Death Knocks Again

When you have lived the grief experience others often assume you know "just what to say" to a friend or family member who has lost a person they love. Many times I have been the go-to person for advice on what to say, how to help, what not to say, and sometimes for requests to make a personal phone call to a fellow griever. Many times I feel overwhelmed by this assumption, because the truth is nothing changes the fact that the person they love isn't coming home. This fact alone is so strong, and devastating that I sometimes feel that words are futile, and the little I can do is but a bandage on a gaping wound.


But I am wrong. Recently my daughter taught me what words, actions, and willingness can do to heal a friend in need. This weekend, I was scheduled to spend three days away with two of my best friends. We spent Friday at the Tour of California (very cool, and I got a photo with Phil Liggett!!) and were on our way to a weekend at the desert when my cell phone rang. Seeing my daughter's name on the screen I picked up cheerfully, but the wind was knocked out of me by the sound of my crying girl on the other end. My first instinct was to be sure she was safe...did she get into a car accident, suffer some other serious injury, was there a relationship issue I was unaware of?? But some part of me knew the unique timbre of those tears, Caitlin was calling to tell me one of her best friend's mother was dead. Between her broken sobs, and confusing explanations my heart began an oddly familiar rhythm. I knew these tears, and the road ahead for this boy's family was crystal clear to me.


Sparing details of the story that are not mine to share, this mother's death was unexpected, mind bogglingly fast, and left three children without a mother and their father without a wife. Not to mention her parents, siblings, friends, and other family members who grieve the loss of a woman they loved. As things turned out Caitlin and I both witnessed the grief of this family first hand, both helpless observers, and seasoned vets. The combination grated my nerves. I could anticipate what lies ahead for this torn family, but felt useless as they each processed this new and devastating information. I paced, I hugged, I made calls, I paced some more, and I watched my little girl gracefully stand to one side both available, and unobtrusive. She reached out when the need was there, she sat quietly when that seemed more appropriate, and she assured her friend that she would be there for him. And she knew what those words meant.


In the moments I spent watching my seventeen year old daughter comfort a grieving family, I remembered the gift of just being. The friends that were the most help to me at the time of my own loss were the ones who could stand beside me no matter where the grief roller coaster took me. Some days I needed them to laugh, other days to cry, sometimes to listen, other times to fill the silence with idle chatter...but most of all I needed to know they wouldn't leave me. That they would be there. And I watched Caitlin do just that with courage, with grace, and with a compassion born of an experience I would have given anything to save her from.


Kids are the best teachers. Mine have easily uncovered some of the most important nuances of living the best life we can. But this weekend Caitlin provided me with a lesson I needed. Grief is only as powerful as we allow it to be. We can comfort each other even without the power to change the facts. A hug and a quiet moment of reflection are priceless. Those of us who have experienced loss have been left with a unique gift; we are hope personified. My little girl made that abundantly clear.

Question Number Eighteen

Did you wear your husband's clothes?

For the first few weeks after Phil's death anything that touched his body was sacred. His shoes were sitting just where he last left them, his lunchbox sat on top of the refrigerator, and his toothbrush was standing next to mine in the holder. One day I found one of his eyelashes and pressed it into a plastic rosary holder for safekeeping. Three days before he died, he was working in our attic and left dirty fingerprints on the top of the door in our bedroom. I was annoyed when I saw the black marks on our white door, and made a mental note to ask him to clean off the prints. Those black marks now hold a place of honor on my otherwise white door.

In those early days I didn't handle Phil's things very often~I was afraid of losing his scent, or masking that unique smell with my own. But after a few months, as shock wore off and reality started to press in around me, I became desperate for the comfort of Phil's arms. One morning I woke up crying (again) and wrapped my own arms around myself trying to imagine that my limbs were his. Rocking back and forth in the middle of my bed I looked up and caught sight of one of his sweatshirts. Even as I literally ached for his touch, I weighed the value of wearing his clothes against the risk of losing even a tiny part of him. With a limited supply of his things their value became immeasurable. But I needed him, so I pulled that sweatshirt over my head. Immediately I felt as if he had wrapped me in a tight hug, and I lay my head on his strong chest and cried my eyes out.

That moment was a milestone for me. I stopped withholding the comfort of wearing his clothes from myself, and just reveled in the warmth of knowing I was wearing a part of him. I slept in his t-shirts, wore his slippers to get the paper, pulled on his raincoat when it poured, and adopted his favorite running shirt as my own. I was layered in Phil, and I loved every minute.

