Dealing with death

On of the stories featured in The Myth of Closure was a woman whose husband was lost at sea. 

An acquaintance advised her to just call herself a widow already; it's not like anyone would know the difference.

She would know the difference.

Boss also mentioned families who lost members at the World Trade Center on 9/11. They often accepted death certificates for legal reasons and convenience. Having death legally declared, and being mostly sure that their loved one was in fact dead still left their loss complicated and ambiguous.

I have been thinking about the "convenience" part.

It is not at all unusual that even when everyone is sure of the death, we feel uncomfortable. We worry about saying the wrong thing.  

In my first round of reading about death, I mentioned that one of the books that came from from The Year of Magical Thinking was an etiquette guide by Emily Post. There used to be firmer rules about the formal handling of grief.

One reason I went to the Odditorium was for the exhibit on Victorian mourning, like maybe there would be some good ideas there. It wasn't particularly helpful.

Even when you know that someone is definitely gone, and you understand the reason why and there is nothing to fight on it, that will often not feel tidy.

One of the discussions we have had about this long goodbye with my mother is whether to have a funeral when the time comes. They had started being less common at the start of the pandemic, partly because of fears of contagion but also because of how quickly deaths were happening.

Some siblings were against having a funeral. I believe that is because at a funeral one has messy emotions and there are witnesses; they are not into that. I worried that other family members would feel cheated by that or that it was disrespectful, but everyone seems to be on board.

I also worried that maybe funerals are a community's way of coming together and telling each other, yes, this person is gone, and they were valuable to us. I have had very touching experiences at funerals and memorial services, so that can be something. Would we be missing out?

Maybe it is to get closure.

The problem with that is no matter how specific a timeline you set, it will be wrong. You will find yourself laughing when the grief is very fresh; then when it is older and appears mostly healed sharp stabs of grief will strike. 

Oh yeah, that hurt. 

One of the books in my "daughters" reading was The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards.

Dr. David Henry gives away his daughter born with Down Syndrome, pretending she died at birth. He gives her to the nurse to take to an institution, but then the nurse adopts her.

The devaluation of children with various conditions, including Down Syndrome, and institutionalization was a real thing; that's part of what inspired the story. The father making that decision unilaterally and lying to everyone is its own issue. 

I suppose to try and keep him relatable and sympathetic, it is based on his grief over his own sister's death, where he is trying to spare others. His family, poor rural people, did not know how to handle grief.

I remember thinking, Really!?! People have been dying since they have been living, generally sooner if you are poor. They had no way to process that!?! It's implied that part of it is their lack of education, but clearly the son's education didn't help.

And yet, given how we struggle sometimes with grief and mourning and supporting each other, maybe Edwards has a point.

The truth is that a funeral or a year of wearing black or covering mirrors for seven days or any other traditions may provide solace and help with reflection, but those things are outer while the healing needed is inside.

It is all very inconvenient. 

We can't always help people with that, but we can show that we care. That part is really important.

Sometimes it will involve fear of saying the wrong thing, but that makes the assumption that any specific things we could say will be wrong or right. 

I remember once getting a thank you card from someone whose mother had died, saying it was the only one that helped.

All I said that that this is going to hurt and it's okay to feel that pain.

This sucks and I am sorry. 

We can be so quick to comfort that we try and rush past the grief. That just prolongs the pain.

It is something we can't control, hence a lot of the discomfort. 

We can try to understand it better, and then adapt.