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Margaret Crandall

Issue 87

This is the intro part where I explain to new subscribers, and apologize to existing ones, that today’s email is really long (so many responses last week!) and not normal (I’m still really out of it). This thing won’t always be about morbid topics, I promise.

Here’s my Buzzfeed list of the top 8 things I wasn’t prepared for last week. Other than, you know, my mom dying.

When you put out an APB about a family member’s death, the response is immediate, constant, and overwhelming. I felt like I was playing telephone/email/text whack-a-mole. And tried not to feel guilty about putting my phone and laptop away for a few hours at a time when I needed a break.
The brain fog and exhaustion. Little things, like not being able to remember where I parked my car two hours ago. Having no idea what to buy at Trader Joe’s. (Is that why people bring you casseroles?) Crossing one thing off my to-do list and feeling like I needed to lie down.
Netflix is the best way out of my own head. Even if the series I got sucked into (Dead to Me, How to Get Away with Murder) are about death.
Not recommended: Going to a friend’s birthday party at an outdoor dive bar while your brother is simultaneously texting you 50 photos of your mother’s clothes, one by one, from 3000 miles away (“keep or donate?”) because he is the one cleaning out your mom’s apartment while you are drinking a PBR.
My mother’s planning. Not only had she already written her own obituary, she’d created a list of people (with contact info) for my uncle to contact as soon as she died; a 3-page spreadsheet of every online account, account number, URL, and password; and DVDs of photos and music to play at her memorial service. Again, to be helpful to me and my brother, but JFC.
A very drunk gay man hitting on me relentlessly at an El Vez show. OK, that would have been weird and disorienting even if my mother hadn’t died.
Humor helps. Especially jokes about putting TruckNutz on your dead mom’s motorized scooter and taking it for a joyride around the retirement home before you sell it.
The stories people shared with me. Thank you. I’m sharing many of them below (after the links section).

Good stuff

8 skills to cultivate joy. (NPR)
Allison Janney doing things. (Twitter)
How exercise affects our memory. (NYT)
Photos and stories of Italian men who still live with their mothers. (Topic)
Men have no friends, so women bear the burden. (Harper’s Bazaar)
A new email newsletter that sends you “short pieces of advice from books.” Could be useful? (Book Freak)
Photo series: Stuff being thrown at my head. (Moss and Fog)
Mailchimp has a new podcast called Going Through It. Ann Friedman interviews important women about “pivotal moments in their lives when they had to decide whether to quit or to keep going.”
A national searchable database of estate sales. If only they’d had this (and the internet) for church sales in the early 90s.
A Roomba that screams and curses when it bumps into things. (Twitter)
Awwww. (Twitter)

What to expect when you're not expecting

Ending this week with many of your responses, some of which have been edited for length. Thank you for all of these. They really did help.

"I feel like I don't know what to say, even having just been through it myself. Don't feel like you need to be ok, now or ever. I'm not. People have told me it never gets better. I often have to pull over for crying so much - the attacks are random and unexpected. You'll get a lot of cards. I haven't opened them yet (4 months) and I don't know when, if ever, I will. Everything is terrible and there are no rules. Only love."

"This helped me after losing my mom. I went back to it a lot. Friends also helped. Just knowing they were out there, doing their thing. It opened my heart and let grief leak out."

"I didn’t cry when my Mom died, which was almost 13 years ago… I realized that I had been mourning her loss for months before she died. Through a series of TIAs and small to medium strokes, my mother disappeared a little at a time. I felt that loss as it happened, and by the time she was gone, there was so little of her left, I felt glad for her release. We were all with her when she died, and I hope she felt the love from all of us on that last day. For months afterwards, I could not get a clear image of her face, or clearly hear her voice in my head. But over time, I could see her, hear her, especially her smile and her laugh. I am still a little angry about some things, but overall I feel love and appreciation for her."

"The stuff that’s the worst is not being able to share the big stuff with them anymore, or finish conversations that sometimes last decades and you don’t think there’s more to say but there’s always more to say. Or to ask questions. Like, mom, could I have the turkey balls recipe, please? Or dad, what happened to you at St. Johns that made you drop out of high school for 6 months, and turn you into a sadist? That sort of thing. Also, I really appreciated hearing what other people had to say about these folks at their funerals. Really be present for that. Record it if you can, not even kidding."

