ways we all look to find peace in our lives. Some isolate and hide in their own inner worlds. Some turn the news off so they don’t have to hear the crazy. I’m noticing that lack of thought is also giving people the illusion of peace. People hide in their vacations, shopping, as well as their food. Some people hide in moods, achievement, knowing, religion, and belonging. Starting to see a picture here? How do you hide?

One of the things that has been affected by my husband’s death has been the need to travel alone to places I’d rather not go. The process of going began with me sitting at the dining room table with a group of people and being totally freaked out (“freaked out“ in this case being a technical term). I was panicked, I was uncertain. I was getting drunk on chocolate because people around the table kept feeding it to me and I kept eating it. I couldn’t even envision the path that I’d be facing during that first 24 hours. I believed that I couldn’t do it alone. Who would walk with me? The walker came later.

The second full day brought with it a discovery that I wasn’t alone. I was able to reach down into a place that I didn’t understand and sit in the moment, finding peace within. For a brief period, I understood that I’d pull this off. But, I didn’t understand how at the time.

I think that inner peace comes from being still and listening to our bodies and our hearts and trusting our guts. We should also allow for some “out-of-the-box” thinking.

When we understand our inner compass it can guide us to places that we would normally not go. I had to learn to trust in what I had and to build it up as I journeyed on a new road. Getting through grief, loss, or transitioning to a new place is all about being able to walk a new road. It is about understanding that when the roadblocks appear, you can find ways of getting through them. When I would begin to doubt, a friend would remind me to “look for your options.” As I did this one thing, I could bring myself back to a place of knowing, understanding, and calm.

I had to learn to sit with the uneasiness of things I didn’t like. That is just one of the lessons I’ve learned because of the life transition I walked through in dealing with Jon’s death.

Sitting with stuff you don’t like is hard. The urge to get up and move back to the safety of the old ways can be strong. Seeing the new path and discovering the new ways will change your view permanently. Once you see the new, you cannot retreat to the old.

I don’t have a magic answer for how to pull this off. I can tell you that the longer you sit in the new space, the better it gets. It’s the equivalent of breaking in a new pair of shoes. The first few wearings can be difficult and then the shoe begins to mold to you and soften itself to your foot. Suddenly, like the shoe, sitting with the new way of being feels comfortable. It isn’t a foreign thing-a-ma-jig hanging around begging for recognition. You feel it, see it, and understand that it is now a part of who you are.

The catch to doing the above is that it is hard! This is where a good therapist, or coach, can come in handy. It can be helpful at times to have an objective third party who can come in and become a part of your team to cheer you on towards the inner peace you desire.

Discovering that peace comes in the silences of the journey has been valuable to me. Spending my first hour in the morning slowly waking, thinking, and reading has also calmed my soul. I get that I have the luxury of doing this because of my age and not having children at home. Now you may be thinking, That is all well and good, but that won’t work for me. Yeah, I know. So here are some ideas for you to snatch at as a beginning.

If you have kids, you can:

Create a family time to sit and share
Eat together and talk about the day and one good thing each person learned
Claim one day per child when the two of you know that you will be together and do something you both enjoy
Create an end-of-the-day ritual that closes out the day and sends kids off to bed. Make it enjoyable
Read together
Turn off the TV
Go for walks, bike rides, hikes, or another free activity that you all enjoy

Those are just some ideas for kids and families having to walk new paths.

What about you?

Start by claiming five minutes to just sit
Light a candle and just… sit
Swap time with a friend to get out once per week—even for only 30 minutes
Discover reading, art, or music
Find a podcast you enjoy and tune in
If you enjoy a bath, have one
At some point in time you might want to welcome a cat or a dog into your life

I’m hesitant to make this list too long, or too specific. It’s just meant to get you thinking.

My parting words to you are that inner peace comes after the tears, the hurt, the anguish, and the doubts begin to be purged. There is no magic formula for any of this. What is there? There is the knowledge that those who have courageously walked and sat where you are now, have found their path to inner peace and a new way of being that will look different than where you started from. This is a good thing!

To work with Gail, use the Contact form to request a session.

Jan 23

No More “I’m Sorrys”

My first real experience with loss was when my grandfather had to be hospitalized and then died after having a heart attack. It was the first funeral I attended. I wasn’t more than ten or eleven. I understood that he was really gone. We had family around and, as a child, I took it well.

