Grief is NOT Self-Indulgent

I was looking at search terms people used to find this blog, and someone googled “I feel self-indulgent when I think of my deceased partner and I cry a lot.” That got my ire going — not about her feeling that way, but at the way our society handles grief. Thinking about one’s partner and crying are not wrong, but there is something seriously wrong with a society that makes the bereft feel self-indulgent for grieving. What the heck is wrong with crying? With grieving? With talking about one’s grief?

Grief is not something to be shoved under the bed like a box of junk that you don’t quite know what to do with. Grief is how we learn to deal with a world suddenly gone crazy, and tears are how we relieve the tension of that grief. I don’t know how long this particular person had been dealing with her grief, but I’m at eighteen months, and though I’ve gone on with my life, I still have upsurges of grief and bouts of crying. Though these bouts have diminished significantly and I recuperate quite quickly, I’m prepared to go the distance, however long it takes. Some people say it takes a minimum of two years to get over the sadness and tears, some say four years, some say one year for every seven years of togetherness, some say never — that even after twenty years they still have times where the truth of their partner’s death hits them and the tears flow.

Since mourning is considered by the uninitiated to be unacceptable behavior after a month or two, most people quickly learn to hide their grief. Grown children especially get irritated at tears, perhaps because they can’t bear to see their once-strong parent brought low or perhaps because they think their parent is being self-indulgent. A friend of mine lost her partner six months ago, and her son berates her for being a drama queen. Such non-acceptance of a natural process adds more agony to an already agonizing time. As I said, there is something seriously wrong with a society that demonizes grief.

After my partner died, I asked the moderator of a grief support group how I should handle questions about my grief. I didn’t want to bore people with my ongoing emotional traumas, but at the same time I didn’t want to pretend everything was fine. I’d also been blogging about my grief but wasn’t sure I wanted to continue since I didn’t want to seem whiny and self-indulgent. She told me it was okay to tell people I was coping if I didn’t want to go into details, but she suggested I continue writing about grief because people needed to know the truth of it. And I’ve followed her advice even though it was hard at times. I mean, after eighteen months, shouldn’t I have gotten over it? The truth is, you never get over a significant loss — you learn to manage living without him or her.

It used to be that women hid their pregnancies, but now they flaunt their “baby bumps.” Maybe it’s time we brought grief out into the open so that the bereft do not feel as if they are self-indulgent for dealing with loss the only way possible — with remembrances and tears.

Putting a H.A.L.T. to Grief

It’s been eighteen months since my life mate — my soul mate — died of inoperable kidney cancer, and I’m still chugging along. I do okay most days, but still there are times when the thought that he is gone takes away my breath. His death was so final, his absence absolute. He never responds when I talk to him, never sits down to watch a movie with me, never seems to care when I get angry at him for rejecting me. (I know it’s not his fault, but still, death is the ultimate rejection.)

During this past year and a half, I’ve learned a lot about grief. I learned the importance of facing the pain head-on, accepting it as part of the process, and waiting for it to diminish, which mine has — significantly. I’ve learned how to find peace in the sorrow (or perhaps despite the sorrow). I’ve learned that grief cannot be hurried, that months or even years might pass before we bereft find ourselves again. And most of all, I’ve learned the secret of H.A.L.T.

People who make major life changes, such as alcoholics who give up drinking, smokers who give up cigarettes, diabetics who make diet and exercise changes are often urged to watch themselves so they don’t get Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. That’s what I mean by H.A.L.T. Did you think I actually meant putting an end to grief? You should know by now I’m letting grief wear itself out, whenever or however that might be.

Hunger, anger, loneliness, and exhaustion make us vulnerable, which makes it easy to backslide into old behavior patterns.  I recently noticed that grief often surges when I am tired, so I’ve been trying to steer clear of these vulnerabilites, but the trouble is that all of those states are effects of grief, so exhaustion and loneliness and anger causes grief and grief causes exhaustion, loneliness and anger. A sad cycle. But now that I’m aware of it, I can try to be more careful. Although I’m willing to let grief take its course, I have no intention of letting grief rule the rest of my life. I intend to be as bold and as adventurous as possible, a wildly inappropriate woman who just likes to have fun. But not quite yet. I still have some sadnesses to deal with.

