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61. Talking About Death Helps Normalize Grief- With Susan Kendal
76 Plays4 years ago
Susan Kendal became a widow, 6 years ago. Her husband passed suddenly of an unexpected heart attack while getting ready for work. Grief does occur in different times and 6 weeks after she and her husband got married, at 18 and 21, her best friend & brother-in-law died. So, their kids actually grew up their entire lives knowing about death. Which she feels it was probably good in retrospect.
She also shares her grief experience a few years after she became a widow when her dad succumbed to cancer and heart disease and both her brothers died as well.
She initially started Evolve for Widows to be a positive site for women who want to move forward. But, as she continued her involvement in the community (including coaching training), she's realized the biggest problem for anyone moving thru grief is the death taboo.
Those grieving are talking about death but no one else is!!
We hide in chat groups talking about our pain and loneliness because society has taught us to be afraid of speaking out because grief has a time limit.
So now she's trying to change that and open up the dialogue about DEATH as we have done for other taboo subjects like mental health, gay rights, infertility etc. She believes a dialogue that starts with children is ideal but we all must learn what NOT to say to someone who is grieving and how to hold space for someone who feels compelled to mention a loved one and lean in to death.
We shall all lose a loved one in our lifetime (actually probably more like 5 loved ones) so this is THE most important taboo to end.
Listen to this podcast as we dive into the topic of how Talking About Death Helps Normalize Grief.
Contact Susan Kendal: https://www.evolvebeyondgrief.com/
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or for coaching: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/
Music: https://www.rinaldisound.com
Logo: https://www.pamelawinningham.com
Production: Carlos Andres Londono
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Transcript
Personal Growth After Loss
00:00:01
Speaker
I had to find myself in so many ways in how I dealt with my children. You know, my husband had much greater patience than I did. And I had to sort of summon. I'd go, okay, I got to get your patience now because I couldn't depend on him. And I had to become me, a whole. So it's a huge learning experience, aside from learning
00:00:27
Speaker
You know, I took care of the home and he took care of the finances and learning all of that, which is a lot. I had to learn more intrinsic things about me.
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast.
00:00:48
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:01:04
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Welcoming the Guest: Susan Kendall
00:01:27
Speaker
I'm here today with Susan Kendall. Kendall, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you reached out and I'm excited for our conversation today. You're talking all the way from? Toronto.
00:01:43
Speaker
OK, so let's let's talk weather since that's what we were just talking right before. So right now we're recording this at the end of February. Last week of February as we were recording this, I don't know when I'll release it. But what's the weather like right now in Toronto? Well, shockingly, we actually consider it beautiful out because it's above zero and there's snow and the snow is packing snow now because we Canadians have all different textures of snow.
00:02:11
Speaker
So I was just outside.
00:02:14
Speaker
a few hours ago building a snowman with two of my grandchildren. Oh, that's wonderful. It's so interesting because when it snowed here last week here in Dallas, as we're recording this, it's just a week after all the blackouts and everything we had in Dallas. Susan and I were just talking a little bit before that, but my dad's like, is it wet snow or dry snow? My dad was like, I don't know, dad. Although I did live in Boston before, I should know that concept of wet or dry. So wet means I can pack it.
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah. Wet means I can pack it and dry. Okay. And it was dry here for so long. It was like sand.
00:02:50
Speaker
So now we're so excited because at least we can play with it. What else? That's the thing. I think that one of the things with people that live in those environments, you already have activities that you're used to. You have the equipment, you have sleds. I don't even have sleds. I'm like, I couldn't even... And we don't really have many hills either. So it's not like we could just go and find a place. But anyhow... I have to confess, I don't skate. No. Do you ski?
00:03:23
Speaker
They're learning. My kids ski like crazy. They're fanatics and I love tobogganing. It's no shoeing. Okay. So you do like some other activities in the snow. That's wonderful. Okay. So you're from Toronto. You're from there. Okay.
A Love Story and Family Life
00:03:39
Speaker
So now share a little bit then about your life. It's going to be, and it's going to be, we're going to be talking about several different topics that primarily
00:03:47
Speaker
right now. How about we start with your husband's passing and then we'll kind of jump to the other situations. Being that one of the things you do is supporting other widows. So let's talk there. Tell us, first of all, how did you meet and a little bit about your family dynamics, your children, your grandkids and that, please. Thank you. Well, we met when I was 14 in grade nine and he was 15.
