WEBVTT

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The following program is made possible by a

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grant from the Newton Cable
Television Foundation.

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It was snowing up as we
were driving down the

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Turnpike and got closer to the hospital. I
began to feel like we were going to face a

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firing squad. It was just this kind
of pulling back of we\'re gonna go

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there and get shot. And I knew the whole

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time that that 12 minutes or so that it
took us to get there was too long for

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us to contribute anything for her. That
whatever had happened was done by the time we

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got there. My husband was

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still trying to figure out what we could
do to help. I was pretty sure she

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was dead but I don\'t think I was saying
the words to myself. The doctor came in

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followed by a female
resident who was crying. And

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he looked at us and he said, \"She\'s died.\"

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And my husband was standing facing

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me. His face got (inaudible)

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he burst into tears. He sort of

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fell over onto my shoulder. And
I put my arm across his back

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and I looked across his back at
the doctor feeling the most rage

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I have ever felt in my life. And it
felt like if my eyes were laser beams

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I would have just fried him right
on the spot. And I was aware in the

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same instant that I was grateful that he said it the
way he said it and didn\'t pussyfoot around. It was

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incredible.

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It was beautiful if you can
call it the... beautiful. To get

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up, go to the bathroom and comeback and
lay down beside me and took a deep

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silence. I said, \"Are you okay?\" And he
was dead. And he died in that instant.

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For the living it\'s horrible but... what

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more beautiful way than to just go to
sleep, take a sigh and go to sleep. So

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according to my doctor it was great. If you
had to die that was the best way to go.

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Is it but for you is the most traumatic.

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In a way I guess with the last thing I,
I\'d said to her when she was alive was,

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was goodbye. And ah, every time what we

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spoke we would say ah, how
we loved each other. The

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thing that really upset me
the, the most was ah, just

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not having someone that
I knew ah, who loved me

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in the world as much as she did.
And I think it\'s this,

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this giant void ah, that\'s still unfilled

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now. The first two years of our
marriage he had chemotherapy and then

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basically was totally disease free
for six and a half years. And

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at the time of his re-diagnosis he was
running several miles a day, he was doing

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a lot of creative work uhm, with his job.

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And uhm, then he goes in for a
routine check-up and they find

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11 uhm, malignant tumors on his lung.
And it was just...

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I can remember that day it
was actually Halloween uhm,

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two years ago now, because it
was, it was just so socking.

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It was just so unreal coz he was just so
alive and healthy. It was like, \"This can\'t

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be happening.\" And uhm,
six months later he died.

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You feel uhm,

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tremendously off balanced
when you\'re grieving. Uhm,

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you know you just can\'t ever
begin to... before you know it

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uhm, know how powerful an experience it is.

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Uhm, and therefore there
are times in, in it

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where you really feel,
\"Oh, dear.\" You know, they

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could commit me for these kind of thoughts, or these
kind of worried, these kind of anxiety or this kind

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depression. It felt to me like a head

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injury. Like a physical head injury.
Like somebody had really given me a

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blow on the back of the head.
Uhm, I couldn\'t read.

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I couldn\'t do anything mathematical.
I couldn\'t watch

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television. I was in a fog.
I was absolutely

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in a fog. Then when the fog lifts you
don\'t know exactly which direction you\'re

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heading. And I felt that
way at ah, a lot about

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the m... the numbness. Ah,
and I think the other

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ah, thing that, that ah,

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was really impressed upon was
how much that it hurt. How much

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grieve hurt. Who was this person
who\'s died? What do they mean to me?

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What were the various things they did for
me? Where will I miss them? And to sort

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all that and come to grips with it, to say it to yourself
to acknowledge its reality. To it, I mean basically

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grieve work is acknowledging the reality of the
loss. People who are grieving find themselves

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tired, they wake up early in the morning, they\'re tired
by two or of... five at the ladies in the afternoon.

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And they don\'t know why they\'re tireder than
usual. A lot of work is unconscious but it\'s

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hard. Uhm, feeling any intense feeling
for a while is hard. It\'s like a

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logical processes that was... are... we sort of
automatically go through them. They\'re hard.

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I up at every hour and a half,
every two hours, every... 1:00,

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2:30, 3:00, quarter to four,
5:30, quite past six.

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The alarm\'s ready to go off and I\'m
still lying there. Ah, sometimes

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I\'ve cried. Sometimes... a lot of
times I keep thinking of Irving and

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I use to look up off the ceiling or
look at the wall or you know. Not that

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I see him but I feel him.
Ah, the finality of it all

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has finally sank in. It
wasn\'t until that memorial

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service that I realized that that was that.
At for real.

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When you go out to the cemetery and you see
whether it\'s a plaque of a small monument

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or whatever. You see death on the place

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where your beloved is at. It\'s like,
all I can think of is, \"Oh, god.