Halt and I’ll Shoot! (Adventures With Firearms)

Pistol target.

In an effort to add adventure to my life and to challenge myself to experience new things, I went to an NRA Women on Target Gun Clinic last Saturday to become familiar with firearms. As an author who has killed way more than my share of characters — approximately 510,010 in my four published books combined and another 6,000,000 in my WIP — I figured I ought to know what my characters feel when they shoot a weapon. (Okay, only a couple shot a weapon so far. The others used strangulation and bioweapons, but I have no interest in learning how either of those feel.)

I expected the guns to kick. I expected to be knocked off my feet. I expected to be unable to aim the heavier caliber pistols and revolvers, rifles and shotguns. I expected to be humiliated by missing the target completely. None of that happened. At first, my arms shook a bit as I aimed the handguns, but that could have been due to being past my first youth (and perhaps even my second youth) or else it could have been due to the unaccustomed stance. Still, I managed to aim, managed to hit the target. Managed to get a bullseye even. Kept on my feet the entire time. Didn’t even rock. The shot came as a surprise, but not a shock.

Deadly with a rifle! Not bad for the first time

After the pistol range, we headed to the shotgun range. There we shot stationary clay discs, and I got three out of three. Then we tried the flying discs (they might have been called clay pigeons, but they sure looked like mini dayglo orange and green frisbees to me). I never quite the hang of it. Mostly shot too soon. The problem women have that big men don’t have is that to balance the shotgun properly, we have to lean into the stock to keep it balanced and to allow the force to travel up through our arm into our body mass. This is fine while shooting stationary discs, but leaning forward to shoot while following the disc with one’s eye and hopefully one’s arms, turned out to be difficult for me. Still, I did manage to kill one of the suckers, but one out of twelve tries isn’t anything to brag about.

Then we moved on to the rifle range, and there I was deadly!! Hit the 100 yard target three out of three times. Hit the 200 yard target three out of five times. Hit the metal animal targets ten out of ten times. Hit the 50 yard paper target every time and even got a bullseye.

Besides learning how it feels to shoot, I learned how easy it is to forget firearms are deadly weapons. Several times after hitting the distant paper target, I was so excited I wanted to run out to see how I did. Of course, I managed to contain my curiousity or I wouldn’t be here talking to you. I’d be in a hospital or a morgue — there were a lot of people shooting that day! I’m also ashamed to admit that after killing my clay disc, I lifted the shotgun in the air in impromptu exhiliration. So not the thing to do! Eek.

I also know why in books and movies the good guys always yell, “Halt!” before they shoot. Perhaps, like me, they can only shoot stationary targets and want to make sure they hit their man.

Letter to a Grieving Friend

Hello, my friend.

I understand what you said about the continuity of attachment even after death. At the beginning of my grief, I held to the thought that I was sparing my life mate — my soul mate — from ever having to grieve for me since he died first, then it occured to me that if, in fact, we continue to live somewhere beyond this earth, maybe he is feeling as lost as I am, as disconnected, and as lonely. That took away the last bit of comfort I had. My other thought was that even if something of us survives, I will never see him again. When he and I met all those years ago, I had the strange notion that he was some sort of exalted being come to help me find truth and reality (when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, they say). I’m not sure why I thought I was so special, but the time when we met was steeped in mysticism for me. I sometime wonder if perhaps my grief is so difficult because our separation is truly forever, that by the time I die, he will have taken his rightful place somewhere high up in the pantheon of radiance, and I’ll still be muddling along without him. Such strange thoughts that beset us bereft!

I’m beginning to realize that in some way my grief might always be a part of my life. It’s too immense, this thing called death. Too hard to deal with the reality of it. Oftentimes when people mention how the loss of their mate helped them become the person they were meant to be, it makes me cringe, as if the loved one was an adjunct to their life, not a life in itself. But we all deal with life and death the best we can. My grief has two parts: my missing him and his being missing from this world. Both feelings will be with me forever. And through it all, grief really is molding me into what I will become. I thought I’d have arrived at that place of becoming by now, but it’s still a long way away.