00:04:17
Speaker
Oh, you're a kid with sweethearts. Yeah. And he actually, we met actually with the Texas connection. He said that his best friend liked me and I ended up dating his best friend for a while and now his best friend lives in Texas. So I have a Texas connection. But we started dating only, you know, just the two of us complete when I was 16.
00:04:46
Speaker
And we never stopped from that day on. We got married young, 21, had three children. And he was never blessed to meet the grandchildren, but now there's six of those. And, you know, he was my best friend. He was the other half of me because truly I spent most of my life with him.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yes, no, it's a lot. Is Adi wanting to come in? And yeah, the listeners here, this is her fur baby. He's wanting to come in the house, out the house, in the house, out the house. So if you hear him barking in the background, it's because our fur babies demand attention, right? And we bless them.
00:05:32
Speaker
We do. And they bless our lives too. Okay. So then, yeah, you basically grew up together. You grew to who you were as individuals, as people together. So what were the circumstances around his death? And then we'll jump again. Okay.
The Shock of Sudden Loss
00:05:54
Speaker
Well, he literally died of a heart attack in our home.
00:06:01
Speaker
I found him. There was no, he had flu symptoms. A couple of days later, we were at a, earlier, sorry, we were at a wedding and he just had flu symptoms. And we actually had them checked out by a few doctors because of course it was a big, large Jewish wedding and there were a lot of doctors there. And they all thought everything was fine. So it was a huge, huge shock for me.
00:06:30
Speaker
It was not expected. His parents, thank God, are both alive. And we've already had lost another member of his family through a car accident, not from health reasons. So we understood death, but not this. This was not. Especially because life is different.
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah, at this point, too, I'm wondering, now I know when I hear my echo. I think it's when you're talking and then I talk, then I hear my echo. I hope it records well. Well, we'll see. Do you want me to get the earphones? Yeah, maybe let's, yeah, maybe get those earphones. One second, I'll run. Sounds good. I hate those things when they happen. Yes and... Oh, sorry, wait. Oh, no, I'm hearing more echo now.
00:07:25
Speaker
I'm thinking, let me see. I'm hearing more echo now. I actually, let me see. Can you hear me? Yeah. No, you could don't hear me on your hearsay. Okay. No, take him off. Take him off. Cause I'm hearing more echo actually.
00:07:56
Speaker
Oh, okay. Sorry. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Don't worry about it. No, don't worry about it. No, those. Okay. So let's go back to, um, are you doing, are you touching something? Okay. Okay. No, no, it's fine.
00:08:23
Speaker
Okay, so that, okay, we were at the part where you were talking about, okay, so how were then the circumstances then in terms of him passing, he was home, what was the situation? You mentioned a little bit in the email. He was home, he hadn't been feeling well, and he had a very important meeting in the morning. So I had said to him, maybe don't go.
00:08:53
Speaker
He was a dentist and he was actually meeting a patient and another dentist to discuss a patient's issue together, the three of them. And he said, I have to go because, you know, I've already got the patient there and I've called in a specialist. But he wasn't feeling well. He had flu-like symptoms. So I actually decided that I would sleep on the couch because, you know, I didn't want to get sick. And in the morning, the phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing and I knew
00:09:24
Speaker
that it was the office calling and I saw the time and my husband was always late. He was actually so late that we held his funeral. We purposely started it late, so it would be an honor of him. Oh, I absolutely
00:09:45
Speaker
Love that, Susan. I love that. I have black hair. You have what? Call it a late-nailed Kendall, yeah. Nailed Kendall. So I ran upstairs with the phone in my hand, and I found him in the bathroom. Okay. I'm sorry. Thank you. And this was less than seven years ago. This is recent. This was in 2014.
00:10:14
Speaker
And the interesting thing was I actually lived next door to my parents and my father was going through a lot of chemo. And, um, because he really wasn't well at all and he was in his eighties. So when my mother saw the ambulance, because she was waiting for the nurse to come with my dad's medication, she came next door and she, and you always want to protect your parents. So here I was in,
00:10:44
Speaker
the most horrific moment of my entire life and still trying to sort of shield my mother from what was happening. Thankfully, all my kids were out of the house as it turned out, which was truly a blessing, I believe. They were grown. How many ages were your kids at that time?