Death touched our family several times, and in several posts I’ve talked about how I was affected by the different deaths that took place in my young life up until my early 20s. Forty years later I realize how sheltered I have been from grief and its realities. You don’t see the real stuff when you are young—I didn’t.

Several years ago, after observing how many people would respond to someone’s loss with “I’m so sorry,” I decided to use my Facebook page to conduct some nonscientific research. I asked people “Why do you say I’m so sorry?” and the response I got was “I don’t know what else to say.” This response saddened me.

As I’ve journeyed through the loss of my husband, I have noticed some things in ways that I’d let slide before. One hundred and eighty-three words into this post, I’m going to talk about what I’ve noticed and what it can do to those who suffer from grief and loss.

Death Is Out of the Home

I now live in The Netherlands. One of the huge differences here vs. the USA is that it is still common after death for the body to be viewed in one’s home. This isn’t always possible, but it still happens in many situations. Having attended such a viewing, my first thought was In the home!? My next thought was that by being in the person’s home and being with the loved ones, one could relax in his or her own surroundings as friends came by to show their love. By the end of my time there, it felt like a great way to mourn the death of a guy who kept us on our toes. It was peaceful and joyous. There were no “I’m so sorrys” said. We spoke of him and shared quietly. The Dutch are able to do this well.

My husband’s viewing was not in our home and it wasn’t even suggested that I hold it here. However, it was a wonderful experience. People who knew him came, and by the end of the evening, I was “high on really good chocolate.” Once again, the talk was honest and we laughed and I felt supported.

For some time (until I said “Stop”), people I knew brought me meals and it was wonderful. Then I told them that I needed to cook for myself and everything stopped. As long as they were cooking for me, they knew what to do and say, but after that…

Death moved out of the home to someplace else. Because of the trauma surrounding his death, I really didn’t pick up on what had happened in the way I might have. Slowly, people who didn’t know what to say, or do, moved or distanced themselves from me. They didn’t want to talk about Jon or hear me talk about Jon. The first year was hard, and over that year people drifted further away until by the end of the first year, I was more alone than I would have liked to have been.

Death Reorganizes Your Address Book

This is a fact, and it is something I’m coming to terms with as I live through year four of life without Jon. I think this is a complex issue. This is not just about knowing what to say, but also understanding how to kindle a solid relationship. I think we’re failing in this area.

One of the things I learned from one of my aunts was the value of real friends. She had one real friend. She and Dot had been friends for… forever, and even though they were separated geographically, they were very much in each other’s lives. They went through the good, the bad, and the ugly. Dot’s children were a real part of things as well, and when my aunt and uncle celebrated 50 years of marriage, Dot’s kids came! Like a really good marriage, Dot and my aunt Lois really worked at friendship. “I’m so sorry” was not uttered in that relationship. When Dot was diagnosed with a serious illness, words of comfort were exchanged.

I’ve often thought that maybe it was just a slower time. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you became friends with those in your immediate surroundings, and when they moved, you wrote or called them. Was there more social necessity to make relationships work so that they would last?

Maybe it is none of the above, or all of the above, and I’m not wanting to say that since the world has “shrunk,” and distances are smaller, we aren’t valuing things in the same way as we once did. I don’t want to blame social media for the demise of friendship. But, I have to admit that social media has affected the way we, as a world, interact with one another.

Yes, grief reorganizes your address book, and it does so because there are many people who don’t understand how to support such loss as death, divorce, illness, or other life events.

I’ve posted about what to say and do in the category “What Do I Say.” Yet this issue still gnaws at me. Why? My first thoughts are that people react to grief and loss in the way they want to be treated when it happens to them. It is as if all logic and reality blow out the window, and instead of saying anything, people say and do nothing. I got particularly angry about this in RAW (The Suicide). Has our social IQ dropped that much? Have we, as a society, drifted from understanding empathy that much? Brené Brown says it well in this video.

I think we’ve lost some of our ability to empathize. Maybe it has to do with the growing need to state our individual pain while forgetting about the pain of others. Therapists are in the business of pain. What I hear when I listen is the deep pain of others not being completely heard by those they feel should be hearing them. This thought causes me to recall a conversation with my husband’s psychiatrist and his ending remark to me: “You needed to be heard.” And I did need to be heard! His comment to me reminded me that with all the hearing and caretaking I was doing, I needed listening to as well.