Supposedly, people who deal best with the hole in their lives are those who continue to have a connection to the person, such as still talking to them or writing to them. What is the difference between that and a fantasy? Either way, the person has no physical being (except, in the case of the dead, as dust in the ground or pulverized bone — cremains as the funeral business so cutely calls them). But perhaps that attachment even after death is what makes the difference.

I’ve decided that a life of fun and/or adventure is the only thing that will make the coming years tolerable, yet I have no idea how to have fun. Don’t even know what fun is, except perhaps doing new things or learning new things.

I feel as if I am disappearing, though. So many friends, even friends I made after his death, have disappeared from my life, and I worry that I will disappear, too. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing. I’ve been looking at photos of me as a child, and I am no longer that person, can’t even remember what I was thinking or feeling when the photos were taken (can’t even remember having my picture taken) so that youthful “me” has disappeared. Maybe when today’s me disappears, I’ll be not simply old and decrepit, but different somehow, and able to handle the challenges that the future will bring.

I hold to the idea that maybe someday you and I will have a grand adventure together.

Your sister in sorrow,
Pat

NRA Women on Target Instructional Shooting Clinic

I’ve killed off hundreds of thousands of people in my books — generally by impersonal means such as diseases – but at least one character shot off a gun. I just guessed at how it would feel, and apparently I got it right, but still, if I’m going to continue my lethal activities, I should know what to do, how to do it, and how it feels. To that end, I’ve signed up for a shooting clinic. The clinic is this Saturday, and I am looking forward to the adventure. This is what it entails:

Agenda: 8:30 to 9:00 am Sign in at the Clubhouse
9:00 to 9:30 am Introduction and safety brief at the Clubhouse
9:45 to 11:30am Range Instruction (2 stages)
11:30 to 12:45 pm Lunch catered by a local Mexican restauran
1:00 to 2:45 pm Range Instruction (2 stages)
3:00 to 3:30 pm Debriefing & Certificates

What to Bring: We will provide all firearms, ammunition, safety equipment. We provide foam ear protection you insert in your ears and clear safety glasses. Wear your prescription glasses or contacts and safety glasses can be worn over them if necessary. Sunglasses are recommended if you wear them. If you have earmuff style ear protection and wish to use it, please feel free to do so.

You should wear light colored, loose fitting clothing that will offer some protection from the sun as it is likely to be hot and we will be outdoors most of the time. Scoopneck or v-neck blouses are not recommended for the range. We suggest a men’s style t-shirt with a high neck line. We will receive a visor at the event but may wish to bring your own hat or visor to protect you from the sun. Bring sun block if you are sun burn prone. We are in the desert and are subject to winds, be prepared. You will be walking on gravel and concrete so wear shoes that offer some traction and protection: hiking boots or running shoes work great. Don’t wear open toed shoes, flip flops, or sandals.

Bottled water will be available at all stages of the event. Restrooms are located at or near each range.

What you will be doing: You are going to learn to safely handle and fire rifles, pistols, and shotguns. You will also learn to hit the target. You can expect one on one instruction and coaching, and we will maintain a pace of events that is comfortable for you. We encourage you to try everything but your comfort level will be respected. This event is designed to take a novice shooter to a level of comfort with firearms that will allow that shooter to pursue further instruction. We replace fear of shooting with knowledge about shooting and apprehension about guns with respect for guns. At all times, we will maintain safe conditions and will instruct you in the safe, responsible and ethical handling of firearms.

‘The Top 5 Mistakes I Find as an Editor’ by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel

Please welcome today’s guest. Smoky Trudeau Zeidel is the author of two novels, On the Choptank Shores and The Cabin. She is also author of Observations of an Earth Mage, a photo/essay collection; and two books about writing. You can find Smoky and her three blogs at www.SmokyZeidel.wordpress.com. Smoky writes:

As an editor and as an avid reader, I see a lot of mistakes make their way into print. Many, if not all, of them could be avoided by having a professional edit your manuscript before submitting it to your publisher, or putting it up on Smashwords or Kindle if you ePublish on your own.

You might think you don’t need an editor, because your next door neighbor/best friend/Aunt Thelma offered to do it for free, or because you’ve read and re-read your manuscript a hundred times and just know it’s perfect.