00:11:05
Speaker
Um, if you were probably early twenties to later, there's three of them. So like probably, you know, early twenties.
00:11:14
Speaker
Okay, so all grown. Since they weren't home, how did you break the news to them about it? Because you're still even trying to cope with the idea of this even being real. You're in that present moment of dealing with this. I'm assuming you rushed to the hospital and then like... No, I dialed, I think it's the same there, 911.
00:11:42
Speaker
Yes. The emergency number. I dialed the emergency number, you know, and then the ambulance showed up and another crazy story happened, which was so I was told after a while, OK, follow the ambulance when it leaves to the hospital. And I said, OK, my mother was in the car with me. And to this day, I have no idea what I was wearing, which is really weird.
00:12:11
Speaker
I don't even know why I care. You're probably still in your pajamas. Maybe you're still in your pajamas. You don't even know. I don't know. I have a funny feeling I probably was wearing sweatpants. I just don't know. And it's one of those weird things when you want to remember every moment. I have no idea. And so we were sitting on the driveway for a very long time, waiting and waiting and waiting for the ambulance to leave. And I couldn't understand what was taking so long. So I saw somebody run back up into my house because there was just lots of commotion and lots of people in the house.
00:12:41
Speaker
And I said to him, what's happening? When, when is the ambulance leaving? And he said to me, and I did not know, Oh, we sent two ambulances that we always send to the ambulance that you're looking for is already at the hospital. This is the backup ambulance. So needless to say, I rushed and we got to the hospital, but I knew, I mean, I knew before the ambulance came that there, it wasn't going to make a difference.
00:13:09
Speaker
but it was the crazy things you remember. That's so ironic, weird. How did I tell my kids?
Breaking the News to Children
00:13:18
Speaker
There's some memories and stories that I'm still trying to recap. My daughter had just said goodbye to her dad, oh, 48 hours earlier. We took her to the airport and we have the final picture of her
00:13:36
Speaker
Both of them so excited pointing because she was leaving to go away. And so that phone call was done later because she was the youngest, very, very close to her father. And we decided that we were going to call first and let the people who were in charge, who happened to be a patient of my husband's, tell her the situation, let her organize it.
00:14:05
Speaker
And my son and this woman, this wonderful woman, who's now my friend, planned everything, had the airplane, you know, chose how she was gonna get home, how she was gonna get to the airport. It was a huge deal. And then when we were all together, myself and my other children, we then called her and told her the news.
00:14:33
Speaker
And like my other daughter, my middle one, she also thought when we told the news that I meant my father had passed because we were all, you know, my dad was very sick and I was taking him monthly for treatments. And then we had to tell her, no, not my father, your father.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I couldn't get the, I remember sitting with my kids that I remember so clearly and I could not get the words out. I could not say them. And my, I think my son, it was one of my kids said it out loud and just hearing those words out loud. There's nothing worse. And she broke down.
00:15:19
Speaker
and had to fly pretty much on her own for hours and hours. Was she out of the country? Was she out of the country? She was in Israel. She was actually in Israel just starting a trip. So she had just traveled for, you know, a day to get to where they needed to go from planes and buses and everything. And she was there and she had to fly home and we all went together. My girlfriend drove us.
00:15:44
Speaker
to the airport to get her because that flight home for her or for anyone.
00:15:51
Speaker
I don't even know how she did it, honestly. I don't know how she did that. That's bringing up memories for me because when my sister passed away, she was in Seattle and I lived in LA. Now that's a short flight, but I also had to fly. My parents were in Colombia, so they flew from Colombia. I remember flying there the day after her death and she died in a car accident.
00:16:17
Speaker
I'm thinking, I'm like, I wonder if people around me are thinking I'm crying because I've just left somebody that I ... It was so weird how I was feeling even self-conscious about how I was emotional in this airplane and not knowing whether
00:16:37
Speaker
People around you know they wouldn't know what i was crying and i can just imagine your the amount of time your daughter in that airplane and you said something regarding that goodbye with her dad just forty eight hours you know before his passing.
