As a little note: I actually wrote this in September of 2020 and came across it almost exactly a year later. Upon rereading it, I found it was still very relevant to today (sad face). Thanks for reading!
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Today, someone told me about a friend of theirs who passed away last week. They didn’t often communicate, but were the type of friends that could pick up right where they left off. They touched base every September, bonding over the return of fall sports and a new season. He found out his friend died from his obituary in the paper, coming to the sorrowful realization that they wouldn’t have their September call. 2019 had been their very last talk, unbeknownst to either party. I find this...profoundly sad. Perhaps it’s because we have all been touched by death recently and perhaps because it was easier to let myself feel someone else’s sadness rather than my own. I, too, have been touched by death recently and it has opened my eyes to the way we process grief. Rather, it’s opened my eyes and my heart to the way we brush past death, the way we take so much for granted, and the way we avoid the entirety of the grieving process.
I took a beach trip last week. It was much, much needed. I am still so tired. I mean that in every single sense of the word, and I feel most of you can relate to that given the circumstances in which we’re living. From what I’ve gathered, we’re all basically in a place of turmoil. So, I took an appropriately socially-distanced vacation to the Outer Banks (one of my favorite pictures from several years ago is above), a place that holds a special place in my heart, but has a very specific connection to death and grieving for me. I spent several months in 2016 living in a little Corolla beach house with Linda Taylor, a long-time family friend. Linda’s life story is one that I would be honored to tell and one that certainly deserves telling, which I hope to do one day. For now, it’s important that you know Linda was a force to be reckoned with. She was a fierce, brave, and independent soul that spent her life living on her own terms. Almost exactly a year ago, Linda lost her life to lung cancer and though I don’t like the whole “lost the battle to cancer” narrative, I can personally attest that Linda fought long and hard, and she was proud of fighting so fervently. Linda opened her home to me to be her roomie for a long summer, from May to August, and we had the time of our lives. She taught me her famous brownie recipe, gave me my first taste of Prosecco (with raspberries in the bottom of the glass, of course), and slowly but surely told me her life story. Linda persevered through every scenario imaginable: bad relationships, financial troubles, family strife, and a rocky, though ultimately successful, career path. Her life is one that so beautifully illustrates the human spirit and just now strong people can be. It was the very best summer and that little slice of salt and sand will always be special to me. Visiting the area so close to the first anniversary of her death stirred up many emotions for me, the first of which being that I never grieved her death because things were too crazy for me at the time.
When I came home from my much-needed vacation, I got a message from my dad that another family member had passed. He waited to tell my sister and I so we could enjoy our vacation, as her service isn’t until the end of this week. Her name was Ann and she wasn’t actually related to us by blood, but she was closer to us than many of our own family members. Ann never married and never had a family of her own, so she was adopted into ours. She came to our Sunday night family dinners for our entire childhood. She loved us and our family endlessly, which was absolutely reciprocated. Ann faced trials and tribulations her entire life, telling heartbreaking stories of poverty and hardship that made her a strong, independent woman. Ann and Linda remind me a lot of each other, though they were polar opposites. Ann was a very proud Christian and was as sweet as sugar. Linda was boisterous and unapologetically blunt, her favorite insult was to call someone a “Twithead” and it was usually followed by a string of curse words. Both women were strong-willed, independent, and unconstrained by the traditional gender roles they never cared to fit into. I am eternally honored to have known them both and the emptiness left in their absence is palpable. Finally, another impossibly strong woman the world has lost is the amazing Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I don’t have to write about her life and accomplishments, there are biographers who can write her story far more eloquently than I. The world is grieving together and so many people feel profoundly sad, rightfully so.
At the risk of sounding like the socialist that I am, I think much of our avoidance when it comes to grieving is surrounded in capitalism and emotions being devalued and taboo. If something really tragic happens, you’re lucky to get a week of bereavement leave at a really, really good job. My job certainly doesn’t have a policy as liberal as that, and many people are left without leave at all. Many work through tears, continuing to run themselves ragged when they need both physical and mental rest. Some of us will be lucky to run across compassionate managers who will bend the rules and allow us some wiggle room, but more often than not, that grace is not given. It leaves one wondering, how do we fix it? Well, like many issues that cross from one’s personal life to the professional/political world, true change won’t come without a complete overhaul of our system as we know it. Maybe one day when we start valuing humans over money, things like this will change. The personal and professional burnout that I’ve felt recently prevents me from gaining much hope, and I’m not sure we’ll see that type of positive change in our lives.
In the meantime, we have to give ourselves and others the grace and compassion we wish the world would give us. Small changes are impactful and during a time of grief for so many, we must address this. I know I’ve written about grief before and truthfully, the words I put on a blog that 5 people read probably don’t matter that much, but it’s on my heart to say it anyway. We owe it to those we’ve lost to face these emotions and stop the decades-long cycle of holding in our grief and sadness. Practice true forms of self-care, not just the hot bath, glass of wine kind. Exercise occasionally, feed yourself, and talk to someone about what you’re experiencing. We’re all living through trauma right now and we have all been touched by death, many of us fairly recently.
When we lose people we love, we miss so many parts of them. I miss the way Ann would call herself the Queen of Uno even if she lost 5 games in a row. I miss the texts Linda would send me to come upstairs and watch Say Yes to the Dress. We miss what they were, not realizing that we hold a lot of that in our own lives. I truly believe the spirits of our lost loved ones will live on in us forever, and thank goodness for that. Honor their spirits by truly feeling your feelings of grief, allow yourself to be sad and scream and cry, if that’s what you need. And whatever the “September Call” is to you, whether it’s a call, a Facebook message, or an annual event, make sure you do it before next September. It’s worth it.