As I look at hearing, and being heard, from the perspective of having or getting needs met, I can’t blame people for the lack of empathy. Here’s why: There are so many forms of grief and loss that to show proper empathy for all of them might not be possible.

I don’t know what it is like to come out as LGBTQ. I don’t know what it is like to have a miscarriage. I don’t know what it is like to have a child show hate for a parent. What I do know is that deep pain hurts, and that I can show empathy for others by tapping into places that are not so pleasant within my own life experiences that contain things I can use to empathize with. I might not understand perfectly, but I can understand. Sometimes that means doing a great deal of listening and then asking questions that will deepen my understanding of someone’s experience. I’m not expected to know it all; I’m expected to know that I can ask and learn.

When life was less expansive than it is now, we didn’t have the “experts” to tell people what was, and wasn’t, normal. The truth is that those thought of as “experts” now may, or may not, have known what to say. My aunt and her friend Dot had to rely heavily on empathy and questioning to really understand each other. They were present in ways that mattered because it meant something to both of them. So, maybe trauma as a whole rearranges address books because people think they have to know before they open their mouths and friendships are lost. Personally, I’d rather have someone say to me “I don’t know what to say and I’d like to say the right thing.” While this puts it back on me, it also opens up a pathway for me to say “Thank you” and “This is what I need.”

In saying all of the above, I must admit that writing this post has been a thoughtful challenge. Here is why: In conversing with several people, I’ve discovered that we really have lost the skill of empathy. The “I’m sorry for your loss” remark really is the best they can do. People are overwhelmed with all of their own stuff, and the balancing act of trying to support another person when you don’t have the skills to do it well causes you to shut down. It may also have to do with loneliness in our Western society.

Don’t hate me for saying the following because it is not something I wanted to say in this piece, but I’m finding that I have to say it: Social media has moved many people into a state of social detachment. What I mean by this is that people know how to react to a photo or meme, but they can’t, and don’t really have the skills, to thoughtfully react to substance in long form. Knowing this may mean that right now, as you read this, you may want to engage a wee bit more than the average. You aren’t looking just to “get in and get out,” and want to say you have really connected with a thought or an idea. Think about your own social media pages; what gets the response from you?

Facebook marketers tell you to use photos and limit words. Why? They’ve dumbed down for a faster pace. They’ve dumbed it down because people aren’t reading thoroughly.

Gaining Empathy Skills

In most healthy family situations, it begins at a very young age: “It’s mine” is followed by a parent saying “You must share.” Slowly, the young child learns the social graces that allow for becoming friends. By four years of age, a child has enough insight to answer the question “Do you like it when…?” By the time a child enters school, the building blocks are laid for social connection, and those kids who have learned rudimentary skills in the first years of their tiny lives are ready to test their newfound skills on the larger stage. As the child grows into adolescence, the skills of childhood are put to the test as relationships deepen, friendships broaden, and exploration expands. By the time the 18-year-old enters the adult world, the lesson is done but the learning is just beginning.

Some of my most valuable learning came about from moving out of my parents’ home at 18 and going away to school in another city. On my own, I screwed up some relationships, but also had successful ones. I came to understand things as an adult that being under my parents’ roof could never have taught me. It was hard! When I returned to my hometown in late 1990, I’d had some disastrous and some good experiences. I’d built up some life experiences that would allow me to understand deeper feelings and understand in a credible fashion: things that I could use to empathize with others.

I share all of this to tell you: You get the skills by experiencing life. You gain empathy by blowing it, learning from it, and using the learning you acquire to reach out to others.

You discover empathy by finding a similar feeling or experience within yourself. You don’t share the experience, but rather you recognize the power of this experience and quietly listen in order to understand. You might have “been there, done that, and have the T-shirt,” but in this case you only mentally put that T-shirt on and remember how hard it was to get through the experience so you can empathize. It is then that the questions come and the understanding and connection follow. Now two people understand, by more than words, the experience that one is having. Empathy is a marvelous thing. No more empty “I’m so sorrys.”

Nov 19

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Through it

*Note: The four posts in this category are posted from the first–published to the most recent.

The last entry I made on this blog was one of hope and gladness as I had come back from an illness that left some side effects. I was looking forward to returning to work. But that didn’t happen and the blog went silent. Why?

