Transcript: Two Kinds of Grief
 

Hi, welcome to the Us And Kids Podcast. I am your host, Jan Talen. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a wife, a mom, and a grandma. This Us And Kids Podcast is about how to be married forever while you are parenting together. You know, that's not an easy task, so I'm encouraging you to subscribe to Us And Kids in your favorite podcasting app. 

I'm also glad that you're here because I know you're working to have your marriage and your home fulfilling and so very good. And that's not always so very easy when we contemplate what October is in memory of.  It is both Infancy and Pregnancy Loss Awareness month, as well as Breast Cancer Awareness month. And for me, both of those titles have significance be'cause they have happened to me, in our family, my immediate family, with my kids, but also in my extended family.

You know, it's still October and we're getting into the area of October where my family is heavy with birthdays. We have six birthdays in the month of October. All except for one are within 10 days of each other. And within those 10 days of those birthdays two are celebrations of lives that were lived too short.  And four are celebrations of life that continue on. 

One of the lives that lived too short is the celebration for my oldest sister who passed away due to  breast cancer about 4 years ago. The other one that happened in October and March is the loss of grandchildren.

In October, we lost a grandson due to premature birth. And in March we celebrate the lives of two littles who were born prematurely in a miscarriage situation. Little grandson is now eight years old. All those deaths have meaning to me and bring a sense of heaviness and hope to me during this month.

We're talking about both of these now not to really bring you into a dark place, but more to help us understand two different kinds of grief. They have some similarities and they have some differences.
So, first of all, a short story about my sister. She is the oldest of the five daughters that were born in this family. She was the smallest and probably the smartest of us all. Her walk through life and death was one of determination, feistiness and focus. She was a dietician. She moved into the medical doctoring world in her forties and settled into a field of childhood psychiatry for several years before being overtaken with this intense cancer in her mid fifties.  She was the mom of three great kids and a practical and delicious baker and cook. When there's a family gathering, we're missing Marla's strawberry pie. I miss her cinnamon bread. She would come up with delicious recipes and we would eat them. I learned from her to keep on creating and living well. She learned and took each minute with joy and she kept on helping others, even when she was about to leave the hospital for the last time, because she was going home to hospice care.She was still wondering how she could take care of her teenage clients in her clinic. It was more about them than about her.

The other story for October is about Will.  Will was born on October 9, but he was only 21 weeks old, perfectly formed, except for that his lungs were not strong enough to support life for more than three hours. We got to hold him and love on him and marvel at the beauty of his skin and the perfectness of his body and veins and shape. His mom's body had some trauma that created this early birth and Will's parents knew he would not live well. So allowed him to have a very short life. Will is also in heaven with some other cousins who were born way too early, in a very sad situation where the twins went to heaven as well. 

Those are different kinds of death. When we have a miscarriage or very, very early death, we marvel at the miracle of creating life at all. And yet as his grandma, Will's grandma, and as the twins, grandma, we miss them. We wonder what it would be like to have twins running around? We wonder what it would be like to have Will around... about their personalities, how they would interact with the rest of the cousins, what would it be like within their family unit?

So, I introduced those stories that are a part of my life becauseI know you might have stories like that as well. And I wanted to talk for a minute this month because October is both Breast Cancer Awareness month and Pregnancy Grief and Loss month at the same time.

Those are two different kinds of grief. And I know that many of you could well have someone that you know with the breast cancer situation or just a cancer situation, and also know someone who has experienced pregnancy grief and loss. So I wanted to just draw you into my story a little bit, and to help you understand your stories and not just the story of their lives, but also how you carry death with you.

It's important to be aware that if it hasn't happened to us, it probably has happened to someone around. Grief doesn't just go away. It becomes a part of the fabric of our lives and learning how to let it be a viable and real fabric is a valuable way to integrate it into life. So let's talk about these two different kinds of grief.

First of all, we're going to talk about the grief from my sister's passing. See, this was an anticipated grief because we knew, as time went on, that she was not going to be able to hang on to life. We could see the treatments were not effective enough. There were spaces of dismay. There was anger, there was depression, frustration then hope and then hope dashed over and over, and again.  And although not really ever ready for her life to be over, the understanding that her body was not going to hold onto life any more gave room for more acceptance.

I'm sure that you have experienced some of that as well. When we can see that someone's life is just not going to be able to sustain,  we move into a place of saying, we know they're going to die.  And it doesn't necessarily give our heart peace or comfort, but it gives room for our brain to begin to create a space and to contemplate the thoughts about what their death will mean for us and our wellbeing.
This kind of grief, where we can anticipate it, is still sharp when it actually happens. Often we can have a sort of  platform made in our mind and in our conversation with other people that helps our emotions be a little bit more gentle; a little bit more gentle, not a lot more gentle.

And that platform often keeps our depression from becoming so shocking or so stunning. But instead we are more able to be aware of it’s coming and going. We can feel it and acknowledge that we knew some sadder days and times were going to come. So, I can accept that days that I am missing Marla, and that, because I have a little bit of acceptance in that arena of depression, I can decide what to do about my depression.
And when I'm angry because dinner isn't the same without her bread, we can just say it and we can agree and grieve together while we're eating.

That doesn't make the grief less. It makes it different from a sudden death. So let's talk for a minute about the death of Will and the death of the twins that happened in March.

It's quite a contrast because with both of those, there was anticipation of new life and excitement about new life and looking forward to all the things new life would bring from being born and being little to growing up.

What will they be like when they're eight or what will they be like as teenagers?How will they interact with their parents? Who, and what will they be when they grow up? And there's a long line of thoughts that we can think about when we're anticipating a new one that usually has bouncy joy in it and has some fun anticipation in it.

