CHAPTER 1
Dear Sweet Reader
If you are reading this book because you have experienced the loss of someone you love, please accept my deepest condolences. I know that your grief is as unique to you as your fingerprint. You are likely to be experiencing a broad range of emotions. Please know that all of these emotions are okay to be feeling — even if they don't always make sense. My wish for you is that you find some comfort and maybe even some hope in these pages. I would consider it a privilege to be your companion as you grieve your own loss. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to sit with you.
If you are reading this book because you have experienced some other kind of loss or for any other reason, thank you. The same goes for you. We are in this together, and I am honored to be here by your side. Possibly one of the most unexpected outcomes of witnessing another person's grief is the ways in which it can provoke or trigger your own grief — perhaps buried deep inside. You may not have even have known you carried that grief with you. If unexpected feelings arise while reading my story, know that this is normal. Whatever comes up for you is okay. Maybe it has been waiting for an opportunity to rise.
After someone dies, we flood those who remain — those who cherished the deceased most dearly — with love. We rush to support them in any way we can. We bring nourishing meals for the grieving, we send cards to let them know they are not alone, we share our memories of their loved ones to express how their lives mattered to us, and we absorb their salty tears on our shoulders. As a recipient of this outpouring of support and kindness when my dad unexpectedly passed away in 2010, I am eternally grateful. I felt loved and connected to those I loved in ways I had never experienced. I was surprised to learn that people cared enough about me to share my loss with me. I was also surprised to learn that people who I thought cared a great deal about me didn't seem to see my pain at all. As the date on the calendar moved further from the day of my dad's funeral, my feeling of being buoyed by that love and support faded. The afternoons where my dad had once shown up at my house to help me with my children and take my leftovers home for his lunch the next day were completely void of what I had come to rely on. All around me, people were going on with their lives as if nothing earth-shattering had happened.
I became intimate with loneliness. It seemed as if everything that had happened, from the horrific night my dad died to the moments I spent waving good-bye to the hearse after his funeral, had merely been a very bad dream. I was exhausted. I felt empty and alone. I wondered why we don't create more space for grief and the grieving in our society. I wondered why we don't talk more about loss. I wondered why people looked away when I wanted to talk about my loss.
Death plays an essential role in the unfolding of our life stories. Instead of embracing death as a part of the process of life, we typically fear it. When we face death or the loss of a loved one, we often hide behind obligatory smiles and say, "I am fine." We may look fine on the outside while we feel lost, afraid, hopeless, and alone. We say we are fine, but we are far from it. I didn't think I had a choice except to say that I was doing fine when someone asked me how I was doing.
"And how is your mom?" "She is fine."
"And your sister?" "Sarah is fine too. We're all fine."
I felt pressured to move on, to heal, and to get over it. I knew I was expected to be strong for my mom and be happy for everyone else because "that's what your dad would have wanted." If I only knew one thing about my dad, it was that what he aspired to in life was to be real — to remain true to himself. Despite what people told me, I knew that what he would have wanted was for me to be real too. To be real, and to honor my dad, I would need to face the fact that I wouldn't always feel fine, or be happy or strong.
Shortly after my dad died, in the midst of sorrow, confusion, and wondering how it could have played out differently — under different circumstances — my mom read a book that suggested we acknowledge a person's death in the same way we do his or her birth. It suggested that we not question this leg of the journey — not doubt it or dread it — and honor it instead. At first, I couldn't imagine that as a possibility. I keep returning to that invitation though, and I have come to sincerely appreciate it. If we were to truly honor and even celebrate death, to revere it with the same awe and wonder we do birth — not just as part of the life cycle or process but as a milestone in a person's life — maybe it wouldn't be so hard to live with loss. If instead of fearing it and fighting it, we embraced it as a person's last meaningful act on earth, we might feel less alone in our grief. Maybe more of us would share our stories about the ways we experience loss.
I share my story here imagining that you may recognize your own grief in these glimpses of mine. I hope this will serve as a reminder that you are not alone. Losing my dad certainly broadened my understanding of death and loss, but more importantly, experiencing this loss expanded my understanding of life and what it means to live. It taught me that there is always another way — another way of being, of living, and of doing. Where I once was closed off to the world around and within me, I have opened. Where I was too hard, I softened. Where I once gave way to fear, I made space for love. Where I once felt powerless, I am now empowered. Where I once saw a lack of love and resources to sustain me, I now see an abundance of love and resources for every person on this planet.
