Anne Gudger Tells Us

About Grief Being the Source of Our Superpowers

Hello friends,

I hope you’re well and thriving! I’m thrilled to present another installment of my occasional series I’ve taken to referring to as “So and So Tells Us,” in which I ask an author to tell us five things about life, advice, and their new book.

I met Anne Gudger in the summer of 2012, when I taught a week-long writing workshop at the Port Townsend Writers Conference during a brief break from criss-crossing the country doing events promoting Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things (which had been published in March and July of that year), while also looking after my kids, who were 6 and 8 at the time. It was a wild whirlwind of a summer for me—one that was gloriously exciting, but also incredibly stressful—and yet that week in Port Townsend was strangely grounding and part of that sense of grounding existed because the wonderful Anne was in my class. Every time my eyes met her eyes there was a loving smile in them. She radiated a sense of well-being, of generosity, and compassion. Her vibe was—and is—it’s going to be okay.

I remembered those long-ago days we spent together as I read her beautiful debut memoir, The Fifth Chamber, which is being published today. Anne had begun working on an early version of the book by the time we met in Port Townsend and when I read the pages she submitted in the workshop, and heard what she had to say about the the story she wanted to tell about how she survived the devastating loss of her husband Kent, who died in a car accident when she was pregnant with their son, I knew it would be a book that so many people would felt seen and heard and saved by. I knew it would be a book that reflected Anne’s grounded intelligence and compassion. I knew it would be a book that healed a lot of hearts because it managed to say, in spite of everything, it’s going to be okay.

I’m so pleased to say it’s exactly all of that and so much more. It’s a book about being a young widow, about grief, about rage, and heartache, and forgiveness, and acceptance, and love. It’s about doing what you have to do. Even if you don’t want to do it. Her insightful interview below will give you a glimmer of wisdom and light that the book offers.

Happy pub day, Anne. Happy last days of summer, friends.

xCheryl

Photo credit: Robin Damore.

Tell us about a time when you took advice that turned out to be really good or really bad.

The best advice, grief advice, life advice, I ever took happened years ago in my young widows’ support group. Liz, who is still my dear friend over thirty years later, gave me gold that helped me hang on when hanging on was hard, hard, hard.

“The only way through is through,” Liz said, fingering her silver hoop earring that nearly touched her shoulder.

I wanted a short cut.

I was exhausted from crying oceans over my dead husband. Exhausted from my monster grief that chomped me every day.

“I wish there was an easier way,” she added, “but I don’t think there is. You just gotta feel your way through.”

The other women in the circled nodded. Blonde and brunette heads bobbed up and down. Tiny bobs of certainty like putting a period at the end of Liz’s words.

My young widows’ support group was a lifeline. This group that I didn’t want to belong to, that I was grateful to belong to. No one wants to join the cemetery club, but if you find yourself wrapped in grief, finding others who are grieving is a heart balm.

My young widows’ group became my posse. Not at first. At first I’d go to group and not talk. I’d lost my words along with my husband. I’d sit in the circle, in Therapist Emily’s cozy office with its worn leather chairs, textiles on the walls, ficus tree in a basket in a corner, and I’d try to not cross my arms and legs in the Stay Out posture. I’d listen to these women who’d been on the grief road longer than me. We were all under 40 with kids. I was the youngest at 28. My son Jake was the youngest youngest at six months old.

The first time I went to group, after I’d stumbled introducing myself, after I choked around the peach pit stuck in my throat feeling and half whispered, “Hi, I’m Annie,” after I couldn’t say the things I longed to say: how Kent died on a mountain road on his way to go night skiing. How I hugged him goodbye after my sixth month pregnancy checkup. How we were a couple on the cusp of being a family. Everything to look forward to. All of it snapped away. Bam.

The first time I went to group and wouldn’t say more than hello, Emily asked who’d like to start. Maddie leaned in, arms spread wide game show host style, and declared: “I’m single and going on a date!”

My brain titled.

Was I in the wrong room?

Single. Dating. That would never be me. As I rubbed my ringless finger, searching for the ring groove that wasn’t there anymore, I couldn’t see that someday I might be like Maddie. I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it.

I wanted to hear stories of heartbreak. Women who couldn’t sleep, couldn’t wake up, couldn’t eat, ate too much, drank too much, didn’t drink, stared at piling up mail, bought their husband’s favorite veggies that spoiled and stunk in the fridge then bought them again. I was ready for women who couldn’t imagine how they’d stitch a life back together, who thought they’d stay broken. Women like me.

Instead, I met a circle of women who looked so normal, in clean clothes and fresh hair and makeup too while I was depressed and didn’t care how I looked, while I didn’t shower every day, while I’d grab what was in the dryer if I remembered to wash clothes. These women could have been a book club group, a study group, a group of friends. They talked and laughed and cried too. They were always generous and kind, offering me space to talk, asking me “How are you today?” rather than the everyday “How are you?” That simple “today” meant everything to me.