00:16:53
Speaker
It just brought me chills. I had, again, another, I'm sorry I'm interjecting with my stories, but it just brought these images. When my sister moved to Seattle, she had first come to LA. And so I drove her to the airport to then from her to fly to Seattle. And we were sitting in the lobby and there was this couple
00:17:16
Speaker
This is back when you were able to be in the, and I don't know how it's in Canada. Could you guys be at the gate to say goodbye or no? Or is it like- We're exactly the same. The same? Okay. Exactly the same. So this is back when we could, right? This is pre-
00:17:34
Speaker
Pre-COVID, pre-9-11. Pre-9-11, yeah. Pre-9-11. So this couple, the guy kept coming back up and they'd hug again and say goodbye and then he'd leave and then come back.
Cultural Traditions in Grieving
00:17:45
Speaker
And we're like sitting there. We're like, man, they're like saying goodbye as if they're never going to see each other again. And little did we know that was the last time we were going to see each other.
00:17:55
Speaker
So what you just mentioned right now of your daughter just brought me that image of like we really do not know people's stories when we're crossing them and it just is just so much happens in front of our eyes that we don't know and these interactions and human interactions
00:18:15
Speaker
That make us think like what if they're crying because they are going to a funeral What if they're crying as they're saying goodbye and really that is their last goodbye. So You know sharing that I'll share memory with you From so long ago. So when I was 21, I lost my brother Well, my brother-in-law who was 18 in a car accident and to this day I remember the phone call and
00:18:44
Speaker
And it was, he died because of the weather. The weather was horrible. We were the same age. So I was 21 when my sister died and she was 18. So same as your brother-in-law, also car accident. Okay. So the weather was horrible. Horrible. That's what happened. It was a rain, a horrible, horrible, horrible rainstorm. And it was, he was about an hour away, but it was the same weather where we were. So I said, we were running, we had to, we, we had no money. We didn't have a parking garage. So we were running to where we kept our car in the lot.
00:19:14
Speaker
And I said to my husband, we can't drive in this weather. We can't. Look what happened. We can't drive as well. So we ended up taking the subway. And on the subway, my husband was just, he lost it. He was crying. It was just all pouring out of him. And I will never forget a wonderful, kind person. A man was sitting in the subway and he saw these two young kids and the guy crying, which I guess isn't typical.
00:19:43
Speaker
And he reached out to me and I remember him saying, is there anything I can do? And I remember just going, no, nobody can do anything. I just, you know, you remember certain things. They just don't leave you.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, and that is so beautiful, just the fact that it's a stranger and seeing somebody. And sometimes we just pretend like we're not seeing instead because we're so uncomfortable. And actually that goes into part of this conversation that we'll have too, because I know when you reached out, you wanted to be able to talk more about the subject of death and how we really don't talk about it
Personalizing Farewells
00:20:19
Speaker
enough.
00:20:19
Speaker
And I think that that's one of the things is that because we're so uncomfortable, we do not know how to react around other people that are in pain. And the fact that this gentleman reached out to at least even just say, what can I do? That is that sometimes that's all you need, you know, even if he couldn't do something.
00:20:41
Speaker
That's beautiful. Back again, you mentioned before you had gone to a Jewish wedding, are you a Jewish background? I am. Did you have to wait? Because I believe, ceremony-wise, in terms of a funeral, you have to bury soon, correct, after the passing?
00:21:01
Speaker
So how did you have to delay that based on your daughter coming from Israel? A little bit that things have to kind of shift a little bit. I think a day. I think we did. I mean, she was back the next day, the next evening, she was back and I, that's right because she was unpacking. And as she was unpacking, we were figuring out what she was going to wear to her father's funeral. It was surreal.
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah. You had just packed for her trip to Israel. Did she end up going back or did she just stay home after that? She ended up, it was very, very hard for her to go back because the memory of standing, I mean, she still considers her day losing her father to be the day they stood at the airport together. But I really, really wanted her to go back because I wanted her to travel and it was such an
00:21:55
Speaker
phenomenal opportunity that she was being offered. So I think two years later, she went back and it was good. Oh, good. Okay. So she was able to live that experience. Okay. So now let's go again into the funeral because what you said, this is important, the fact of being able to bring in some of the qualities of the person that's passed into the
00:22:24
Speaker
the feelings in the funeral itself. So the fact that you first off had it be an hour later to honor that he was always there. Not an hour, just a few minutes, but it was purposely. Oh, a few minutes. I wouldn't do that. There were thousands of people, but I definitely stopped it. I definitely did it, and I don't know how many of them knew, but we all knew.