One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from Anaïs Nin. She said, "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." We begin as tiny little seeds filled with potential. As we grow into our lives, we harden. We tighten into tiny little buds. If we are lucky, we realize how tightly wound we are, and we recognize that we cannot bear to spend another day in that kind of bind. It can be scary to let go of our defenses and break free from that tiny bud. It can be really scary, especially when everything we have ever known put us in that bud. We feel safe there. We know how to operate from that bud. We may take a few steps forward and a few steps back before we are fully ready to bloom. We may read a lot of books and blogs about the ways other people have bloomed. We may be inspired. We may be overwhelmed.
The process of blooming, or really the process of life, is not an easy one to navigate by any stretch of the imagination. No prayer or platitude can eliminate the harsh pain of the things that hurt us. But when we finally take the risk to really, truly bloom into a new way of being or thinking or acting in our lives, it is liberating. I was liberated by my grief.
Looking back at my life story, I can see how the challenges that bent and broke me when I faced them also blessed and strengthened me in ways I could not have imagined when they occurred. Taking the risk to blossom is all about living in possibility. It is about choosing another way to live, to be, and to show up in the world. Blossoming means facing our fears, doubts, and shame instead of hiding from them. It means naming those things that are buried deep inside you — calling them out from the darkness and into the light — and taking back the power they held over you.
This is a book about how my life experiences shaped my beliefs about death and loss and how my perception shifted when I realized that befriending grief would allow me to move through life in richer and more meaningful ways.
Wherever you are, I wish you peace on your journey.
CHAPTER 2
He's in the Shed
We turned down their road. It was the only road I had ever known as theirs. They lived in the same house for thirty-seven years. It was out in the boondocks, as we used to say — the boonies. Way out in the country, on a dirt road.
After Dan and I visited my parents there, at their house for the first time, Dan told me that he had been nervous as he drove — farther and farther — wondering where I could possibly be taking him. After miles of winding, hilly, and narrow dirt roads, Webberdale Road seems to appear out of nowhere. By that night, about seventeen years later, Dan could have driven those roads with his eyes closed. He knew where to let up on the gas pedal because the hills were steep, where to look out for cars coming from the opposite direction because the road was about to narrow to almost one lane, and where the road twisted around so sharply, we could very easily land in a swamp if he wasn't careful.
It was raining that night and probably had been for days. Potholes that threatened to swallow us whole covered Webberdale. Every few bumps, I felt my stomach lurch up into my throat. I remembered Dan driving those roads when I was pregnant, worried that taking the bumps too hard would force me into labor. I turned around in my seat to look at our three sleeping children in the back of the car.
Dan had given me three options after he told me that my mom had called while I was out running an errand that night. After he told me that my mom found my dad in the shed. After he told me that she thought he was dead. She was a nurse. If my dad was dead when she found him, I knew she would know it. My options were 1) Dan could leave and go to my parents' house. 2) I could leave and go to my parents' house. 3) We could stay together.
We would wake up the kids and take them to my parents' house with us. I hated the thought of waking the kids, and ordinarily, I wouldn't have chosen to do that, but this situation was far from ordinary. I was scared. I needed Dan. I couldn't imagine hearing the worst news I had ever heard without him by my side. I also needed my kids with me. I couldn't imagine facing the loss of my dad without the reminder that my children provided — that I had to be okay because I am a mom, and a mom's job is to be okay.
My parents' house is about halfway down Webberdale. As we approached, I saw an ambulance parked in the road in front of their house. The lights were flashing, and the back doors were flung wide open, but there wasn't anyone around. The driveway was lined with my mom's black Subaru, my dad's gray Ford pickup truck, and a police car.
I decided to go check things out while Dan waited in the car with our sleeping beauties. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I sank into the mud. Crowded by overgrown bushes, my parents' driveway could barely fit the width of a car, and I struggled to walk around the cars that were there. I kept my head down, trying to keep the rain from falling into my eyes. I heard a man's voice in the dark.
"Are you the daughter?" he asked.