For Will, the appointments and the baby checks were fine and normal. It all seemed good. The same was true for the twins, except for that their mommy was very sick until the days it wasn't. For Will the call came into my office while I was working. I heard that Will’s mom and dad were going to the hospital because things with mom were not good. With the twins, a call came to me while I was sitting with my dad.  My daughter told me, through deep tears, that twins were not alive. 

For Will we spent three days hoping and praying and waiting, but finally it came to the choice of mommy's life or her baby's life. And so Will was born alive, but way too small.  The twins had miscarried far away in Colorado. Way too far away.

The grief here for these are different because it is so quick and comes at us in such an unprepared way. Not just because we had no idea that death was lingering near by,  but also because we have all of this anticipation of what life was going to be. And, suddenly those anticipations are stolen and stopped. 

In my world, babies were always born alive. Well and vibrant.  Darling, little balls of mush!. Right? All of a sudden for me, Will and The Twins were unknown territory. We know that the loss of a baby is one of the most profound experiences that a family can have. However, we also know that the loss of a mom or a grandma is one of the most profound griefs a child and a family can have.

So when we look at these losses, we know it can often take away our confidence in our body and that life will be, as we think it should be. The loss of the anticipation of life with Will and the twins is a confusing thing to try to figure out. We hadn't made our life path go in a way that included death.  We always incorporate more littles into our life and suddenly, like falling off a cliff, without warning, our life path is different. This is the other path. And I don't like the detour. I don't like the detour of living without Will or The Twins. It creates sudden spaces of anger, and frustration, and of a sadness that can quickly come into our beings without any warnings.

It's that sense of missing Will and missing The Twins, even though we never got to meet them. So we don't have the stories we wanted to have. Which is a different grief than being able to talk about the stories and the life we had with Marla, my sister.

We miss being able to love on Will and The Twins and enjoy their voice and personalities and the way he would have been with our family. And we miss what we knew of the ways of Marla. They're both missed. There's a different void in those because of what wasn't with The Twins and Will. And the void is different because with Marla, we knew what was, and some of what could be.

So, in your heart and mind, you might realize that you  have different grief here. That would be normal because these are very different experiences. For both kinds of grief, anticipated grief and unexpected grief, we know that there are these random moments of just high anxiety, deep emptiness, weird sleep patterns and sleep spaces, dreams, and moods that are either bigger than we like or so flat we become almost invisible.

There can be that deep sense of emptiness, who am I? Who am I without you? And all of those emotional spaces can impact mom and dad as well as  the siblings. We can logically know that death is real and permanent.

We can also know that our friends, meaning well, want us to sort of get over it and move on.There's more to life than just this death. So let's go.  However, what I'm often reminded of with my sister, with my grandchildren, with the death of my parents, these griefs are not going to go away any more than I wanted my sister or my grandkids to pass away.

This grief is real. Will, The Twins, my sister, my parents continue to stay with me, except for differently. And I give room in my life for that. It gives me space to include and honor them in my everyday life and thoughts.

So how do I that? Well part one, I remember them. I'm willing to talk about them obviously.  I also remember them by being with other people who are in pain, giving them permission and compassion to be wherever they are in pain, because that's what I want, and need other people to do for me.

Grief is so unpredictable and so messy. And so roller coaster-y. It's important to have somebody be able to go along on the ride to hold your hand. And what I mean by this is not just in the moments of the passing away and then funeral time and a few months after that.
But years after that, to check in, “How are you doing with Marla’s death?” Bring back a good memory about the person who's passed away and just admit, “I still miss them too.”  This is honoring them, recognizing and remembering them and our love for them. Marla Will, The Twins, are still a part of me. And when someone talks about it, I feel honored that I don't have to hide them. But they are a part of my family and my being.

 So from time to time, I check in with my kids, I check them and with my friends, and my siblings about “How are your memories? How is your own personal wellbeing??”  Grief is ongoing and those conversations about how we are doing with it today is important in terms of giving support. It’s also important because it gives subtle permission to live life fully with everybody that's in your life, the people who are there in body and the people who are there in memory and in spirit. Death is not a pretty conversation.  It is an important life conversation!

I sort of giggle sometimes in my heart as I think about the month of October.  We mostly focus on Halloween and scary, gross, gory things and almost mocking death. And then,  they add Breast Cancer Awareness day and Pregnancy and Infancy Loss Awareness Month on top of it.  Wow. Because those are serious topics, not just goofy haunted house topics and yet the fear we can feel in death can be deeper and more tragic than what we will experience in any haunted house or scary corn maze.  

So, in life and when death comes into your life, take care of each other. Take care of yourself with permission to grieve and permission to live well in people's honor and memory.
I want to thank you for listening today and joining me. I know this has not been an easy conversation, but I hope it gives you a little bit of energy to grieve, to support someone who is grieving. 
And some awareness that it's (death) going to be a part of your life. Let it be a beautiful part. Even sometimes in sadness, even sometimes in joy. Cheer each other on and be with each other.

If you're stumped on how we stay married while we are struggling with the loss of a child, remember that our Us And Kids Communication Program is ready for you. It doesn't focus solely on grief, but it is an efficient and effective program that will give you the skills to learn how to incorporate grief into being married and into parenting at the same time. So that you can learn how to think and how to react to all the different challenges of having grief in your life, as well as trying to stay married and have some joy there and having fun with the kids that are around you and under foot. You can visit the Us And Kids website to get all of that information about signing up.

And of course, if you have questions, don't keep them in your head. Send them to me at [email protected]. I look forward to talking with you and meeting with you on the website and in the Program, soon.
Take good care.
We'll talk to each other later. Bye.