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He\'ll never push that up.\" When
somebody you love dies you\'re injured

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and you have your own injury to
deal with as well as whatever

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you do with about the other person.
All those issues somehow really

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get intensified in your own mind. Ah, you
go back to the relationship that you\'ve had

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with the diseased person. And you think of all of the
ways that you could have been a more responsible

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person in that relationship. And
you take on some feelings of

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guilt ah, and responsibility for not
having made that a much better connection.

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Ah, you look at the other places in your life.
And sometimes you know the fact that you\'ve lost

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someone significant in your life, that\'s not
part of the bargain that ah, ah, that you

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have in relationship with other people. And they don\'t
know how to deal with that. So you, you\'re losing

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a lot of people. Ah, you no longer
one of a couple. And ah, that can

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become threatening to other people
who are still a couple. It\'s

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so completely foreign to be a widow
whose 29 years old, you know. In our,

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in our uhm, day and age uhm, there\'s a lot
of 29 year old people who\'ve been married

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and who have been divorced. Uhm, so there
are single people who are 29 and 30

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uhm, thank god that uhm,
that there aren\'t very many

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who have ah, had a very loving
good productive relationship

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that uhm, ends up in death. And uhm,

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so it, it makes you a foreign beast
and you feel that. We all know

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married couples and single
people are not a good

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combination. You know, they keep
in touch and I do have some very

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dear friends who are still in touch.
But the majority... you

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know, once in a while oh, when they see you,
\"You look great. You\'re the one terrific.\"

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And \"How are things?\" And I said, \"Fine.
Now do you want the truth?\"

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Being a single really ah, isn\'t the
right ah, descriptor but it\'s being

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ah, uncoupled. It\'s really what I hate.
I have almost

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all his wardrobe still intact
in my parents uhm, barn and

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I have always... he\'s... he
was a classical music ah,

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freak. Hah, and I have his
albums and I have, I have

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lots of things that are his and I\'ve
given away some. But first of all it\'s

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amazing people don\'t wanna take things
that belong to op... a dead person.

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But also I haven\'t really want to...
Haven\'t been able to like take

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it all to charity and say goodbye to it. I sort of
needed. I wear his sweaters, I wear his bathrobe.

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I uhm, you know, I need
those concrete things.

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Uhm. I have to do it right away. If I

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knew that I have to live in a house going
to that bedroom which use to be my bedroom.

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I had to make sure that the room was

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mine. And not coz I was gonna
get rid of everything but I had

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to know that if I walked in and saw the clothes,
or open the drawers, saw his things, I\'d

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never... you know, I, I would fall
apart every time I looked. And I

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couldn\'t hang my clothes beside his. It
just didn\'t seem right. In the beginning

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I uhm, slept with her
sweat shirt for a while.

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I thought that was pretty weird until I asked about it
her compassionate friends and other people had done

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similar things. That was very... that
was the only thing I doubted about

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my grieving process. The only thing I
wondered is this crazy? If I\'m to be

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independent and I learned one thing.
One becomes a

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single person. I am not Mrs.
Irving, I am Miriam.

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With the normal grief ah,
there\'s room for a lot of

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behavior that, that the person who\'s grieving
and everyone else might consider bizarre

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in other circumstances. And ah, that becomes
frightening to people, you know, they need to

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check out somewhere that they\'re normal.
I was very fortunate in uhm,

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having uhm, a connection with the Hospice.
They got me into a young widow and

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young widower\'s group. And ah, what
happen was six of us got together

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ah, very uhm, young. And uhm,

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and we\'d have been meeting for
over a year now and that has been

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extraordinarily helpful. Uhm, it\'s
amazing to look for me look at

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these people. And I think, \"Oh, my
god!\" You know, they\'re so intact

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they look so normal. And I think about
how grotesquely abnormal I feel

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about myself at times. And it
really helps sorta put things

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in prospective and uhm, realize, \"Okay,
you know you\'ve had this life tragedy

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and now, you can, you can ah, put
it back together.\" But when ah,

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were important about the group is that uhm, I was trying
to believe, you need to find some place to be able

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to talk. And the only person who would
understand or someone else who was... who

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had been widowed who are... who had ah,
suffered a loss of someone that they

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love really very much.
And it was only ah, in

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the articulation of the grief
that it diminished. And afters...

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After explaining how I felt over and
over again it so and became very easy

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ah, to explain exactly how
I felt in all the details

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of Celeste\'s death without
feeling ah, intense ah,

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grief or sadness. And the truth
is you\'re real ah, normal.

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You just, you just ah, hurting.
And uhm, and that\'s

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what\'s great about having a support group or someplace where
other people who are doing the same kind of thing that

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you are doing. Coz as soon as you hear someone
else feel about it\'s like so easy to help

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them get past that because you really
do know that you really do get past it.

