What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do

Some dear friends have died recently, and in thinking about what I could do for grieving family members and friends, I went and looked up a piece I wrote a few weeks after my husband died.

I have updated it a little.

When someone dies, people say, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” to the bereaved survivors. There might be a lot of things that need doing, but the grieving person is in a world of shock characterized by numbness and amnesia.

People said that to me after my husband died, and never having an answer for it other than, “Thank you,” in a rare moment of rational thought I wrote down some things that might help.

Clean one square yard of the house. (I asked for one square yard because I wanted to ask for something that was doable.)

Wash one window of the house. (Ditto.)

Drop by and do a sink full of dishes, or a load of laundry. Extra points for putting dishes and laundry away. If you put stuff in the wrong place, it will provide months of little surprises for the bereaved person.

Help weed the flower bed (make sure you are pulling weeds) and plant the rhododendron (or other plant) that has been given.

Bring chocolate (or something else if they don’t like chocolate).

Recommend funny movies/TV shows to watch or stream, or good books. An hour or two of respite can be good.

Send a little money. There are expenses when someone dies. Many people don’t have the cash on hand to cover all the expenses that go with a death, especially if the death came at the end of an illness that lasted years and went through all their financial resources. Even if that is not the case, many people are living from one paycheck or Social Security check to the next. Money helps. It allows a person to feel a little more secure when his or her world is at its most insecure.

So. When someone you know has suffered the loss of someone they love, you can say, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Then, even if the person hasn’t got an answer for you, SHOW UP and do a little house cleaning or window washing or yard cleaning, lend them some great movies or TV shows or make a list of great things to rent or see or books to read, make a cup of tea or coffee, fix a sandwich, take the dog for a walk, give their kids a ride to rehearsal or the game and back, bring a meal that can be eaten now or frozen for later, write a check and send it to the account that’s been set up at the bank to benefit the family or be the person who sets up that account, or give cash or a check directly to the family. Don’t wait to be asked.

Send a card. I was amazed at what a difference condolence cards made. They meant a lot.

I am not an authority on grief. I’m only reporting on the experience I had when my husband died. Show up, help, send a card, bring chocolate, and a little money never hurts.

Those are some things you can do.

If you are the bereaved and someone says to you, “God never gives you more than you can handle,” or the ever popular, “She/he’s in a better place,” I feel it is my Christian duty to tell you now that you have my personal permission to think, “Bull pucky,” or words to that effect.

You probably won’t want to say it out loud because you are a polite person, unless you really feel the need, or you are the sort of person from whom people expect that sort of thing. It’s good to acknowledge to yourself when someone lays a cliché on you that you don’t have to swallow it, and you will feel better for that. You’ll be able to smile and say, “Thank you.”

Most people you must cut some slack – they are in shock, too, and are simply bumbling around with good intentions. Some people, though, feel they have discharged their duty by delivering their cliché and will leave you to your grieving. Let them go.

After about six weeks to two months, the fuss dies down and the bereaved are left alone to adjust to the new normal, while everyone else is caught up in their old normal life. That’s the way it is. That’s a good time to check in - send another card, or drop by, or call.

Those who mourn are climbing an emotional Mt. Everest. Give them a little grace now and then.

Peace.

It Takes Courage to Live in This World

A couple of decades ago an elderly friend’s son who was in his late forties committed suicide. She commented that she was sorry that he would not live to know the joys of old age.

I understand what she meant now more than I did then. There is a perspective that comes with age. Life doesn’t get easier, but you realize that things you thought were important, aren’t, and you savor more the things that are important.

People who committed suicide used to infuriate me. Idiots, I thought. I struggled with depression, but even in my hours of deepest despair, suicide was never an option for me. No one has permission to throw away their precious life.

But there came a day, a few years after my husband died, when I felt so tired, and like the pain had gone on for so long, and I wanted the pain to end. For a split second, suicide bloomed in my mind as a solution.

Whoa, Nelly! Scared the crap out of me. I went to my church, and my priest happened to be there, and dropped everything to listen to me. I thank God for him and his response.

I went into therapy after that wake-up experience, and therapy did me a world of good. It’s good to be told that you’re going through something that’s not unusual for an exhausted and grieving person.

After that my attitude toward people who commit suicide changed. I realize now that they are so, so tired of carrying their burden, and suicide seems like a way out.

What gets me, in retrospect, is that the impulse hit me so out of the blue, and how good it made me feel in the moment. There it was, a visceral response to years of living beyond my tolerance for physical, mental, and emotional pain.

I was fortunate. I knew I did not want to do that, and I knew I had resources. I got help.

When someone has killed themselves, people ask why, and there are never any satisfactory answers. Even when there is a suicide note explaining a suicide’s rationale, no one says, “Oh, well, now I get it.”

Instead people search their hearts and souls for answers, and blame themselves or other people, and still they are left with terrible grief and mystery. Why? Why didn’t you reach out to me? We could have made it through this.

Even people who study suicide don’t really understand. Some suicides plan the method of their demise ahead of time, and sometimes they kill themselves on an impulse. Some suicides, we learn, had some form of mental illness or struggled with addiction or some physical illness for years. Others, we learn, seemed to be fine. No one had a clue.