I looked up, searching for his face, and tried to register his question. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm the daughter."
"Your mom is in the house, and the MSP is in the back with your dad."
The MSP is in the back with my dad? "Oh. So, is he okay then?" I pictured my dad in the shed telling jokes to the MSP, whoever that was.
"Um, I hate to be the one to tell you this, ma'am, but your dad slipped away." The man's voice trailed off, also slipping away. His words hit me like a hard punch in the gut. The blow sped up my trunk, blasting a hole in my heart. A lump formed in my throat.
"Oh," I think I said. Even years later, I can still see the sympathetic expression on his face. I imagine he felt sorry for me, yet he didn't know me. He didn't know my dad, but he was the one who told me — even though he hated to — that my dad had slipped away. I looked down at the car next to me. I was using it to keep my balance. It said Michigan State Police across the side. "Oh." I was catching on. "And the MSP is the Michigan State Police?"
"Right," he said. His voice was soft when he asked, "Do you need help?"
Nothing seemed certain from that point forward, but one thing I knew was that I did not need help. I did not want help. The man who told me that my dad slipped away headed out to the road, and I made my way to the house. I opened the front door and yelled for my mom. The smell of my parents' house overwhelmed me. It still smelled a little like woodstove to me, even though many years had passed since my dad took the woodstove out of the house. And it smelled like my dad's earthy, musky scent. His smell hung in the house like the smell of burning leaves hangs in the air in autumn. The house was dark, except for a dim light glowing in the kitchen. The entryway was cluttered with my dad's boots and my parents' slippers. A hat rack stood next to the doorway with a hat from my dad's collection on each branch. There was a beret. A Stormy Kromer. A baseball cap. There were books, catalogs, and magazines piled on end tables and on the floor. I sighed, wondering how my parents found their way through the clutter. I wished, like I had so many times as a little girl in that very same house, for a clear path out of there. I searched the whole house, yelling, "Mom?"
My mom didn't answer.
I opened the sliding glass door in the back of the house and saw flashlights and what looked like people crowded in the door of my dad's shed. Woody's World. He had carved the sign out of wood and hung it on the door to his shed. Woody was one of my dad's nicknames. Big Red was another. His grandchildren called him Papaw. The shed was Woody's World. Almost anytime I called the house to talk to my mom and asked what my dad was doing, she would say, "He's in the shed."
I yelled out the door, "Mom?"
"Anna! Oh Anna," my mom wailed in an unrecognizable voice. In eighteen years of living with her and in thirty-seven years of knowing her, I had never heard her wail like that.
I tried to make my way to the shed as quickly as possible, but I kept hitting patches of ice, slipping, and sinking into the mud surrounding the ice. It was early March in Michigan, and we were dancing between the deep freeze of winter and the promise of a thaw in spring. The ice was starting to melt due to the recent rain, but in the dark, I couldn't tell the difference between ice and mud and solid ground.
It was still raining, my mom was wailing, I was slipping, and flashlights were shining in my face. It felt more like a scene from a psychological thriller than it did my own life in my parents' backyard. The men surrounding my mom formed a line to help me to the shed. It seemed like there were hundreds of men, but there were only about four. One by one, they grabbed my elbow and guided me forward.
The last man in the row stood in the doorway of the shed. He had been shining his flashlight down to light my path, and he stepped back so I could step into the shed. There was barely enough room for me to stand. My mom was nestled next to a police officer who looked just like my cousin Greg, and my dad sat peacefully at his workbench.
My dad was hunched over with his eyes closed, and he looked like he always did when he fell asleep on my couch, waiting for my mom to gather her stuff so they could leave. The book he was reading stood on its end on the floor next to him, looking like it had dropped right out of his hand. His long, soft, shiny white hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and other than a few extra layers of clothing he must have added when he got home, he looked no different than he did hours earlier when he left my house. He didn't look dead to me. But I will admit that he did look as if he had slipped away. His face held no expression — nothing that indicated his presence. He looked like he had slipped right out of his body like a snail does when it leaves its shell. The shell becomes but a souvenir, a remnant of the life lived inside it. I wanted to scoop up his body and hold it just like I would a shell on the beach, but I could only stare. I watched him for only a few moments. I had to look away. I turned my attention toward my sobbing mother.