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We\'ve done an awful lot of research about grieving and
haven\'t come up with much. But one of the things we know

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for sure is that the caring supportive
presence, didn\'t say words, I said

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presence of another person is the single most
effective help to someone who has bereaved.

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So that what do you need to do is create
opportunities for people to, to come

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together. Ah, to help one another in what it
is that they\'re going through because that

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opportunity more and more in our society is,
is the missing piece. I don\'t think it\'s

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necessary to cry to successfully grieve.
I don\'t think It\'s necessary

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to talk to a councilor or to a friend.
Or in sometimes in our, our articulate

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culture over value being able to be articulate
about things. Some people it\'s not their

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style. But there is sorrow and
there was grief and there was

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bitterness. And it all... it
comes maybe not in actual

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you know, procession one after the other.
But at times and then you can

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all of a sudden you can feel the
first feeling months later too.

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Ah, all of a sudden it, \"Oh, I wish
you were here to say this.\" You know.

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The one thing that I\'m very clear about
is that the natural order of things

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is that parents should die before you. And

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there is something that feels okay
about that. You can have regrets

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about what you never got to say to your
parents. Uhm, what you never got from them.

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Or you can be full of that kind of point

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bitter sweet pain because you got so
much and they\'re not there anymore

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and they\'re not there to celebrate
with you the events of your life.

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Uhm, it feels

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abysmally wrong.

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To be standing at the grave

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sprinkling dirt on your child\'s coffin.

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There\'s no way to put that right.

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Only thing that I think of it\'s just

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wrong.

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I watched myself do it, I could see my
hands shaking and all I could think was,\"

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Who would have ever thought

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that I would be standing in
my child\'s grave doing this?\"

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Even though I knew for years.

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How do you doing? What\'s it like?

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If you wanna talk I\'m willing to listen.
If you don\'t that\'s okay with me.

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How did it happen? Tell me about Dave.

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Do you miss him? Any attempt to enter the

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world of the person who is grieving is usually
appre... any offer is appreciated whether it\'s

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accepted or not. An offer to enter the
world those are the kinds of things.

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An on the converse it\'s people who tell me what
to do, you, you know. You should be going on.

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Get it on with it now. Or people who won\'t mention
the name of the dead person or never bring it up.

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Even now I don\'t know what to say to
people who have devastating like... losses

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except I do know that it\'s
important to reach out. And I,

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I think that the worst thing that you can
do is not reach at all. And you really

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had to try and as awkward as you\'re
gonna feel it\'s okay as long as the

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motivation is genuine. That that person
who\'s whatever grieving, whatever loss is

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gonna feel that motivation and that\'s
what\'s gonna really be the difference.

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So it\'s not a question of uhm, of doing for

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or saying but it\'s always a question
of being with. And my feeling is too

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that, that if this... that nice connection
and it really is ah, a befriending that\'s

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happen there. You\'re not gonna do anything wrong.
You know, even if you do say something that ah,

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that might not be entirely appropriate or you
might be saying something that, that\'s quite

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in your own anxieties inside. Ah, I think people have
a way of understanding that, letting that go by.

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Because the most valuable thing is in
place which is that human connection.

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So a lot of us forgiven within that context.
You can\'t lead someone through grief.

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You\'re lucky if you can keep up with them and
understand that\'s your task as a helper.

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And then there came a day
where I had a two minute

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time period. You realize at the end of the two
minutes that I have forgotten for that two minutes

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that she had died. And then,
little by little there were

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periods of time that were longer and
came closer together when I forgot.

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Until there was a time that I was aware
that the fog wasn\'t there anymore.

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And that the pain that was that
fog was inside me. But then

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I could look out from my eyes and
not having to look through the fog.

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And the pain has gotten smaller.
It feels very physical.

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Gotten smaller in me so that
there\'s a place that I hold it and

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that when I contact it it\'s right there.
But it doesn\'t

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
engulf me and it doesn\'t occupy me very
much. And it doesn\'t take up much of my

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
time and I\'m not aware of
it for most of the time.

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
I think people set themselves up
in a way that, that after years

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
has passed they\'re gonna healed. Ah, well,
I think the passage of time certainly does

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
help. Ah, but my feeling is
that it\'s, it\'s six to eight

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
months a year down the road that
people begin to feel at least

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
some parts of the pain of that loss maybe
more intensely than they did before. Ah,

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
and that\'s always disorienting because people felt
that they would have been by all of these by the time.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
Uhm, but one of the questions people ask wh...
When they are in the depths of that awful pain

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
is how long does this go on. And
the people sort of latch on to a

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
year as some sort of magic ah,
moment to look forward to or they to

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
anticipate then fine. You know, that\'s going to be helpful.
But when they get to that they did certainly doesn\'t

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
deliver all that they anticipated it would
because it\'s still awful even after

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
a year. I\'ve gone the whole gamut in

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
one year. Maybe some people do it
in that time, maybe others take

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
less. I feel I\'ve learned an awful lot.
I don\'t like all that I have to learn.