00:22:51
Speaker
Love it. So what other ways did you honor his personality in his funeral?
Keeping Memories Alive
00:22:59
Speaker
What other ways did you do that? We are put into a separate room before the funeral starts. And my husband was a giant Coke Zero fanatic. So I made sure that I had a Coke Zero with me just it was just like he was with me. And interestingly,
00:23:20
Speaker
It's funny, I don't remember if it was the night before. It was, it was the night before the funeral. A whole bunch of people had gathered in my home, including my children and, you know, some family, friends, I don't remember who, but my husband was known for liking this specific pink wine.
00:23:42
Speaker
Barringers, Rosé, I don't know. And everyone knew and used to make fun of him because, you know, guys don't typically, guys in Canada don't typically like him. Yeah. I mean, it's a summer wine, but he liked it year round. And there was one in my fridge. There's always, there was always an open bottle in my fridge. So we all went around in a circle and each, you know, I poured for everybody and we kept a little bit. And that was for my daughter who wasn't with us just to honor
00:24:11
Speaker
him, I think she still may have the empty bottle. Yeah. So little things like that. It's so important, I think. Yeah, it's so important because one is honoring the person. It is also keeping you guys feeling more connected to Neil in that process as well. Yeah. I mean, I did so many things. Because I had lost Darren, my brother-in-law,
00:24:40
Speaker
I didn't realize then how much I did to honor his memory. And I used to always tell stories, always of Darren, probably the same stories, but over and over again, especially when my kids were younger to the point where they weren't sure if they had ever met him or not because the stories were so alive and hit their brains. So after my husband passed, my son said to me, you have to keep dad's memory alive like you have
00:25:10
Speaker
Uncle Derence, which also meant naming everybody, you know, after him. But so I did. And within a few weeks after Neil's passing, I invited, because I'd known him pretty much my entire life, I invited, it took two days, one for the men and one for the women. I don't know why. And I invited people throughout his life, from youth till older,
00:25:41
Speaker
And I did that with the men and the women and asked them to please share memories, share stories, because I needed more stories and give me a word, a one word that would describe Neil. And they each did it. I videotaped it, have not watched it yet. And I use those words to put on the bottom of this tombstone. I decided to add.
00:26:05
Speaker
words that could be used to describe him and also to create dialogue and conversation. So I chose from the, you know, you don't get that many different words because, you know, but I chose about eight, 10 words and they're on the bottom of a tombstone for that reason.
00:26:22
Speaker
And so you haven't watched the full video you said yet in six and a half years. When do you feel that you'll, do you even know when that will be? You'll just know, you'll just know, you'll know when you're ready. And I want to share it with my kids. So I'll watch it, see what's on it. Cause everybody was so, so emotional. And then, um, I'll share it with them.
00:26:49
Speaker
It'll be great for the grandkids because when they're older too, to be able to hear all these people talk about their grandfather and get to know who he was, his character and everything that people remember about. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. What a beautiful legacy that you'll be able to pass down to them. I hope so. Actually talk about it.
00:27:10
Speaker
I know. Talking about legacy, let me ask you because since now that I know this, having interviewed other people of Jewish background, had he written a legacy letter or not? I don't know what that is. Oh, so I had heard, you see, so I had heard about this. My friend told me, her name is Dara. She's an author and her mom wrote a legacy, but her mom was passing from cancer. So her mom wrote this letter kind of leaving all these like values behind.
00:27:40
Speaker
Like the things and stuff behind. Yeah. And so it's like something that you write beforehand. No. Okay. So it may have been just culturally that they had, or, you know, something in their own family that they had done. I just love that idea that it's basically like a will, but it's a letter that you're leaving.
00:28:00
Speaker
That's beautiful. And you hand it to the family. So her dad handed it to her when her mom died. So that's when she got it. So she didn't get to read it till after mom had died. Wow. No. But also, again, it was sudden. So I've never heard of that as a- And he's young. And he was young. Yeah. And healthy. Yeah. So it's like not a... Yeah. I would not have a legacy right now. I'm in my 40s. I would not think of writing something now. So true.
00:28:31
Speaker
Okay, so now let me ask you some of the things. You've experienced death before and, oh, Adi, Adi, Adi. Is it O-D-I or eight? How do you say his name? Just like the car. A-U-D-I. Okay, like that. As soon as he was named after, we tried to ... He came into my life very shortly after Neil passed.