In August of 2016 the man that I’ve been posting about in “Being in the Room” (Part 1 and Part 2) decided to leave the room. He completed suicide. I’ve taken a year off to sort out my feelings and begin the healing process.

My husband Jon and I had many long talks about his situation. We both cried and we both knew that this could happen; it finally did happen.

I will be doing a podcast on this subject, so I won’t go into all of the details here. I may talk about the specifics in future postings. However, today I want to talk about getting through it. I don’t mean getting over it, I mean THROUGH it.

Let yourself imagine a mountain. You have some options, and they each have an outcome that can be managed. Some are better than others, and so, in making the choice of how to approach this landmark, a considerable amount of thought is needed.

In the first hours and days of Jon ending his life, I had to make some radical choices. I think I made some really good ones considering the fact that I was grieving, stunned, and without family physically present. However, I did have some friends who came and gave much-needed support. They cooked, cleaned, advised, and tried their best to show up in a nasty situation.

In the first days and weeks, that mountain loomed large, and I knew that I had to decide how to navigate it. I could go over it, around it, or through it.

Each of these thoughts caused me to think of what would happen if I had made the journey in that manner. I’ve never liked the term “get over it,” as it seemed condescending, judgmental, and uninformed. I discarded OVER right from the start. In thinking about it further, I didn’t want to track OVER the mountain. I didn’t want to miss things that I would miss by going over it. It didn’t seem like the thorough way of facing this situation. While hiking a mountain can be beautiful, this wouldn’t be that type of journey.

Going AROUND the mountain implied denial, and that wasn’t an option. I thought about how this seemed to imply that I’d view the scenery, but not touch anything, and that wasn’t appealing to me. Going around the mountain would leave the mountain intact, or untouched, and that wasn’t what I wanted to do at all. As I mentioned, suicide is messy and requires some hard work to deal with the damage and ruin that it leaves in its wake. While I knew suicide could happen, I had hoped it never would come into being.

I thought about tunnels. I like the technology that creates them and the stories of their builders. I like everything about driving through them, if they are well-lit. I watched with great interest as the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland was dug from inside the depths of the earth. My first visit to London was not taken on a plane, but through the Chunnel. Yup, I like tunnels and no, I haven’t gone through the Gotthard Tunnel yet.

So, in thinking about what I needed to do, the choice for me to tunnel THROUGH this mountain, and thinking of my journey in those terms, was a natural one.

As I chose to go through the mountain, I chose to be intelligent, wise, weak, vulnerable, and fearless. I realized that I could not control this situation. I could no more control it than control the crazy weather of the Netherlands. I do, however, have options even in tunneling through the mountain.

The First Option: Realism

For me, this has involved planning and visualizing, as well as allowing myself to feel the messiness of the entire situation. It also means that if I’m having a bad day, I allow myself to feel the bad day in all of its glory and pain.

When I say that I’ve planned this journey, it means that I allow myself to think through life scenarios and to imagine the outcomes. For example, the celebration of Christmas could have been really hard. But, thanks to friends, I was not alone, but rather surrounded in a house of love. Rather than letting the day simply come, I opted to take hold of the day. It wasn’t easy; it was better than waking up to not knowing what would be involved with living through the day. But, trying to maintain a certain amount of control is a good thing.

In visualizing and thinking ahead to the obstacles that come my way, I create positive scenarios. I remember the first “everything” that I’ve celebrated without Jon as being mostly happy. Yes, of course I wish he were here at times, but the reality of it is that he isn’t suffering, and for that I’m so thankful.

I’ve cried, or should I say, sobbed. I’ve questioned and wondered if I did a good enough job of supporting him. And after the crying is over the answer is a resounding yes!

I would not wish this on anyone. Going through hell is not fun, and in the past year I have faced hell more than once. The thing I’ve learned about this particular hell (and there are many such places) is that there is respect required in that place of darkness.

