My father and I did not have a good relationship. After my mom died when I was ten, we never talked about her, or about death, or my fears and bewilderment as a child. My mom’s mother told me he was going to put my 7 year old sister and me into foster care… after all, this was 1967 and men just did not raise children on their own.
He didn’t put us in foster care. He did raise us on his own, with the occasional help of an older live-in woman who would cook basic meals and keep the house neat, but didn’t provide any real nurturing or guidance.
My father was heartbroken over the loss of our mother, his wife. He did his best but he was barely making it through the days, while trying to work, and keeping the two of us fed and clothed. It was a very long time before he began to live again. He never remarried.
I developed some emotional protective mechanisms not unusual in a child who has overwhelming feelings she doesn’t know how to handle. I never described those defenses to anyone else; I didn’t know how – not that there was anyone I could talk to anyway. (I later saw those same protective mechanisms in other children who had been traumatized. I’m not sure how I overcame them on my own but compared with too many children I’ve worked with, I was very lucky.)
By the time I was 13 or 14, I’d became an angry, mouthy teenager. My relationship with my father went downhill pretty seriously. He didn’t understand me at all or what I needed, and the reality is that I had no clue, either. We tried, but it was awkward for both of us. We never did learn how to talk, even decades later, after years of holidays, and birthdays, and weddings, and gardens, and everything else that happens in a family.
On the other hand, he and my sister developed a great understanding of one another, for which I am grateful. He did want to do his best by his children and with her, he was able to provide what she needed.
When he died, six years ago this coming Christmas Eve, both my sister and I, as well as her daughter (my daughter was living in California at the time with a newborn), had spent the 10 preceding days almost non-stop in his hospital room, where he was in a medically-induced coma. Was he aware we were there? Some would say no, but we believed – as do many medical and spiritual practitioners – that he knew.
Dad, at his advanced age, was hard of hearing in the best of times, so I didn’t spend much time trying to talk to him. I was just there, holding his hand, rubbing his arm, and sometimes sleeping in the chair beside him. I will never know if it was enough to heal his hurt but I have come to believe so. After leaving the hospital (he died while the three of us were in the room with him), I arrived home to find 3 mourning doves sitting on my front steps.
There have never been mourning doves on my steps before, let alone three of them. It seemed like a message of peace.
When my beloved husband John died by suicide 7 years ago, I was destroyed. We knew we had a love deeper than most will ever experience. But he had been damaged terribly as a child, and like me, had had no one to talk to. Unlike me, he sucked it up and never let on how deep the turmoil was; even his face often didn’t reflect any of his feelings.
But one can’t carry that level of pain without it leaking out somewhere, and he developed addictions and behaviors that are typical of male children who have been traumatized. And those addictions and behaviors – and the associated medical issues (COPD, emphysema, probable lung cancer, agonizing headaches) – are what caused him to eventually choose to end his life on his own terms.
I didn’t have a chance to say good-bye. I didn’t have a chance to try to talk him out of it. (Actually, the tells were all there, but I was his wife, not his therapist, and I couldn’t see them – or perhaps just was afraid to put the clues all together.)
With the two of us, however, the bond was so strong that even death couldn’t break it, and I finally was able to understand the depth of his shame and misery, and he was able to recognize that I truly would have done anything for him, that he wasn’t burdening me. It was an undertaking I was committed to with every fiber in my being, if I’d had the chance.
Today I learned that one of the best friends I’ve ever had died 3 months ago. I was heartbroken to have just learned about it this morning.
Sharon, Carole and I were “the three musketeers”. We were silly, we were giddy, and we were absolutely serious about our work together in the mental health field.
Sadly, the three of us had found our lives changed dramatically, and we weren’t together anymore, but the connection didn’t end – even though we all only talked every few months. There were always plans, though. Always plans. And so much love…
I hadn’t heard from Sharon in a bit, but “knew” she was there. After all, she’d been with me through some of best times – and the worst – of my life. And there was still another Christmas in The City someday, with the Rockettes, Broadway, and our fantasy of a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue.
There was no chance to say good-bye. She had a re-occurring infection in her foot that suddenly became totally out of control. It killed her.
And this brings me to my current work as an end-of-life doula. Part of what we do is try to help families heal before their loved one dies. Those of us who have lived with and through the deaths of those we love know that with very few exceptions, once it’s over in this life, it’s over. There’s no do-over. If we can’t somehow work through and heal our hurts and regrets, we will carry them for the rest of our days.
In my decades of working in the mental health and end-of-life fields, I have seen more families damaged by thoughts and feelings unsaid – or hurtfully said – than one can imagine. And I always, always, ache for the terrible loss of time and hope and love those families experience.
Life is short. You never, ever, know what’s going to happen in the next week, the next day or even the next hour.
Love your people. Love them fiercely even if you don’t know what to say or how to say it.
There will be more on this topic in future blogs as I discuss how to look at situations from another person’s point of view, how to understand the way your environment and experiences have led you to make certain judgments, and how to begin to heal both yourself and your relationships with others.
If you feel a need to talk to someone who has survived the loss of a loved one to suicide, has experienced communications with loved ones after their death, who can help you learn how to heal family relationships, or if you may have need of an end-of-life (death) doula, please feel free to contact me. Note: I am not a trained or licensed therapist, but rather a peer who has lived through these same experiences and has studied and learned from them from that perspective.
Categories: Death & Dying, End Of Life Doula, Grief, Mental Health, suicide
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