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
I\'m not happy with what I\'ve learned.
I sometimes

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
don\'t think I\'m coping too well.
Maybe I am. No, maybe for

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
someone who can analyze what I\'ve gone
through can honestly say I\'m doing

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
great. But when married friends say,
\"You\'re doing great.\" I think it\'s a hard

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
one. I, I just don\'t buy it.

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
No, I can\'t find anything that explains why

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
my husband had to die such
a brutal death. But I am...

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
I do know that there\'s, there\'s something

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
inside me that\'s very spiritual
and that that can very actively

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
connect with Joe right now. And that I
really... you know I still talk to Joe

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
in the morning, \"Get up. Hey, Joe.\" I\'m
doing this today. I will not sort of talk

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
my life out with them as if we were brushing
out teeth in old days and you now be back

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
through life. Uhm, and I,

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
I need to feel that he\'s alive
and I do believe it. And I don\'t

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
know... you know, I can\'t say that it\'s
something that\'s up there and uhm, you know and

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
he\'s got this wing or wings on. It\'s
not anywhere as near that concrete.

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
Ah, loving someone who
isn\'t around is really ah,

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
ah, a very ah, hard thing to do.

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
And that\'s kind of where grieve is it\'s not

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
ah, in the time or the length that you
were married or the time you knew

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
each other. Or ah, any other
thing having to do with

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
ah, any other dimension except ah,
how much you love the person.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
I miss her still. It\'s not a

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
constant companion to me the
way it was in the beginning.

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
But uhm, in times I feel stressed

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
I miss her the most. I had no
idea how comforting she was to me

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
until after she died. I keep

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
saying why. What did you do? There\'s

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
no answer. You were not suppose to question. It\'s
done for a reason. I keep thinking what\'s the

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
reason. What do I... what
lesson am I suppose to learn

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
or at first you think why am I
being punished. That\'s one of the

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
stages I mean, why are you
being punished? What did I

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
do wrong? Why should this be for me? You

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
know. Why now? Why not later? You
know it\'s too early too soon too...

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
I don\'t think we ever come out with
answers to any of our questions.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
It\'s just learning to grow
because of what\'s happened.

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
I think we\'re a culturally
deprived nation of, of skills and

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
dealing with loss. Europeans say, \"Those
Americans just don\'t know how to say goodbye.\"

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
I\'ve heard that and ah, it\'s true. You know I\'ve been there
in office party you know, and someone\'s leaving. I means it\'s

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
so awkward. Everybody wants to get over with in go and
have a drink. We don\'t know how to say goodbye as a nation

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
and I think it ah, it affects a
lot of things. We\'re a frontier

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
nation so it\'s understandable we\'ve always focused
on the future. I think now that we have a past we

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
ought to learn more about it and ah,
learn from it. And learn to say

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
goodbye to it too. So I, I feel strongly that
we need to learn these skills of dealing with,

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
with loss. And I think one of the ways
to do it is to be more involved with,

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
with the fact of death in our lives.
Teaches us a lot about living.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
I\'m so intact. I mean
if intact is equivalent

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
to peace, I\'m really intact.
And I feel so good.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
It feel so good. I can\'t believe
it and I do think I had for it,

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
you know. I mean I really do thank after
the blessings of having had the friends

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
and the... been able to find
the strength to having

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
gotten through what I needed to go through.
And Emma(ph),

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
you know Emma(ph) a better person kind of thing.
Uhm, I just have to go back into that book

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
one more time well(ph), when bad things
happen in good people. Uhm, he, he talks

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
about his, his ministry. His
ah, uhm, a Jewish rabbi. It

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
talks about how his, his sensitivity to the
world and to people so much greater from

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
having lost his child. And ah,
he... it definitely can relate to

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
people better and definitely
can uhm, cue in, can be

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
sensitive and real in a way that it wasn\'t
before and that that helps his me... ministry

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
tremendously. That he really is uhm,
a far better rabbi ah, for having

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
been through this death experience. And then
he sort of summed it up again he says,\"

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
And if I had the choice
to be a better rabbi

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
or having my son. \" I think it
was ah, a son. \" Uhm, I take my

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
son.\" And that\'s really
exactly where it\'s at

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
you know. Yeah, I\'m stronger.
Yeah, I\'m more sensitive,

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
more real, more s... more sure
of myself, my ability to

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
cope with incredible devastation. Uhm,

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:11.999
but if I could have... (inaudible)

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:14.999
I\'d have Joe back and

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
you know, I\'d, I\'d take it in a second.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:25.000
[sil.]