A grieving mammal who also is a human

I never experienced this kind of grief before. I was there when my dad died after years of some really rough dementia. It was painful to witness. It was scary and extraordinary. We watched him become dusky and become pink and become dusky as his breathing slowed.

Then stopped.

Then restarted.

Then finally stopped. We held our breath until The Moment happened.

A strong wind blew outside, shaking the windows of the nursing home. Death was a relief after a brutal decline. He was free, and could be remembered as who is really was, and not how he was during those unbelievable years of struggle.

To lose Mike as a young, healthy, beautiful human being to a horrible disease like bulbar ALS, was NOT a relief.

To be clear, this post is not a one-upsmanship by any means comparing my grief to yours, because most adults have experienced loss in their lives. For example, we're grieving trust that our government wouldn't go bat shit crazy, redefine truth with disinformation, and nominate unethical human beings to really important roles. That is a different grief, and whatever you are feeling is as fully regarded and important. It is uniquely experienced and differently awful than watching your life partner and the father of your children, die. I ask for grace here, and writing based on the assumption that your grief, just like mine, is unique as a fingerprint to each person.

Today, I am writing about my particular fingerprint.

Grief is a shared human path - an instinctive, mammalian, physical, kinesthetic and emotional experience. A caring and brilliant human can learn all about pregnancy and birthing a baby - and each time after I gave birth to our babies, each unique experience changed my life, our lives, in a kinesthetic way that reading, studying or witnessing birth could not have given to me. Reading, studying and witnessing births are powerful, honorable and impactful experiences. My grandfather, Harold C Mack MD, was an OBGYN who dedicated his life to caring for mums and babies. And that dedication is different than the physical experience of pregnancy and giving birth. All I'm saying is that there is something that lived experience gives us as human beings.

Cards and outreach are a finite period of time after the death of a person. People get on with their lives which is understandable. Connection is very much made up of habit. Mike's illness changed our life habits enormously, especially for his final two years. We were phased out of some folks' lives for many different reasons (circumstances occur in everyone's lives, and there's no assumption of ill-intent here - it just happens). The anticipatory grief was likely uncomfortable to be around. But many folks came to visit Mike because he was always Mike, because of his genuine self, regardless of his motor units. He was irresistible, and continued to be fully himself, even as his body and communication changed.

Silence is the same absence of sound, regardless of intent. Silence with the intention of honoring privacy and creating space sounds exactly like the silence of being ignored or forgotten. Aligning the relationship with the level of outreach can be tricky. Suffice it to say, responding to someone whose person has died is impossible to nail with a 10 out of 10.

Amazingly, there are some human beings who know what to say or do. Perhaps they have kinesthetically lived through the death of their too-young-to-die direct family member or partner. There seems to be an instinctive, sacred regard there for how to hold the space, a quiet understanding for space, for checks ins that never ask, "How are you doing?" For me, that is such a useless question, which also is a lot of work to answer. (Do I tell the truth? Likely not. Who will they tell about my response? etc.) For others who are grieving, asking "How are you doing?" may be precisely what they are aching to be asked. Again: reaching out to a grieving person takes bravery and willingness to understand what could be helpful and being willing to correct course if your best intentions land unhelpfully. It takes so much bravery to just try to love someone who is broken from grief.

An absent friend shared they don't know what to do with this new, grieving me. It is clear that they feel uncomfortable and emotionally unfamiliar - which is totally fair. To regain connection, I believe it requires another human's grief and loss to connect to mine in some way.

Despite this individual's brilliance (and truly, this is not an overestimation), they have not been intimately connected with their deepest emotions, which has served them well for much of their life. They are insightful and see emotions more like facts to acknowledge and move on. There's a chasm between their objective lens on the landscape and the visceral, mammalian, messy grief where I am living. It appears they are unclear if the space between us is something they can navigate. It appears they are unclear if they want to navigate this messy, unpredictable space.

As much as any human would like to find the pause button to their unique grief, (and I really really do) it's not always available. Let’s acknowledge the inevitability of awkwardness as we learn how to help each other.

All of us well-meaning humans will say the wrong thing- guaranteed. Let’s challenge each other to try anyway, ask for guidance or just be silent, loving and present, and customize to that person’s needs. Asking “How are you doing?” requires opening a grieving heart. This could result in a lie, an amputated artificial response, a bob and weave deflection, or perhaps an honest response. Instead, try sharing a picture of something funny, something easy to engage in, or an offer with zero logistical planning required for the griever (i.e. “I made salmon patties and would love to drop some by today - If you’re around, thats amazing. If not, I’ll leave a cooler on your porch - just keep it there and I’ll pick it up later this week.”)

Thoughts and prayers are a push:pull for me: we have heard it so many times after school shootings, that thoughts, prayers and texts can represent the lowest denomenator of effort. Texts asking for good dates and times to go for a walk/have coffee/go for a hike create a response workflow for the griever to find time in the other persons’ schedule. A close friend offering over and over and over to include the grieving person is a beautiful gift: it shows an understanding that in time, it will happen, and that they are on your mind and not forgotten. And that their presence is desired, while honoring where they are at. And that the friend will not give up, which is a beautiful gift.