Suicide is epidemic among our war veterans. Twenty-two suicides every day is the number I hear quoted. War is all hell.

Not two months ago two famous people, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, committed suicide within days of one another. For a week or two there was a lot of talk about suicide prevention, and then the news cycles moved on to children in cages, tariffs and trade wars, the World Cup, and Trump being a jerk in Brussels and England.

This is the world we live in, and it takes courage to live in this world. If you think your life is hard, you are correct.

If you see someone who looks like they are hurting, ask them how they are, and then listen.

If you have a suicidal impulse, or you are thinking of suicide, talk to someone you can trust – a friend, a parent, a teacher, a pastor or priest, a counselor, a family member, someone! And if you don’t have someone at hand to listen to you, here’s the number to call: 1-800-273-8255, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, available 24 hours every day.

I called that number to see what happened, and here’s what you can expect: you get a recording (oh, great, I thought, but don’t hang up) that tells you that you’ve reached the Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the Veterans’ Crisis Line, and same as when you are calling a doctor, you are told that if you have an emergency, hang up and call 911.

Then there is some information for Veterans who are calling, and then you get the usual message that everyone is busy talking with other callers and you are put on hold with music playing.

DON’T GIVE UP. DON’T BE DISCOURAGED.

I stayed on the line to see how long it took, and my call was answered by a nice man named Mason in under two minutes.

Put that number in your contacts. Write it on the wall if you have a land line.

Stick around for the joys of old age, dear hearts. Connect with one another, and be encouraged. Blessings.

You Never Know

There are people who claim the name of Nazi in our country, but most of the people who are steering our decline are not Nazis. To paraphrase the immortal words of Paul Anka, we’re doing it “our way.”

We need a new word, a new name, for our fascism. The first thing that came to my mind was the ICE age, but that doesn’t really do it. I’m open to suggestions.

What is happening is not simply about the Executive Branch. It is the entire gang – Executive, Congress, and Supreme Court, and their backers - which is presently deconstructing our constitutional republic as fast as it can.

Checks and balances? Not when you control all three branches of the government. Medicare and Social Security? Hah. The billionaires need that money. Let the sick and elderly die off and stop being a burden to rich people.

Perhaps the racists currently holding the reins and their supporters would like to make this country the lily-white paradise they imagine it was in the beginning, having conveniently dismissed the natives living here when Europeans arrived.

We are far from being a white country. In the 2010 census, 63.7% of the country was counted as white, which left 36.3% of the population as non-white.

In America we have a significant population of people of African descent, and we have a population of people who are Muslims, and many Muslims are people of African descent whose parents and grandparents became Muslims in the 1960s and the years since. Those people are Americans.

As for Hispanics – they are not a race or a religion. They are people who descend from people who come from Latin America, Spain, or Portugal. As of the 2010 census, there were about 51 million Hispanic people in the United States, which makes them the second largest group in the country after whites (197 million, 2010 census). All those Hispanics are Americans.

Fun with numbers.

Meanwhile, back at the fascism, it is looking grim for those of us who were fond of having rights and freedoms.

Don’t people who support He Who Shall Not Be Named realize that they are losing their rights, too? Don’t they realize that after the government has come for the people of African descent, and the Muslims, and the Hispanics, and the LGBTQA people, and the union members, and the Jews, and the uppity women, that they might be targeted? Maybe they had a Jewish grandmother. Maybe their church isn’t conservative enough.

It is my hypothesis that supporters of the current regime have Not Thought Things Through. For example: in 2016, some people voted on the single issue of making abortion illegal.

Now, I do not believe that abortion should be made illegal. Why? Because I thought it through. Once the government has set the legal precedent of forcing women not to have abortions, if at some later date it becomes expedient to, for example, control our population growth, the government will be able to pass a law that makes abortion mandatory.

Think it through, people.

Some days it feels like hope is slipping away, but then I remember an experience on my church’s prayer chain.

We received a request for prayers for a man who was terminal. Sadly and solemnly I passed this request along. Well, son of a gun if the guy didn’t perk up and start taking nourishment. He recovered and lived for several more years. It taught me a lesson: you never know. I never say anyone is terminal now.

So I’m not going to say our country is terminal. I won’t kid you - we’re in a bad way. It will likely get worse before it gets better. I don’t know how long it will take for adults to get control over these entitled spoiled brats; I don’t know what the process will be; but I think there’s life in the old republic yet. At least I hope there is.

Meanwhile, live well, laugh often, and don’t let the bastards grind you down. I remind myself every so often that if there is no joy in life, what is the point of fighting for freedom and justice and liberty for all?

Okay, you’re right, it’s good to have those things even if you are miserable, but I believe we’re in for a long haul reclaiming our country. I do not expect to live to see a victory of common sense and rational behavior. I believe that good human beings can start out with the best intentions and principles in the world and be derailed by the desire to make a fast buck and control other people. Look at where we are.

Still, I didn’t expect a lot of things that I’ve seen.

You never know.