Dealing with loss
A personal opinion on how I coped with grief and loss
I watched the incredible last episode of The Midnight Gospel, episode 1x8 “Mouse of Silver,” where Duncan Trussell (Clancy) interviewed his mother. She had been dealing with metastatic breast cancer for the past four years by the time the podcast that inspired the episode came out.
This story is very similar to what happened in my family last year when my mother passed away after bravely fighting for two years against metastatic cancer.
I decided to share in this post how I dealt with this experience. I would like to clarify one thing before we start. Everything I share here is a personal opinion based on my very own experience, and it may or may not apply to you.
How did I handle this?
Unfortunately, there is no easy way or a recipe to deal with it. I wish there were a recipe to cope with grief and loss because it would be so much easier.
While watching the last episode of The Midnight Gospel, one conversation got my attention:
Clancy: “Some stuff, you might not be able to control. When the tornado comes whipping through your neighborhood, and your house gets blown down, and somehow you didn’t have insurance, and you lose everything, you can’t control that.”
Clancy: “But you can certainly control how you’re gonna react to that situation.”
Deneen Fendig: “If you can become aware of your reactivity, then you can respond to it more easily, rather than just repeat the reactions.”
Clancy: “Because the house is always gonna get knocked down.”
Deneen Fendig: “That’s part of life. The house gets knocked down.”
Clancy: “There’s just no way out of that.”
Deneen Fendig: “There is no way out of it. But if you will think about all the times that your houses have gotten knocked down in your life…”
Clancy: “Yes.”
Deneen Fendig: “They are actually the transformative moments.”
When my mother was first (wrongly) diagnosed with a brain tumor, my version of a tornado knocking my house down, none of us in my family expected to get caught in such an extreme event.
I tried to face it as bravely as possible, not showing fear and other negative feelings to her or to my siblings. I was the one who had to tell her that she had a 6-centimeter tumor in her brain and had to have brain surgery.
I agree with Clancy’s mother when she says that those are transformative moments. Seeing my mother being diagnosed with a brain tumor that turned out to be terminal cancer and seeing her weak due to all the surgeries and chemotherapy changed me forever.
How do I ease the pain?
You don’t.
I read a lot of articles about people saying that time makes the pain bearable. It has been a year since my mother passed away, and the pain hasn’t gotten any better for me.
I face this pain, knowing I will have chronic pain that I will forever live with. I need to manage it to be functional.
Some people find that religion is a way to make the pain easier to bear. Others see the idea of religion as outrageous after having their loved ones taken by their so-called god. Others still find comfort in doing therapy or seek solace in alcohol or drug abuse as a way to manage the pain.
My Grandma used to tell me: “Man muß das Leben nehmen, wie es kommt.” Translated to English, this would be something like: You need to live your life as it comes to you. I try to live my life like that — one day at a time, trying to make things that I think will help me to manage my pain. To paraphrase Clancy and his mother, “That’s part of life. The house gets knocked down…There is no way out of it.”
How do I keep her memory alive?
Years ago, I watched an Adam Sandler movie called Reign Over Me, in which the character Charlie Fineman loses his wife and daughters in the September 11th attacks on the US. There is this scene where he tells his wife’s family that he does not need to see pictures or talk about his family because, a lot of times, he actually sees them in someone else’s face as clearly as he could see them in pictures.
This translates how I feel so well. I don’t need to see my mother’s pictures or videos to actually see her. I used to Facetime my mother while walking to work, and she always pointed out how blue and beautiful New Zealand looked. Today, every time I look up to the sky, I can hear her whispering in my ears. When I see a movie that I know she would have liked to watch, I can visualize her reactions and comments while watching it. She loved flowers, so every time I see beautiful flowers, I swear I can see her looking at them and contemplating how beautiful they are.
How do I not get hurt by other people’s comments or reactions?
That’s a hard one, but I think that it’s highly related to your expectations. Sometimes, you expect a certain kind of behavior or treatment from certain people, and you get disappointed when things don’t happen the way you expected. You also need remember that it is hard for us to know how to deal with this situation; it is often hard to know what to do or say to someone in this kind of situation.
I remember people’s reactions when my mother passed; some of them were really supportive even though we were not close. Some treated me like I had an infectious disease and tried to avoid me as much as possible.
As I said at the beginning, it is often a matter of your expectations. Some people just want someone to listen to them. Other people want someone to support them with kind words.
I was told by someone that I really trusted that my pain was karma for something my mother and I probably did in the past. That was one of the most hurtful things that I have ever heard. That was only one of the examples of things that I heard from people.
Be careful with whom you share, because it can let you down in a moment when you need support. Some people can use a moment of fragility to actually take advantage of you.
To conclude, I would like to emphasize that this is based on my experiences, and I don’t intend to say how you should or should not behave or feel.