The Second Option: Receiving and Acceptance

My great-aunt was wonderful at giving to others, but she wasn’t very good at graciously receiving another person’s kindness. From a young age I became aware that not only did I need to be a great “giver,” but I also needed to learn to accept kindness with graciousness. This week, I had this lesson driven home to me when a friend came by to see how I was, as I’d failed to respond to her emails. During our conversation she said, “Oh, crap,” in hopes that I wouldn’t hear it. (I’m not that deaf!) Then, when I reacted to that remark, it clicked, and she, in an imaginary shaking of Gail, said, “I want to help!” She was hurt and angry, with good reason. I realized that I wasn’t receiving the service she was offering. I had been sick for two weeks with some kind of illness that had been going around, and I’d become hard to reach. We talked about it, and I admitted that having her come by was a good thing. It raised my spirit. It also forced me to realize that I need to assert my needs and let others determine whether or not it is possible to help out. Asserting one’s needs also means allowing others to think about what they are able to do for you.

I realize in talking about being a recipient of kindness that this isn’t always the case. People get confused and they don’t know what to say or do. They overreact or underreact. Sometimes, the best they can do for you is to do what they think they’d want done in your situation. They are only human. This isn’t easy to deal with, and I will admit that one of the lessons I’m still learning as I travel through the mountain is that I need to accept not only the kindness, but also the fact that the kindness might not always be there when you need it. It hurts deeply, but when I last checked, there were, and are, no perfect human beings on this planet! We are all doing our best, or so we like to think. However, sometimes our best isn’t good enough. When you are the recipient, accepting what is offered is an art that most of us need to learn to be better at. So, there are failures in this process: the hard thing is letting the failures stand on their own merit.

The Third Option: Patience

It is going to take time. It isn’t going to happen speedily.

Nobody wants to remain in grief and pain forever, and yet in order to get through the grief, it is essential to remain there until you can move forward. Forward movement is done in steps. If you try to force this forward movement, it actually sets you back. Facing the good days along with the bad, or not-so-bad but not-so-great days, is moving forward. This is not a science but rather a journey. Crossing the milestones, understanding that there will be many such milestones, and allowing them to come naturally is part of the process.

Being kind and gentle with yourself is also needed. Show yourself mercy. Come to understand that you are enough and that simply getting through the death of a loved one is enough. This has been my process. It would be accurate to say that this has been a roller-coaster ride and that I’ve been flipped, raised up, sent flying down, and jerked around. I’ve taken a couple of “Gs” and I suspect that I’ll be hit again. Smoother riding will come. (Is life ever completely smooth?) So, be merciful to your soul and it will pay off.

There is so much to be said about dealing with someone’s suicide. I have time to say it in multiple posts. But, the last thing I will say is that I’m at peace with my Jon and his death. I spent 22 years of my life loving and supporting Jon. I got to know his pain and the fact that each day he struggled to find shelter from the depression and pain that he lived with for 30+ years. There are times when loving someone means that you come to a realization that loving them entails letting go completely. Jon walked a pathway of life for years that held struggle and sorrow. Jon did not end his life impulsively, but rather with thought and an understanding that he had done all he could to heal. In his notes, he grieved that this would cause me pain. But, he also expressed his love for me. I respect that and honor his death. And in that, I have peace.

Nov 19

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The Boring Machine

*WARNING: This gets detailed and somewhat graphic for the imagination. Please read the post “Through it” before reading this post.

Deep into the earth I go. Deep into the darkness where hell lives. I go in deep because where I am now requires me to be there. In order to go through it, I must first face it and expel the debris. I’ve had to think about not only where his head was at the time of his completed suicide; I’ve had to think about what I was thinking before I knew he’d done, as I call it, “the deed.”

We had a deal. At least I thought we had a deal, and for my part, it seemed like the right thing to do. (Had he kept the first part of the deal I’d now be in jail!) The deal was that he’d come and talk to me and tell me that he was going to attempt and complete suicide. The second half of the deal was that I would not be the one to find him dead. The deal wasn’t realistic.

Had Jon told me about his plan, I would have been legally obligated to stop him. I would have needed to get him to the hospital. On August 28^th, that is where my head was. I was going to have him forcibly, if needed, hospitalized. The numbers indicate that those who go into the hospital come out with more energy and, actually, in a place where they are more likely to carry out a plan. In Jon’s mind, going to the hospital wasn’t an option. Going there by force was, most assuredly, less of an option. He spent all day Saturday and Sunday morning making the final decision to leave. From his notes, it wasn’t an easy choice. In the end it wasn’t a long letter that he left on the dining room table, but rather a short note that said he loved me. The letters were his thoughts on the “Why now?” I had to read between the lines to understand it, as even in dying, he couldn’t show it all. He had, over the years, shared everything; thus, I was able to understand what he couldn’t even write. The note was two short sentences. In small print, so as not to detract from the content of the note, he told me where to find his body.