"My dad passed suddenly 4 years and 17 days ago. All the duties pushed me through and kept me going. After the funeral, in the middle of the night, I had a panic attack. I woke up because I literally couldn’t breathe. 3 months later I had shingles, the worst pain I’ve ever felt. I should have known how broken I was but I just didn’t. All the firsts were hard for me. Father’s Day. His birthday. Watching Wimbledon without him. Holidays. They are still hard for me but I’m learning to celebrate memories to go with them. I didn’t live in the same town (or country!) as my dad so it also was hard for me to realize he was gone. I felt like he was still there. We’d exchange emails and things so when I no longer was getting his emails, it felt like it was just a long break and the break just got longer and longer. I see a lot of him in me now. Never realized that until more recently. Thanks for this opportunity to write about my experience ... and you are 100% right that everyone goes through this differently but also there are so many similarities."

"The gut punch for me was always crossing paths with people who knew my Mom but had not heard she had died - usually parents of people near my age from the pool and school - and would not have expected a woman under 60 to be dead. 'Oh HI, wow. Have not seen you in so long. How's your Mom?' Fuck. I have to tell this person my mom died. I had 5 years of expecting it, so I was not emotionally distraught, but dealing with OTHER PEOPLE's grief was a nightmare at first. Role play whatever polite phrases feel least fake for you. Then step into that role so you don't have to be emotionally connected when people are reflecting their own feelings onto you. I always used some humor, like you did with the 'she had her obit written, at just one grandkid.' It makes it easier for the other person. Which in turn makes it easier for US. You CAN simply thank most people for their polite offers of help. But it is good to have some relatively trivial things lined up for the people who really NEED to do something for you. Their issue, not yours, but easier to handle if you can give them purpose with a 'I don't know if we have enough tissues/cups/napkins/cookies etc. Would you be able to ...'"

"My dad passed away just before Christmas a year ago. Although he was almost 90 years old, and had been in the hospital for two weeks, my prevailing response was shock. I still feel slightly shocked by it. It is the ultimate reality check. At the same time, he had been seriously ill several years prior to passing away, and at that time it seemed so likely that he wouldn't make it that I went through a lot of emotions dealing with his death then. I did not have a close relationship with my father so it stirred up feelings of anger, resentment, sorrow and wistfulness for the father I wished I might have had. At that time, he still lived on the east coast, so this process was all from afar, but it was very cathartic for me to start letting go, and then he recovered! A year or two later, my mom convinced him to move out here with her and my brother, and I found that my relationship with my dad had mellowed, although I still felt an undercurrent of mistrust beneath our surface good will. Ultimately, his death has brought me the space to forgive his shortcomings and truly appreciate his strengths. So it is surprising that I feel shocked by his death, considering that I have been processing it for many years before and now a year plus after, but that's what it's like for me. I will also warn you that for me, talking to all my friends and extended family members right after my father died was comforting but somewhat overwhelming."

"I don’t know what is worse, to lose someone suddenly or from a long illness. I lost my mom about 11 years ago from an almost 2 year lung cancer fight. She was 57. I watched her slip away knowing I would lose her. So I had time to spend with her which was good but was also hard, always thinking this may be the last time we FILL IN THE BLANK. The first year for me was all about her not being there....at Christmas, Mother’s Day, birthdays, etc. There were sad times with tears, angry times with tears also. I found I just had to go with whatever would overtake me and be ok with it. My coping was through prayer. I would ask for peace and would find myself thinking about good times and eventually I was able to smile more than cry. But that took at least a year. I found it helpful also to be with family during the hardest times as we could talk about my mom together and I would learn things I didn’t know that would make me smile. If you are like me you will be disoriented for a while. Whether you were close or far away from your mom, she was your mom and the person who knew you the longest in the world."

"Re: grief, I don't think there is anything you should brace yourself for, because you can't brace against it but have to surrender to the experience. The image I hold in my mind of dealing with grief is of standing in the heavy surf and not resisting but letting the waves hit me. It's been 10 years since my father died and I think I miss him more as time goes on -- as the time we spend together recedes further into the past. Of course, my father was the sweet, kind, and gentle one. I know things will be a lot more complicated when my mother dies as she is more difficult and things are more fraught between us."