00:28:53
Speaker
And we were trying to think of a name. So we were going over a lot of different things that he liked and his car was naughty. So we all felt comfortable with that. And I always say thank God because the car he had before was a sob and that would have been bad.
00:29:12
Speaker
because it's kind of like a sob story. Honestly, I love black humor. It's a thing. The fact that Adi came to you, that you have had him since, what a blessing it is in the healing process. Let's talk about that. What were some of the things that you used in your grief journey then
00:29:31
Speaker
that helped you be able to deal with this. None of your kids lived with you at that time. They were already out of home. My daughter did. She did live with you. The one that was in Israel. That was in Israel. Okay. So those two years she lived then with you before she went back to her. So what were some of the things you did to help you? And I know you had experienced grief before, but
00:29:51
Speaker
And that all, of course, plays a part in how you handle grief, like just how you mentioned with Darren, how you would just talk about him and so forth. But what did you do in this case after Neil's death?
Structured Grieving and Personal Reflection
00:30:04
Speaker
Well, first of all, I tend to follow the traditional practices, which I think really helped me. And the fact that they can't be followed now during COVID, I think is just
00:30:21
Speaker
adds heartbreak to the heartbreak because it gives you, it gives you suggestions and almost like a map of how to behave. So I, um, I had the Shiva, which was seven days in the home. And then really you're not supposed to, I stayed home another four to continue. So it was a full month. Um, not, it wasn't gathering place of everybody, but a lot of friends would come by and just be with me.
00:30:50
Speaker
My kids actually lived with me, I think they all moved back in for a few weeks and their dogs, it was craziness actually, which was great, I loved it.
00:31:02
Speaker
And then following that for the continuation until 11 months are over, you actually go and pray. You're supposed to go twice a day. I went once a day, but whatever. And it just gives you, it's almost like yoga and meditation. It just gives you a place. I didn't pray. I just sat, but it gives you a place to go. It gives you a reason to get up in the morning and move. So that became a huge part of my life. The dog was
00:31:31
Speaker
got me out of the house. It got us laughing. It got us into the world. There is nothing that was better for me than this furry rag dog and my daughter. I don't think we smiled until he came into our life. We had another dog. I actually gave that dog away and got this one.
00:31:54
Speaker
Oh, and how was that dog? Who got that dog? He was crazy. He couldn't be with other dogs. And my daughter, whose brother is, her dog is this one's dog, brother said, you love our dog. Our dog gives you entertainment and joy and you can go out and you can be with people. This dog, you got to sit in the house. He couldn't be with other dogs. He was like one of those crazy rescue dogs. So, um, he was great joy. And, um, I,
00:32:26
Speaker
really kept, I mean, I was so busy. It's when it's when it's sudden loss, as you know, there's so much to do. I had to close my close up my husband's office. And that was nine months every day going into the office to close it up and deal with it. I had to, I mean, there was so, so much to do. It kept me so busy. It was
00:32:56
Speaker
good for me because I need to keep busy. But actually a few months in, so we passed in May and over Christmas time, I said to my daughter, I'm giving you a gift. I'm going to send you to Mexico to your very best friend. So you can be with her and I can be in my home. And I spent those two weeks. I told everybody, don't call, don't visit.
00:33:21
Speaker
I need to take time for me. And it was just too late. And this is how many, how long after? Oh, over half a year later, I had been so busy and so overwhelmed. I needed, and I still taking care of my dad. So I needed just to quiet and focus. And it was, it's really important that you do that.
00:33:46
Speaker
I think that what you're pointing out is so important, Susan, because a lot of times people don't realize really the busyness that there is around death and all the business part of it. Like you said, you had to clear his office. You had to do this. You really don't get the full sitting in with your grief type of feeling.
00:34:09
Speaker
I mean, you had the blessing of having the rituals and traditions that you have in your Jewish faith to kind of have that a little bit better. At the same time, you were with a lot of people in your home following. You had not really been with yourself. We were outside. There were so many people at my house that actually my porch in the back of my house broke. Oh my goodness.
