I’m going to send this book to a good friend of mine. Two years ago she lost her father then three weeks later, her husband died suddenly. Then less than a year from their deaths her mother passed. Her grief is still overwhelming. She and her husband had two grown children and were madly in love. Navigating this grief has been terrible.
I’m glad there is more awareness and resources for grieving individuals. Therapy is sometimes hard to come by and increasingly unaffordable. The FB group is an amazing idea. This is a wonderful essay. Thank you.
Speaking of grief lessons, yesterday was the ninth anniversary of my father’s death. Honestly, I initially forgot. Though the date is assigned in my memory to him, I just hadn’t thought about what the date was all day. Busy with life and all.
Then my best friend sent me a link to her post from the day he died, which had popped up in her memories. And all of a sudden I was crying at my desk.
I wasn’t crying because I miss my dad, in truth. My dad was a good man on balance, but a deeply complicated one, and a hard person to have as a father. I experienced him as deeply idealistic but also tortured, nonviolent in his beliefs but also periodically explosive and violent in his actions, generous and controlling, creative and narrow-minded, deeply loving and often utterly selfish, adept at building things yet completely disassociated, full of faith in my capacity while also unremittingly sexist, and a deeply feeling man who was also remarkably emotionally stunted.
Much of this contradiction could be accounted for by the fact that he dealt with chronic pain for decades, but my dad’s complications pre-dated his disabilities. And there’s no way to know for sure now, but I always suspected, long before the notion of a mind-body connection was part of our popular lexicon, that my dad’s physical reality was very much an expression of his inner reality. He didn’t cause it. He just was it.
Our relationship was as complicated as he was. I loved and despaired of him in equal measure. His incapacities, both physical and emotional, felt to me like a constant constraint on our ability to love each other well. And perhaps more compassion from me would have helped, but I’ll just say, that’s hard to find when you need someone to be a bulwark in your life and instead they are too consumed by their own unprocessed pain to stand tall enough to offer shelter.
His death was something of a relief, if I’m completely truthful, from my often desperate wishing for him to be something for me that he couldn’t be. For nearly thirty years that unfulfilled wish felt like most of our relationship. I don’t miss that at all.
But the unexpected thing that settled in since he’s been gone is that once I didn’t have to negotiate my own desire for him to be different than he was, the chronic disappointment and grief of missing who I wished he could be while he was still alive, the nearly constant weird, inexplicable shit he would do with no consciousness of his impact on his loved ones, I was able to not take him so personally. I got to just love him. The decidedly imperfect, striving man that he was.
I wouldn’t be who I am without him. I can see ever more clearly how he lives on through me. And he has taught me so much, is teaching me even now, how to love myself and my people better.
I don’t miss him at all, it’s true. But it turns out through walking the grief road you can learn to love the protagonist of a cautionary tale. Is he the protagonist or am I? It’s unclear. But I love us both.
I didn't get in on the beginning of this series. Pure Slush is doing the Lifespan series on 10 life stages. I did get into Work, Home, and Achievement. The next stage is Loss. I have my story yet to be written about the man who recently died who was a big part of our lives for many years. This next stage with submission starting in October will be the home for poetry and prose on loss.
Thank you for introducing us to Anne — I'm looking forward to reading her book. A year and a half into grieving the loss of my 7-year-old son, I'm allowing myself to enter the "a different self than who I was in my Before life" (as Anne references) stage. It's awkward and painful and awful and somehow beautiful. Love and gratitude for who my son made me is absolutely leading the way. 💛 I appreciate the perspective of writing from the scar, as so many books on grief — which I also love! — are often from the rawness present in acute loss.
I've never been able to explain why if asked, "What do you regret?" I can honestly say nothing. Maybe in the darkest of times I'll choose 6,000 things. But on a normal day, I know I don't.
"It’s a rearview mirror thing. It’s not a place I linger. Gratitude trumps regret every time." is the most succinct way I've seen it written before. I'll be quoting Anne Gudger for the rest of my life, let me tell you.
What a memorable story about your friend Anne Gudger and then all of the events and years until she launches her book, this month. Loving, long post, today. I'm glad to see Anne is giving a microphone to grief. I read books and I never wasted a moment of precious life on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. From what I've experienced so far, I can say the love thread is bigger than the death and loss thread. Writing it out seems like an option --just as Anne wrote her book. That took more than a 30-day course. Did I get this right? You were reading pages for her 2023 book in 2012?
Beautiful, heartbreaking, powerful. Thank you, Anne, for your gift of these words and your story. Thank you, Cheryl, for sharing this with us. I look forward to reading Anne's book. 🫶
Beautiful and profound. I wish grief was a multi-verse. coffee clutch conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your story and thank you again for your beautiful heartfelt writing! My older brother died and left three grief stricken children barely in their 20s . I sent this article to them. 🙏 Thank you SO much! 💕 💃🏻
Anne’s words are so beautiful. I couldn't help but tear up paragraph after paragraph. Thank you for sharing.
I love that quote. “to see love you got to be love”. That really was thought provoking. Thank you for sharing your wonderful writing.
I’m going to send this book to a good friend of mine. Two years ago she lost her father then three weeks later, her husband died suddenly. Then less than a year from their deaths her mother passed. Her grief is still overwhelming. She and her husband had two grown children and were madly in love. Navigating this grief has been terrible.