You’d be wrong. First, your neighbor/best friend/Aunt Thelma may spell great, but do they know all the rules of punctuation and style? I doubt it. The Chicago Manual of Style, the go-to book for American publishers for punctuation and style issues, is more than 900 pages long and two inches thick. I doubt your beta readers have that thing memorized. I refer to it frequently, and I am a professional editor.

Second, as the book’s creator, finding your own mistakes is hard. That’s because you see what you thought you wrote, rather than what you actually wrote. Even though I’m an editor, I don’t edit my own stuff. I have my best friend do it—but hold on, before you protest, let me say that my best friend is a professional editor, so she is exempt from the best friend rule.

That said, I know a lot of writers won’t hire an editor. And this really isn’t a pitch to get your business (although, of course, I am always open to that). So since you probably won’t hire me or any of my editor cohorts, I’m going to share with you a list of the five biggest mistakes I see in manuscripts, so you can watch for them, and fix them, yourself.

Mistake #1: Writers don’t place a comma between independent clauses separated with a conjunction. Independent clauses are clauses that can stand on their own as sentences, e.g., “He took the 405 freeway to work, and he exited at the Getty Museum.” Because both “He took the 405 freeway to work” and “he exited at the Getty Museum” are independent clauses—meaning they can stand alone as sentences, you must, must, place a comma before the conjunction, “and.” This is probably the biggest, most common mistake I find in manuscripts and books. Don’t make it. It’s a very easy punctuation rule to remember.

Mistake #2: Writers place commas between independent clauses and dependent clauses. This is probably the second most common mistake I see. A dependent clause is one that cannot stand on its own as a sentence. Let’s take the above example, and change it just a little: “He took the 405 freeway to work and exited at the Getty Museum.” I took the second “he” out. That makes the clause after “and” a dependent clause, because “exited at the Getty Museum” cannot stand alone as a sentence. It is dependent upon the first clause to be understood; thus, no comma should precede the “and.”

Of course, there are other places you need—and don’t need—commas, but this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive study of the comma. If in doubt, look up comma placement in The Chicago Manual of Style or other style manual.

Mistake #3: Writers don’t know their homonyms. In just the last few weeks alone, I’ve seen characters who were unphased, waiving to people, and peaking out windows. The writer’s spellchecker should have alerted her to the fact that “unphased” isn’t even a word. She meant “unfazed.” To waive means to relinquish, to set aside. The word this author wanted was “waving.” And a peak is the highest point of something; one peeks, not peaks, out a window.

Please, unless you are 100 percent sure you are using the right homonym, look it up. The wrong choice could have your characters doing some pretty strange things!

Mistake #4: Writers rely on their spellcheckers. This is a big no-no. If ewe think you’re spellchecker will fined awl yore miss steaks, your wrong. That sentence went through my spellchecker just fine, and there are no less than eight errors in it (“ewe” should be “you”; “you’re” should be “your”; “fined” should be “find”; “awl” should be “all”; “yore” should be “your”; “miss” and “steaks” should be “mistakes”: and finally, “your” should be “you’re”). Homonym spelling errors are the most common type of spelling error I find. Do not rely on your spellchecker. It will let you down every time.

Mistake #5: Writers who make errors in syntax. For example, look at this sentence: “I saw a deer driving to work today.” Uh, no—you didn’t, unless there are some very talented deer in your neighborhood! The correct sentence structure is, “I saw a deer while driving to work today,” or, “While driving to work today, I saw a deer.” Please, don’t put the deer in the driver’s seat!

Here’s another example: “If your toddler won’t drink milk, warm it in the microwave for a few moments.” Warm what in the microwave? You’ve got a choice of antecedents here. Heaven help the toddler if you make the wrong choice! The correct structure would read, “If your toddler won’t drink milk, warm the milk in the microwave for a few moments.”

Of course, if you and I were having a conversation, we’d probably understand each other if we made these syntax errors. But you can’t count on that when people are reading your words. Make sure you have them in the correct order so your meaning cannot be misconstrued.

I cannot list every error I run across while editing manuscripts. To do so would fill a book. But if you watch for these top five mistakes in your writing, your manuscript will be a lot more polished, and you can be more confident about submitting it to your publisher.

Good luck, and happy righting . . . er, happy writing!