"Six years ago on the 12th of May, Mother’s Day, my mom died. This year the anniversary of her death again falls on Mother’s Day. She had lived with ALS for 44 years, 35 years in nursing care. I had been anticipating her death for a long time. When it happened there were no surprises. I didn’t cry then and I haven’t cried since then. I was very close to her and her three sisters, one of whom preceded her. I was sure that when my aunt X died I would cry a river. Never happened. Now my aunt Y is inching closer to leaving the planet and I wonder if that will do it. As you pointed out, we all grieve in our own way. I miss my mom and my aunts terribly. In a way, all of them have been my mom. Even though I was raised Catholic, like you, I have no idea what happens when we die. Maybe nothing, maybe the best adventure ever. I’d like to think that we will be reunited with family and friends but I seriously don’t think that will happen. Even so, I 'talk' to my mom most days. At the funeral a friend of mine gave me an orchid. It blooms every year around April and May. This year there were 26 (!!) blooms on one stem. The last two buds are just about to open. Whenever I walk by it, I say 'Thank you, mom.' I don’t know why talking to relatives who are no longer with us helps me. Maybe it helps to keep their memories from drifting away."

"My sister passed away unexpectedly 3 weeks ago and I coped by keeping busy and avoiding having to think about not having her in my life any more. I basically helped my mom make the funeral arrangements and call the relatives…. The emotional part that was the hardest for me in the whole grieving process was when the minister asked me to give the eulogy because my mom decided she didn't want to do it. And then I was forced to spend time thinking about things more than I had previously, and also get up in front of all our relatives at the funeral to remember my sister's life."

"The biggest thing I found helpful after my mom’s death was my grief support group…. The group feels like a safe space to talk about how you’re feeling when you may not want to burden your friends or if they can’t relate, and I find that the discussions make me reflect on my experience in ways I wouldn’t on my own. Everyone’s experience is unique and the other people’s struggles are not necessarily my own, but hearing them talk about what they’re going through has made me feel (oddly?) grateful for certain ways that things turned out for my mom and our family. It also feels nice to be able to support other people, and to think that what I say there can be helpful to them too. The main thing that surprised me was how complicated and expensive funeral arrangements are (who wants a fingerprint of their loved one on a necklace??) but it sounds like your mom took care of that already. Another thing that kind of surprised me is what a relief it was to do activities with people who didn’t know (and didn’t need to know) what I was going through. I’m part of an informal neighborhood knitting group that meets every other week, and our interactions are friendly but superficial. I’m sincerely grateful for the friends who know me well and have supported me throughout all of this, but it was really nice to feel normal for a couple hours with acquaintances, like everything in my life was fine. Also, activities that don’t require much talking have been helpful, like biking and rock climbing."

"My relationship with my mom was complicated. It certainly was not the stuff of the movies and she was narcissistic, crazy, and emotionally abusive at times. But there are good memories too. What's important is to remember them both - people will assume that 'of course you had the best relationship ever' and I think being around people who don't candy coat it but are really listening to what YOU need and what YOU want during your process is important. I have a friend who is less expressive about this stuff and had a complicated relationship with her mom. She went to a party not long after and everyone was approaching her with hushed tones and 'Are you okay?' - except for me (btw none of these hushed tones people had lost a parent). I went straight up to her and said 'I'm really sorry, and this sucks. You probably don't want to talk about anything right now so let me just get you some champagne and we can talk about that great dress you're wearing and Prince.' She hugged me and said THANK YOU."

"I lost my mom in October of 2004. I couldn’t be there at the end but X and I went up a few weeks before. I never cried when I heard that my mother died. Our niece was with her at the end and her first call was to tell us. I did cry, no weep is more accurate, after I said goodbye for the last time and had left the room. That was the last time that I’ve really cried/wept. Perhaps it was because I knew then that I’d never see her face again, alive or dead. Our relationship had been fraught with tension and silence over the previous fifteen or twenty years. We had stopped communicating in a real way. After some visits with her, I felt that there had been not a moment of intimacy or closeness of any kind. I wondered sometimes why I was with her on our semi-annual visits. (That’s where I spent most of my vacation time.) One of the good people from hospice had advised me to 'leave nothing unsaid.' Sadly, I failed to take her advice. Over the past fifteen years I have been tormented by things unsaid, by answers that I’ll never hear. We have some of my mother’s ashes as well as X’s mother’s ashes here in our home. I think about my mom nearly every day. And it is not always good thoughts. I’d give anything to be able to cry about my mom and to cry about countless other things."

"I wish I had some great advice for you. My father died, somewhat unexpectedly, when I was 25 years old. There's no magic to grief. You just go through it how you go through it, hoping that you or someone close to you will notice if you get stuck. You keep some old traditions and come up with new ones. You discover all the things about the person that you have incorporated into yourself, without even realizing it. One of my first ones was making Thanksgiving gravy, from scratch, for the first holiday after my dad died. I had no idea that I knew how but when my mom pulled out a jar of gravy she intended to serve, I just knew what to do from watching my dad cook for so many years. Eventually you start to see that memories make you laugh more often than they make you cry."

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