He kept the second half of our agreement. I did not open the door to the shed where he was. The police broke the glass to open the door, which had been locked from the inside. This kept me from using a key to open the door myself. (Yes, on realizing where he was, I grabbed the key that hung by the door and went out to attempt to open the shed.)

When the police came shortly after I had called them, I went out with them. They sternly, once the door was open, told me to go inside the house. I’m told it was messy; I didn’t look and I’m glad that I didn’t look. The shed had to be sanitized and most everything in there was lost.

The police were required to check for criminal activity but there was none. They came into the house and there I sat on the sofa, stunned, and wondering how he could have done this. As I mentioned before, this was a shock, trauma, and a bunch of other stuff all rolled into an afternoon that I had never wanted to have to live through. The police were respectful, kind, and that is all I felt while dealing with them. I was actually able, and I don’t know how, to ask what he’d done. Jon had told me years earlier that he’d decided on a method that would be decisive, swift, and not too painful. The officer told me that at the most, he had one second of pain and three seconds till death would have come. He did not use a gun.

To give you some idea of where my head was during all of this, I asked a really stupid question: “Did he hang himself?” OK, I knew that there was no way to hang himself in that shed, and we didn’t have the type of rope that would have held for hanging. My head was pretty discombobulated by that time. His body was whole, and for that I’m thankful.

I share all of this because I had to begin from this point and go forward. I’m grateful that I had been spared the trauma of finding him. I was lucky that way.

What is the Boring Machine now sending out on the conveyor belt to be dumped into the earth? Pain, deep pain, loss, sadness, questions of whether I did my best and enough. Could I have done things better? And, in typing these words, the tears return. The answer is YES! But it was, and is, enough. Maybe that is what haunts so many people in this situation. This might be the hardest of all the questions to resolve. I was lucky because Jon and I had spoken about our relationship and he recognized, and told me, that I’d done enough. Yet doubts still come because that is the nature of this beast.

Why didn’t I see it coming? Sometimes you just don’t see it because the person is extremely skilled at hiding it from you. Sometimes the words are too scary for the person to utter. In so many ways, what a person who is seriously planning suicide is going to have to speak is the truth that says “I’m going to take my life. I’m going to go to a place that is so unthinkable, that speaking the words is a hard act to contemplate. I’m taking so much control that when I complete this act, I can’t reverse it.”

Personally, I don’t think that you can remain sane and complete the act of suicide. I say that because I do know what it required for Jon to go to the place where he could complete suicide. It wasn’t a calm place. He had once told me that if he could ever bring himself to complete the act, he’d have to take himself to a place of hate for me. That is what he did. For less than four minutes, he took himself to a place of hate that enabled him to separate from all that was good, kind, dear, and loving to him. Having committed such an act towards me, he could no longer live, because it went against his value system. If you are reading this and saying to yourself that this is crazy-making, you are correct; it was, and it is. BUT, for him, it worked. In those four minutes, he managed to alienate me in a way that I couldn’t imagine. It worked; I wanted nothing to do with him.

This does not mean that everyone who completes suicide takes themselves to a place of hate for those who they love. I don’t think most souls who complete or attempt suicide would think in this manner. There is some evidence that points to those who attempt and complete suicide having tears in their eyes. That tells me that they don’t go where Jon went.

Suicide leaves a legacy of damage. Your spouse, partner, parents, siblings, children, extended family, and friends are left to sort out the mess and damage.

I am left holding a life that is shattered by an act that, when you pause to think about, causes an existential crisis for everyone involved. How could he go to that ultimate place and contemplate such an act? How do I deal with all the crap that gets pushed out by coping with this issue? Maybe the hardest of all is this: What can a friend or family member say to make it better?

Let me start off with the “what to say” response. Firstly, this is the unthinkable act. The reality is that people do consider the existential ultimate power. People who hurt badly enough, perceive the solution of suicide as a fix-it for a life with too much pain of whatever type it is they are dealing with; these souls do go to the ultimate place. They do consider suicide, and for some, they act.

So what do you say to someone who is faced with processing their loved-one’s completed suicide?

In writing this, I wrote a list of the do’s and don’ts. The problem is, the list is of MY do and don’t items. So I’ll keep it simple. Do show empathy. That means do what THEY need, not what you think you’d want.

