The Disquieting Damozel

"Timor Mortis Conturbat Me" (Reprise)

The one thing about growing older is that you reach a point where you realize that every day brings you closer to losing someone you love----a parent, a friend, a pet, a spouse.  This is of course true throughout life, but for most of us, losses prior to middle age are much more widely spaced.  Then suddenly you reach a point where a lot of people you love are at or near the end of life.

I think this might be at the root of the panic and depression so many of my friends seem to be experiencing.  Even the medication doesn't help all of them.  One who has always been a pillar of strength is currently caught up in a depression/panic spiral and nothing seems to help.  I remember very well what this is like and indeed have to be pretty vigilant in staving off similar feelings of my own. 

Doing Grief: A How-to Guide for Surviving the Death of a Spouse or Other Life Partner

Advice from a layperson who's been there.

1. The realities of public vs. private grief. First of all, despite whatever self-help books you may find out there, there isn't really a protocol your can follow for surviving a real loss. How you cope with it depends in some respects on who or what it is that you are grieving for. One problem with grief is that our society, with its counseling and self-help mentality, simply does not make room for it. In the last hundred years or so, we've gone from a world which enforced mourning on survivors whether they liked it or not, to one which barely makes room for it.

To the extent that we in the U.S. do make room for it, we adopt a sort of all or nothing approach: someone is either mourning, and therefore should be left alone to get on with it, or they are not. People don't like to think about death and they don't know how to talk about it.

Advice from a layperson who's been there.

1. The realities of public vs. private grief. First of all, despite whatever self-help books you may find out there, there isn't really a protocol your can follow for surviving a real loss. How you cope with it depends in some respects on who or what it is that you are grieving for. One problem with grief is that our society, with its counseling and self-help mentality, simply does not make room for it. In the last hundred years or so, we've gone from a world which enforced mourning on survivors whether they liked it or not, to one which barely makes room for it.

To the extent that we in the U.S. do make room for it, we adopt a sort of all or nothing approach: someone is either mourning, and therefore should be left alone to get on with it, or they are not. People don't like to think about death and they don't know how to talk about it.

The Etiquette of Death and Dying (07.10.2006)

[first published in "The Flatland Oracles", my previous blog]

Lately, I've been chatting a lot to a friend who is a thanatologist.   She does counseling for the dying and for their families, both before and after death, and works with a lot of Hospice patients.  We had a really interesting conversation about death and dying and she recommended a couple of books for me.  Our conversation really got me thinking. 

I've become very interested in the subject of death.  How is it we're so unprepared to deal with it?  Seriously, isn't that a bit weird?  It's the one thing---besides the fact of being born at all---that we all have in common and that we can all absolutely expect.   Actually, it is not a 'bit' weird; it is extremely strange.  We are an entire culture in denial about this basic fact of existence.  Why?

Lately, I've been chatting a lot to a friend who is a thanatologist.   She does counseling for the dying and for their families, both before and after death, and works with a lot of Hospice patients.  We had a really interesting conversation about death and dying and she recommended a couple of books for me.  Our conversation really got me thinking. 

I've become very interested in the subject of death.  How is it we're so unprepared to deal with it?  Seriously, isn't that a bit weird?  It's the one thing---besides the fact of being born at all---that we all have in common and that we can all absolutely expect.   Actually, it is not a 'bit' weird; it is extremely strange.  We are an entire culture in denial about this basic fact of existence.  Why?

Friendly and Unfriendly Ghosts

originally published at "The Flatland Oracles" in "The Disquieting Damozel"

My late husband Don claimed to be able to see or sense both sorts.  And since his death, I get the impression sometimes that he's pretty persistent himself.  I know it sounds a bit absurd.  

He was a strange man. As time goes by, I understand him less. Everything I thought I knew about him is disappearing into his enigmatic last few days and all of the things I learned about him after..

               

My late husband Don claimed to be able to see or sense both sorts.  And since his death, I get the impression sometimes that he's pretty persistent himself.  I know it sounds a bit absurd.  

He was a strange man. As time goes by, I understand him less. Everything I thought I knew about him is disappearing into his enigmatic last few days and all of the things I learned about him after..

               

The Ghost in the Image: Photography & Memory

[first published in "The Flatland Oracles", my previous blog]

 

I have a lot of photographs of my late husband Don and also of my first husband, whom I divorced when I was 30. I was going through a trunk and ended up looking through a pile of them.

I contend---and I know most people would disagree with me----that a photograph is a far more evocative and powerful aid to memory than a videotape. To me, a videotape is as puzzling and unrevealing as reality itself as it unscrolls before you.

[first published in "The Flatland Oracles", my previous blog]

 

I have a lot of photographs of my late husband Don and also of my first husband, whom I divorced when I was 30. I was going through a trunk and ended up looking through a pile of them.

I contend---and I know most people would disagree with me----that a photograph is a far more evocative and powerful aid to memory than a videotape. To me, a videotape is as puzzling and unrevealing as reality itself as it unscrolls before you.

How John Donne Missed the Point (08.22.2005)

[first published in "The Flatland Oracles," my previous blog]

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee etc. etc."  Yes, but that's not the worst thing.  If its tolling for you, you can't hear it and you don't care about it.  It's when it's tolling for someone you care about, on whose existence you've shored your life, that you experience the reality of death.  You don't know the hour of your own death, but you also don't know the hour of anyone else's.

You’re going through your life, under the illusion that things can’t change much and perhaps even that you have some control over whether and how they change.  Then your spouse, lover, mother, sibling, best friend dies.  A huge hole opens in reality.  An essential piece is swallowed up in the voice.  You can believe what you want about meeting them again or about their happy reunion with God; they're gone.   

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee etc. etc."  Yes, but that's not the worst thing.  If its tolling for you, you can't hear it and you don't care about it.  It's when it's tolling for someone you care about, on whose existence you've shored your life, that you experience the reality of death.  You don't know the hour of your own death, but you also don't know the hour of anyone else's.

You’re going through your life, under the illusion that things can’t change much and perhaps even that you have some control over whether and how they change.  Then your spouse, lover, mother, sibling, best friend dies.  A huge hole opens in reality.  An essential piece is swallowed up in the voice.  You can believe what you want about meeting them again or about their happy reunion with God; they're gone.