I loved how they didn’t say the things that don’t help. No platitudes. No time heals all wounds. It was meant to be. He’s in a better place. None of the words people say that we’ve been taught to say, words handed down that to someone grieving feel empty.

Slowly my voice, my words came back to me. Slowly I started sharing in group time and began to see these women as possibilities. I could move through grief too. I could be stretched by grief and eventually morph into a different me, a me forever changed by being widowed too young.

Anne and her son Jake in 1988.

Tell us about a personal transformation in your life or a change that you’ve made for the better.

Everything I’ve learned about life and love, I’ve learned through grief. Pregnant and widowed at 28 sideswiped the life I was building, the life I’d thought I’d have. What’s that saying: Make plans and watch God laugh? It’s from the old Yiddish adage “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht,” meaning, Man plans and God laughs.

I believed when I married Kent that I’d left the hard parts of my childhood behind: drinking dad, depressed mom, their ugly divorce in the rearview. I brimmed optimism. I’d get this love thing, marriage thing right. I’ll always remember an older guy whom I worked with saying, shortly before I got married: “It’s a good thing people are so in love and hopeful when they’re young. If you knew what marriage is really about, you’d never do it.” Grumpy guy, I thought. And, I’m always going to feel this joy, this love that is bigger than me.

I had a plan. Love my beloved. Deep talks. Connection. Marriage. Teaching. Hiking and skiing on weekends. Wandering bookstores, record stores while holding hands. Loving him endlessly. Oh, buy a house maybe. And, oh, get pregnant. Inside my bliss bubble. Everything honey soaked.

Then Kent died on a mountain road on his way to go night skiing. I stayed home that night with my double stack of student English 101 papers to grade. Thank all that is holy in the universe. Had I been with him, I would have died too. Our son would have never been born alive.

I grieved hard and wide. I screamed at god, the clouds, the trees. I bawled in the arms of my family and friends as I melted into blob me. I crawled through the belly of grief. I had to find my way. I had a son to raise and I wanted him to know love, to know that loss doesn’t have to permanently break you. Hardest thing I’ve ever done. And the thing I most needed to do.

Eventually with tons of hard work, good therapy, devoted family and friends, I found myself. A different self than who I was in my Before life. Grief taught me compassion. Grief taught me to not take time for granted. To say and do the things that matter. Tell people I love them. Walk in love. I’m fond of saying grief’s the source of my superpowers, because it is. I don’t know who I’d be had my husband not died at such a young age. While I like to think that she who is me exists in another dimension, a parallel life where Kent is alive and they’re a family of four with a daughter who looks like her, I can no longer conjure what that life could be. I can’t see myself at this stage if I’d been able to stay on the Kent path. While he might exist in a parallel life, I stepped through a different door. I brought grief with me. I brought my heart to Scot, my sweet husband, to our daughter Maria and son Jake. I brought my stretched heart.

Anne with her husband Scot.

Tell us about a regret you have or a mistake you’ve made.

Years ago, Real Simple Magazine’s essay contest was on regret. I didn’t think I had much to write about, but I did. I wrote about regretting not keeping Kent home the night he died, the night that everything changed. He was going night skiing, and as I hugged him goodbye, my whole body flooded in worry. That dark inky gut feeling when something’s wrong? I was swamped in it. Like I’d fallen into Lake Worry. But he wanted to go. He wanted to get in more skiing before our son was born. I’ve never been clingy. I told myself my gut twists were hormones tap dancing on my system. I hugged him hard and let him go.

As he zipped along the curvy mountain road in our Honda Prelude with its new snow tires, it started to snow. Then snow harder. He hit black ice. He hit an oncoming car—a station wagon with four bouncer-sized men inside— and died before the man in the car behind him could open his door. While no one else died that night, my Kent life did. All my dreams with him. Gone.  

For a long time, I wished I’d kept him home. I wished I’d told him how my gut was swirling, how my Spidey sense was yelling “Don’t go!” Had I told him, surely he would have skipped skiing.

Did I have the power to keep him alive? I’ll never know. What I do know is that my life spiraled. I stumbled and crashed plenty in the grief cave, in the darkest dark, with slimy rocks and hollow echoes, where I moved sideways and backwards and eventually forwards, a slippery foot hold at a time. Eventually, I grew around my grief. I remarried and had a beautiful daughter. When I look at her, I have no regret. When I look at her, I know she was meant to be mine and I hers.

“Doors” is my Real Simple Magazine essay. It won second place in their 2013 contest. It’s my first published essay and inspired me to finish my book. “Doors” reminded me that regret is real and not. It’s a rearview mirror thing. It’s not a place I linger. Gratitude trumps regret every time.

Tell us about your new book, The Fifth Chamber.