I’m glad there is more awareness and resources for grieving individuals. Therapy is sometimes hard to come by and increasingly unaffordable. The FB group is an amazing idea. This is a wonderful essay. Thank you.
Alison, thank you so much. I hope The Fifth Chamber can be a comfort for your friend.
This made me cry...happy tears. ❤️🩹
I have a friend who suddenly lost her beloved husband in January and I’m sending this to her to read when she’s ready. Thank you for sharing.
I loved this. Thank you.
Speaking of grief lessons, yesterday was the ninth anniversary of my father’s death. Honestly, I initially forgot. Though the date is assigned in my memory to him, I just hadn’t thought about what the date was all day. Busy with life and all.
Then my best friend sent me a link to her post from the day he died, which had popped up in her memories. And all of a sudden I was crying at my desk.
I wasn’t crying because I miss my dad, in truth. My dad was a good man on balance, but a deeply complicated one, and a hard person to have as a father. I experienced him as deeply idealistic but also tortured, nonviolent in his beliefs but also periodically explosive and violent in his actions, generous and controlling, creative and narrow-minded, deeply loving and often utterly selfish, adept at building things yet completely disassociated, full of faith in my capacity while also unremittingly sexist, and a deeply feeling man who was also remarkably emotionally stunted.
Much of this contradiction could be accounted for by the fact that he dealt with chronic pain for decades, but my dad’s complications pre-dated his disabilities. And there’s no way to know for sure now, but I always suspected, long before the notion of a mind-body connection was part of our popular lexicon, that my dad’s physical reality was very much an expression of his inner reality. He didn’t cause it. He just was it.
Our relationship was as complicated as he was. I loved and despaired of him in equal measure. His incapacities, both physical and emotional, felt to me like a constant constraint on our ability to love each other well. And perhaps more compassion from me would have helped, but I’ll just say, that’s hard to find when you need someone to be a bulwark in your life and instead they are too consumed by their own unprocessed pain to stand tall enough to offer shelter.
His death was something of a relief, if I’m completely truthful, from my often desperate wishing for him to be something for me that he couldn’t be. For nearly thirty years that unfulfilled wish felt like most of our relationship. I don’t miss that at all.
But the unexpected thing that settled in since he’s been gone is that once I didn’t have to negotiate my own desire for him to be different than he was, the chronic disappointment and grief of missing who I wished he could be while he was still alive, the nearly constant weird, inexplicable shit he would do with no consciousness of his impact on his loved ones, I was able to not take him so personally. I got to just love him. The decidedly imperfect, striving man that he was.
I wouldn’t be who I am without him. I can see ever more clearly how he lives on through me. And he has taught me so much, is teaching me even now, how to love myself and my people better.
I don’t miss him at all, it’s true. But it turns out through walking the grief road you can learn to love the protagonist of a cautionary tale. Is he the protagonist or am I? It’s unclear. But I love us both.
What a beautiful, thoughtful essay.
I’ve been grieving a lost relationship over the past few weeks. This opened my heart and is giving me a path forward.
Thank you for your generous gift Anne. Thank you Cheryl for introducing us.
I’m floored by the beauty in Anne’s words and in her heart.
I didn't get in on the beginning of this series. Pure Slush is doing the Lifespan series on 10 life stages. I did get into Work, Home, and Achievement. The next stage is Loss. I have my story yet to be written about the man who recently died who was a big part of our lives for many years. This next stage with submission starting in October will be the home for poetry and prose on loss.
Doug Hawley not Sharon
Thank you for introducing us to Anne — I'm looking forward to reading her book. A year and a half into grieving the loss of my 7-year-old son, I'm allowing myself to enter the "a different self than who I was in my Before life" (as Anne references) stage. It's awkward and painful and awful and somehow beautiful. Love and gratitude for who my son made me is absolutely leading the way. 💛 I appreciate the perspective of writing from the scar, as so many books on grief — which I also love! — are often from the rawness present in acute loss.
I've never been able to explain why if asked, "What do you regret?" I can honestly say nothing. Maybe in the darkest of times I'll choose 6,000 things. But on a normal day, I know I don't.
"It’s a rearview mirror thing. It’s not a place I linger. Gratitude trumps regret every time." is the most succinct way I've seen it written before. I'll be quoting Anne Gudger for the rest of my life, let me tell you.
Thank you for sharing!
This was wonderful! I can’t wait to read the book! Thank you for sharing this!
What a memorable story about your friend Anne Gudger and then all of the events and years until she launches her book, this month. Loving, long post, today. I'm glad to see Anne is giving a microphone to grief. I read books and I never wasted a moment of precious life on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. From what I've experienced so far, I can say the love thread is bigger than the death and loss thread. Writing it out seems like an option --just as Anne wrote her book. That took more than a 30-day course. Did I get this right? You were reading pages for her 2023 book in 2012?
Yes! She was working on an earlier iteration of this book back then.
Beautiful, heartbreaking, powerful. Thank you, Anne, for your gift of these words and your story. Thank you, Cheryl, for sharing this with us. I look forward to reading Anne's book. 🫶
Beautiful and profound. I wish grief was a multi-verse. coffee clutch conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your story and thank you again for your beautiful heartfelt writing! My older brother died and left three grief stricken children barely in their 20s . I sent this article to them. 🙏 Thank you SO much! 💕 💃🏻