***

Click here to read an excerpt from: On the Choptank Shores

Click here for an interview with: Smoky Trudeau Zeidel

Click here for an interview with: Grace Harmon Singer, Hero of On the Choptank Shores by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel

S.O.S. — Dance Therapy

A few days ago, I started doing what I call “dance therapy.” I thought it was my own idea, but today I discovered there really is such a thing. It’s been around since the 1940s and was created as a way for the mind and body to work together. Supposedly, by dancing, people can identify and express their innermost emotions, bring those feelings to the surface and create a sense of renewal, unity, and completeness.

But that’s not what my “dance therapy” is about. I know what my feelings are. (And so do you if you’ve been checking in with this blog occasionally.) I’m still grieving the death of my mate of thirty-four years. We were soul mates: partners in life, in business, in ideology, in exercise — in fact, years ago, before he started losing health, we used to do aerobics together, which for us meant free-style dancing around the living room. I continued by myself for a while, but as he got sicker, I had to stop that form of exercise because most song lyrics made me cry. Even happy songs – especially happy songs – brought tears to my eyes, and I couldn’t deal with that. Not being a natural optimist, (maybe as a Wednesday’s child, I really am full of woe) I needed to fight to stay positive, to focus on what I had rather than what I was losing. In my current situation, though, the loss is so great, it’s not a matter of seeing the glass as half empty rather than half full (if you’ll pardon my use of that odious phrase). It’s a matter of trying to glue a shattered glass back together and hope it holds together as I fill it drop by drop.

I’m not in nearly as much pain as I was seventeen and a half months ago when he died, but I’m still feeling sad and empty despite the friends I’ve made and the trips I’ve taken. (My most recent excursions included a Route 66 Rendezvous, a couple of major county fairs, and a trip to Seattle — so see, I really am going on with my life.) The world still feels different with him gone. I still feel different, knowing he’s not somewhere in the crowd. I will probably always miss him, always yearn to talk with him, always long for the sight of his smile and the sound of his voice, but I don’t want to — can’t — be enchained by my own sorrow forever.

Most songs still bring tears to my eyes, but it no longer matters since many things make me tearful now. Besides, without a song or a dance, what are we? And so, I’ve begun my version of dance therapy. Today I danced to ABBA. (Why is that more embarrassing to admit than that I still cry at times?) I’m not looking for a sense of happiness or even optimism. Nor am I looking for exercise. (For that, I walk, lift, stretch, air bicycle.) My hope is that by moving in rhythm to a few peppy songs most days, I can train myself to feel lighter in spirit. Maybe even learn to have fun — whatever that is.

It’s the best I can do.

What Your Doctor is Doing While You’re Sitting in the Waiting Room

Actors and actresses with accents that are part of their persona, such as those from England, Germany, or the American South, often have to work with voice coaches to keep from slipping into mainstream American English (whatever that might be). Even the accents of people who learned English as a second language eventually become homogenized if they live among the general population long enough. Apparently, it is very difficult to keep one’s accent with two exceptions: if the person lives in an enclave with others who have the same accent or . . .  the person is a doctor who has been in this country for more than two decades.

My 94-year-old father was recently hospitalized for cardiac problems and a touch of pneumonia. Before he was released, his doctor (who was not born in this country, did not go to medical school here, but has practiced here for more than twenty years) called me to explain the new medications he was prescribing. His accent was so thick, I had to make the guy repeat his instructions ad nauseum and spell the names of the drugs so I could get them right. I did fine until he started talking about hisspern. He kept saying that my dad already took hisspern, but that now he was supposed to cut that down to a quarter of a tablet. Hmm. Hisspern? That drug was not one my dad was taking. Then I remembered that he did take aspirin. So I asked, “Do you mean aspirin?” The doctor got testy, and said, “Hisspern! Hisspern!”

The nurse took the phone from him then, told me she’d give me a printout of the new drug regimen, and hung up. Later, when I checked the list, it was right there: aspririn — 81 mg.

This doctor often has his patients wait for several hours (even his almost-centenarians) before he sees them. Well, now I know why he makes them wait so long — he’s out taking voice lessons to make sure he remains un-understandable. (I won’t even mention his handwriting. Yikes.)