The Fifth Chamber is a lyrical memoir about loss and love. While the core tragedy is my husband dying when he was 36, when I was 28 and pregnant with our first child, the love thread is bigger/louder than the loss thread. It’s me coming back to me. It’s me learning to love the me who came out the other side of grief—eventually finding love again, marrying my fabulous husband Scot, having our beautiful daughter Maria.

The Fifth Chamber is a love story beyond me that comes to near present day, that finishes with my son’s beautiful wedding, with Scot toasting Kent (“To Kent Neuberger. Who gave you life. We wish you were here.”) and Kent popping in (ruffling Jake’s hair and my skirt on a windless day) as the silent third parent. We’ve always kept Kent in our lives. We always will. People stay with us through stories, through saying their names, for remembering they loved German chocolate cake and Cherry Coke, for raising a Cherry Coke on birthdays and anniversaries and any days that we want to call them back in.

I wrote the book I was looking for all those years ago, and I wrote it from now—more scar than wound. I hope I landed on the sweet spot of being true to the Before time, layered with the long view, the Now view. I asked myself plenty while I was writing: Why now? Because it’s different to tell a story that began 36 years ago. It’s different when that boy I was pregnant with is now a man on the cusp of becoming a dad. Jake’s 36. He’s as old as his dad got to be. While I’m a word person over a number person, the numbers aren’t lost on me. It’s such a beautiful full circle feeling to watch him with his wife. To witness my boy, all man, become a dad.

Even in early grief, I had this strong belief that if I didn’t become a voice for grief, if I kept my experience to myself, somehow Kent’s death would be diminished. It’s the meaning maker in me. I had to make meaning out of his shortish life, out of my loss. First there was the book. Then there was more.

At the start of the pandemic when we were all sheltering and searching for ways to connect, my daughter and I started a Facebook group called Coffee and Grief Community for people to share grief. We launched a monthly reading series on zoom called Coffee Talk where I curate five readers to read a grief story. Any type of grief. My lofty mission is to expand grief literacy, to grow cultural comfort talking about grief. I had no idea when my daughter and I sat at the kitchen counter, coffee in hand, and she said, “Let’s make a Facebook group. Let’s get people sharing grief stories,” that our group and readings would grow like they have. I’m proud and grateful that this month we’ll host our 50^th Coffee Talk, supporting 250 readers telling their grief stories.

Tell us your best advice.

“To see love, you gotta be love,” Waiter Wade said after we all thanked him for his excellent service, for taking such good care of us on a recent August evening. I was with friends at Duke’s restaurant on the waterfront in Tacoma, Washington, sharing a glass of wine with this beautiful group of women I’ve known since junior high, since I was 13 and moved to Dash Point with my parents and younger sister. This circle of girls took me in at an age when mean girls can be extra mean and circles don’t always widen. I’m not the original four who met in kindergarten. I’m part of the five even though I don’t see them as much as they see each other. While I’m not always near, I’m always close.

“To see love, you gotta be love,” our waiter said after we all told him how much we appreciated his thoughtful and kind service. Our circle of women, all paused and let those words sink in. “My mom always said that, and I didn’t get it as a kid,” he added. “I sure do now.”

“I’m going to remember that,” Jody said with a double head nod and the same tender smile I’ve known all these years. Then she pointed at me: “You could write that down.”

Here’s the thing when you hang out with writers: We pay attention. We write things down. Much of what I write about are my observations. I always say I don’t have to make things up. I just need to pay attention.

My best advice is to be love. Be kindness. Be grace. That doesn’t mean be without backbone or voice. Always have your voice. Always have spine. And if love is where you come from, the world’s a sweeter place. I’ve said “love and be love” for years. I hope it’s some of the good words my kids remember hearing from me. Love and be love. My north stars.

And now I’m going to expand love and be love, with thanks from Waiter Wade: To see love, you gotta be love.

The heart is a muscle. Love is a muscle. Grow your heart. Grow your love.

Anne with her Dash Point friends.

---

Anne Gudger is an essay/memoir writer who writes hard and loves harder. She's been published in The Rumpus, Real Simple Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, PANK, Citron Review, Sweet Lit, Cutthroat, CutBank, Columbia Journal, The Normal School, and elsewhere. She has won four essay contests and been a Best of the Net Nominee twice. Her debut memoir The Fifth Chamber was published by Jaded Ibis Press in September 2023. At the start of the pandemic, with her beloved daughter, she co-founded Coffee and Grief: a community that includes a monthly reading series focused on grief in its many forms. Everybody grieves and when we share grief, we feel less alone. Then they launched a podcast called Coffee, Grief, and Gratitude. They also facilitate a writing group called Write Your Grief Out. Anne’s big purpose: to normalize grief, to give grief a microphone. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her beloved husband. You can learn more about Anne on her web site and more about Write Your Grief Out here.