As I became more comfortable using his things and less worried about losing him by making them my own, I discovered that Phil's memory was part of my daily life in a new way. Instead of pulling out his things to torture myself with his absence, I used them to remind me of how much he loved me. The items that were a part of his everyday routine, were proof that he was part of my every day world~even though his body was gone. Our love was obvious to me in his hairbrush, even if that brush was now covered in my hair. When I pulled on his running shirt, I was reminded of sunny afternoons that we headed out the door side-by-side. Slowly I blended what was with what is, and found that the past was paving the way for the future.

I still go out to get the paper in Phil's slippers. Every now and then I giggle as I pull on his favorite sweatshirt, because he would never let me wear it when he was alive. His t-shirts are often my pajamas and that eyelash is still tucked away in the rosary box. What I have learned is that his memory is held not only in the physical evidence of his existence, but in the indelible mark he left on my soul. No amount of time, space, or familiarity will rub that mark off.

The Big Red Day

My husband used to call Valentine’s Day ‘So What Day’…romantic, huh? He thought greeting cards were a waste of trees; that buying flowers because someone told you to defeated the purpose; and that going to dinner on the big day just to eat from a limited menu and have servers anxiously awaiting your departure from the table was ridiculous. I will admit that we fought about this on a few occasions…who wants to be the only girl in the office that didn’t get flowers? Eventually we settled into our own brand of celebrating our love, both on the big day, and on the other 364 days of the year.

I expected to breeze through the first Valentine’s Day without him, because he hated this holiday. But as the day approached, I found myself missing my heart day scrooge. There was no one around to balk at the increase in flower prices. There was no need to peruse the recycled card collection looking for just the right sentiment for my grumpy Valentine, and I cried when I realized there would be no one to take me to dinner at 4:30PM to avoid the crowds. Very quickly I found myself repeating in my head all the reasons to boycott the Hallmark holiday.

When the day arrived I found myself unable to ignore the National Day of Love. Instead of pushing the memories of our on-going struggle to find a happy middle ground for our own celebration out of my mind, I called them each front and center. And I laughed out loud. Recalling the times he showed up in the kitchen with a flower from our garden in hand, the dinners we ‘accidentally’ went to on the 14th of February, my efforts to get him to write me just one letter telling me how much he loved me (I was successful), and finally, the fact that he proposed to me on Valentine’s Day…I felt loved. And I guess that is the point of the day after all. Even though Phil never contributed to the romance testaments proudly placed on desks across America, I never doubted that he loved me. That night I drifted off to sleep murmuring…happy so what day honey.

Where is the "Get Out of Jail Free" card??

I am typing away this morning with a winter cold. Runny nose, coughing fits, watery eyes, achy body...the whole package. Overall, I feel pretty miserable. Whenever I am sick, I am reminded of my mom bringing me soup and hot tea as a child. Sometimes my mind wanders to the way I care for my own children when they are sick (I am famous for a concoction called sickness tea), but often my heart aches with the desire to have a special someone that cares about exactly how bad my cough is, nags me to go to the doctor, or allows use of his lap as a pillow for watching movies or taking an afternoon nap. I can really gear myself up for a self pity session when a winter virus takes hold.

Once you suffer the death of someone you love so intensely, shouldn't you have wracked up some hardship credit with the universe? Haven't grievers earned a grief bonus somehow? A punch card that says, "Take it easy on this one for awhile." ? Isn't having to navigate the daily challenges of living life without your mate enough without having additional challenges, like colds and flus, financial woes, romantic disasters, and suddenly urgent house repairs thrown into the juggling match as well? Where is the get out of jail free card anyway?

As my nose stops running, my head clears up, a friend stops by to bring me soup, and my kids whisper down the hall, "SHHHH, Mom is SLEEPING!" I realize that life isn't so bad. There are good days,and bad ones. There are times I scream at the universe because Phil is dead, and others when I am able to thank God for all the gifts Phil's life, and his death, have brought into my life. There are moments when I would take the easy way out without a second thought, and others when I recognize the value of each life experience--even the painful ones. There are moments of utter despair, and moments of crystal clarity. All in all life calls, and we choose whether or not to answer. Even when we feel miserable.

Question Number Seventeen

After your husband's death, did you sleep in the same bed you shared with him?

Phil died at 6:33PM on Wednesday, August 31, 2005. At the end of that horrific day, I stood in the doorway of our bedroom and faced our empty bed. My mom came to stand beside me as I contemplated what to do...go in? stay out? sleep in our room? sleep on the couch? sleep alone? sleep with one of the kids? In a voice that was laced with despair I told my mom that whenever I was away from home over night, Phil would stack all the pillows from our bed (he was always confused by the need for decorative pillows) on my side to keep my place warm until I got back. Quietly my mom went into the room, and moved all those useless pillows into Phil's empty spot.