Be honest and tell them that you don’t understand, but that you will listen and try to learn and be in the moment with them.

If you offer support, make certain that it is support you can follow through with.

My one huge DON’T is this: Don’t abandon them because you don’t know what to say. Say you love them, say you care, SAY SOMETHING!

Secondly, I’ve been through one traumatic death before, and having survived that, I can tell you that this is different—which leads me to explain what I call “the death bubble.”

All death sends you into some kind of bubble. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but rather the bubble has to exist in order to give you time to process the event. For some there is time to say goodbye, and for others the death is sudden and unexpected. Still, others must process some form of trauma along with death. Then there is completed suicide, which is very different to process.

Each of these deaths causes us to go to a place of time standing still, or ‘the bubble.” While the rest of the universe continues on with life, we are stopped midtrack in whatever place it is we are. We do what must be done to either bury or cremate, we plan a funeral, memorial service, or wake. Most importantly, we gather as family, friends, and colleagues, and we grieve, celebrate, eat, drink, laugh, and cry. After the service and immediate mourning period, we exit the bubble to play catch-up, and realize that life moves on. We might be in slow motion for a while, but we do move forward.

We go home to an empty home, someone missing at the table, someone we can no longer speak to, or in some cases we go home relieved that person is no longer there. But still we leave the bubble.

With the death of an older relative or parent, you know it’s coming. With younger deaths we may or may not know that they will die, but we may have time to prepare for it, making it somewhat easier. Traumatic deaths are an entirely different thing altogether.

Heaped on top of the normal grief and pain, you have trauma, loss, anger, rage, questioning, disbelief, and guilt, and this can go on for months. I must also say that I haven’t exhausted the list of what someone who deals with traumatic death deals with. The bubble either explodes, implodes, or it remains forever.

There is no right or wrong way to experience and process death. People grieve differently. People think differently, and their learned experience combines with all of this to create an individual experience.

Having said all of that, it takes time to get over the death of anyone.

My greatest plea in all of this is to have others recognize that grief takes time. Show compassion, and please do not shame someone for their process. They will get through it when they get through it. Their time, their rules, are what matter here.

There are some helpful “do’s” that you can engage in IF you are committed to supporting someone who is grieving the death of a loved one.

There are times when you may need to offer feedback. Take your time and be gentle. By this I mean create a conversation and ask questions and listen to the responses. Don’t offer feedback until you have learned more from someone. It might be great feedback, but if you listen, you may learn something that makes it altogether wrong for that particular time and individual.

For instance, I realized about six months into my journey within the deep earth that I might benefit from working with a psychologist who specializes in grief. What I was going through was hell, and you should avoid going through that place alone. Friends have been supportive, but sometimes you need to talk it out with an objective third party. I was clued into myself and what was happening well enough to grasp what I needed. It took me another month or two to follow through on it, but it was on my radar and I eventually acted. In some cases, someone might not know what they need. Had someone told me that I needed to talk with someone, I may, or may not, have been receptive to the idea. I could have said “I’m fine on my own,” and pushed the person away. Timing and understanding are everything.

So, deep inside the mountain I go. Deep into a place that I wish I could have avoided. Deep, and in some cases, very alone, because I’m the only one who can do this work. When the tears come, I let them, knowing that tears lift pain in ways that I can’t do without.

At some point in time there will be light at the end of the tunnel. Logic tells me this, and hope lights the candle that I hold in this space. Each turn of the Boring (but necessary) Machine brings me closer to the other side. For now, that is enough.

Holistic and Realistic Approaches to Grief, Loss, and Transitions

Posts from the ‘The Suicide and its Aftermath’ Category

Reflections, Part 8

Reflections, Part 7

Reflections, Part 6

Reflections, Part 5

Reflections, Part 4

Reflections, Part 2

Reflections, Part 1

Dotted Trauma

Bored Through and Not Around the Mountain

Meeting Ourselves in New Ways

Editor’s Pick: Eighty-Four Months

Three Minutes

I Miss (Revisit)

After the Raging Storm

Fluffy Towels

Eighty-Four Months

Leaving the Bench for the Second Time

Reflections on a Sunday

One of Six

The Photo

Revisiting Being Heard

The Path to a Peaceful You

No More “I’m Sorrys”

Through it

The Boring Machine

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