The memory of waking up the day after Phil's death is one of the most clear, and haunting, images of my grief journey. His alarm routinely sounded at 4:30AM, and with the shock and horror of the day no one realized the clock was still set for the next morning. After a fitful sleep, I woke up to his alarm--and the stack of pillows where my beautiful husband should have been. The realization that dawned with the morning sun that my husband was not coming home was one of my most desperate moments. I felt panic rising in my chest as I searched the empty bed with my hand, seeking some sign that I was dreaming. I opened and closed my eyes over and over again hoping that somehow he would appear if I kept repeating the process. My mind raced with the desire to turn back time, to start August 31st over again, to run through the house calling his name, to scream to the world how unfair his absence was--because the reality of those extra pillows in his place was almost too much to bear.

For weeks I stacked those pillows up in his spot before I went to bed, and nodded off hoping that somewhere, far away, he had pillows stacked up for me too.

Reflecting on the New Year

New Years Day is a reflective holiday for me. How would I rate last year overall? Are there any obvious changes that I can make to improve the coming year? When I look back at the past 365 days can I say that I am proud of the way I lived them? Self reflection, however, is extremely challenging when grief has walked into your life unbidden and unwanted. Do these questions still apply when you are grieving? Can you reflect on life without a distinct bias when your entire world is upside down? What change, short of a miraculous return of my husband, could be made to improve my life after his death?

In some ways self reflection appears to be a luxury reserved only for those who still feel they have some semblance of control over their life. Before Phil died I harbored delusional thoughts of being in control of every area of my life. I was proud of the careful plans I made, and the way each action led to the achievement of a goal. Seemed to me that hard work and tenacity would always pay off. Then Phil died. Suddenly the ways I previously viewed success were suspect. Without the ability to be certain of a particular outcome how could I chart a course for the future? The day after Phil died I looked at my calendar. Each block was carefully filled in with appointments, reminders, and special dates, but without Phil as my partner not one of the notations mattered. Looking back I think the most frightening thing for me at that moment was the sudden realization that plans fail, life takes unexpected turns, and people die.

How does all of this affect my New Year reflections? Grief has taught me to adopt different criteria for success. When I look at my life today, I hold myself to a new, and in many ways higher, standard. Have I lived each moment knowing that life is precious, and an individual frame in time cannot be repeated? Do I tell the important people in my life that I love them~often and sincerely? Have I taken the lessons of grief and applied them to life? Will I look back at the year passed as a unique, necessary, and unforgettable gift? These measures change the focus from one of loss and despair to one of hope and gratitude. This Pollyanna attitude may sound trite, and there are days when I am surrounded by storm clouds with no noticeable silver lining, but losing Phil taught me to hold onto life~for that reason and countless others I am grateful for the opportunity to have loved him.

Life is full of both challenges and gifts. Without the challenges, perhaps we would be less appreciative of the gifts. Pictured is one of my recent blessings, my brother's new baby girl (and my sister-in-law in the background!). Welcome to a wonderful family Eveline!

How Can I Be Merry?

This is the fourth Christmas I have spent without Phil. I find that fact almost incomprehensible. Where has the time gone? How do I begin to count the things that have happened in my life since his death? The kids have grown several inches, our families have grown and changed, our house is different in many ways, and I put up the Christmas lights in record time (I am getting good at it!)...and all of these things are bittersweet. Life has changed in a variety of ways, and yet Phil is still dead. He gets the updates about our lives via my heart-to-heart chats with him, but there are now other people who get the updates, too. There are many parts of Christmas that remind me of him, of us, of a life that is no longer...sometimes the memories make me laugh, and other times they make me cry. And there are still days when I shake my head in wonder that Phil is not coming through the front door any minute.

So how can I be merry? How do I savor a life that Phil isn't sharing? When do the memories cease being haunting? I can only answer for myself...and what I have found is that knowing that Phil is forever in my heart gives me the comfort I need to have a different life. Things aren't what they once were. I am no longer naive to the concepts of death, grief, devastation, and despair. But meeting these dark companions has changed my life. When I discovered how dark life can be, I instinctively reached out for the light. As I walked through the valley of fear and uncertainty, I searched for a path towards hope. And when I experienced the absolute truth that life is actually short, my own life became more valuable as a result. My new motto is live. Live for today, because this moment is all we have.

How then to be merry? Accept that healing takes time. Know that happiness is eventually, and always, a choice. Hold tight to the love you have for your spouse, but don't let that hold become so tight that it strangles the living you. Value the opportunity to change someone's life, in ways large or small. And as a good friend once said to me, rest in the riddle.

Wishing all of you the chance to be merry....even if only for the briefest of moments.

Michele