00:34:33
Speaker
Yeah. So definitely that's so important because you knew you needed that. And to actually tell the people around you, like you said, you bought your daughter then a ticket to go to Mexico with a friend. Like you knew you needed that and you created that space for yourself. And that's important, I think for the listeners to know. So thank you for sharing all those tools. And of course, my EV is after my mom passed away. That's when I got EV. So.
00:34:58
Speaker
Evie came to our life by the pickup day for her from her reader was on my mom's birthday. We didn't select that date. It was the first birthday without my mom. It was two months after her passing and that was her pick. So our gotcha day for her is my mom's birthday. I find with him,
00:35:21
Speaker
And also my brother, my lost my brother and he had a cat and my sister-in-law and I always discuss the fact, my dog just looks up for no reason into the sky often. And her cat who used to sleep on the bed with her and my brother
00:35:39
Speaker
started sleeping in her son's room and also just looking up. And she found me and she said, what do you think that means? I said, I think it means my brother's in the room. And she said, oh, I'm so glad you think that because I thought I was insane. So she felt she felt like a sense of like, OK, OK, I'm not crazy. Somebody else that understands me. I know like those those little things that happen.
00:36:02
Speaker
you know, we find connection to things and I think all that matters is what it means to you, right? And if it brings you comfort in those connections, like it brings me comfort in the connection that that was her, you know, the fact that you had him and you named him after, you know, the car that he liked, you know, things like that is just wonderful. Now you mentioned then your, okay, so let's go over some of these other deaths that happened and then let's talk about what you're doing then now. So your dad had been going through chemo
00:36:29
Speaker
for how long prior to your husband died? Well, he had heart disease and then he got cancer. I know I was so, so busy dealing with my dad that whenever my husband talked about our wedding anniversary was coming up and he was so excited because we were going away and I would be like, just leave me alone. I need to deal with my dad. You deal with the vacation. I'll see you then.
00:36:59
Speaker
That didn't happen, but I guess it was a couple of years, but it was not. It was, you know, it gets worse and worse. It was time consuming. As you said, you were taking him to his appointments and so forth. So he did pass away then from cancer? Well, actually from heart disease, but it was from the weight of the cancer, just eating away at his body. But that wasn't until, I don't know, maybe two years later.
00:37:28
Speaker
Okay.
Building Resilience Through Loss
00:37:30
Speaker
So then what are the other experiences you've had then in your life and since, and how do you feel that all these emotions have shaped who you are now? Well, after my father passed away, um, about six months later, my brother unexpectedly, completely unexpectedly also passed away. And, um,
00:37:56
Speaker
I mean, the nightmare of that one was having to phone my daughter and waking her up and telling her to go knock on her grandmother's door. Cause we were living with my mom for a little while and tell her, um, I said, you don't have to tell her. I'll tell her, but you've got to wake her up and she'll know, you know, you just know. And my mother just knew when she was awoken in the middle of the night, you know, that, that something horrific was being told. And then, um,
00:38:26
Speaker
So many stories with that one. But then during the my brother, my younger brother, also I'm the youngest, but my next brother, there were there's four of us. He hadn't been doing very well at all. He was forgetting things and he was his speech pattern was getting really bad. And finally, actually, while my father was in the hospital, my brother went in.
00:38:53
Speaker
for just to get a heart test. There's issues. And while he was there, I asked the cardiologist if he would do some testing of my brother's memory, because I said, there's something wrong. The cardiologist agreed, and he did the testing. And he said, oh yeah, there's definitely something wrong. His score is horrible. And that put us on a journey. While my father was upstairs and my brother was in a merge, that put us on a journey that ended up with my brother passing away
00:39:23
Speaker
a year, will be two years in September, so a year and a half ago, of early onset Alzheimer's. So different relationships, different kinds of diseases, certainly. I mean, I've had a car accident, long illness, massive heart attack,
00:39:45
Speaker
And, um, my brother Alzheimer's. Yeah. And Alzheimer's, which is that you're also losing the person, the moment of the diagnosis too. Right. Cause then you're also losing that connection that you have sometimes with the conversations that you could have. And it went because it's early onset. I could write a book about it because what I know now, but early onset, it just goes, I mean, from, from when, you know, there's a lot of talk now we're trying to figure out between us when it
00:40:14
Speaker
Really started because you know, you just think people are getting forgetful No, you don't really never think that a person in their 50s is get it has Alzheimer's But from the time he was diagnosed To death was probably about three years the three busiest years of my life because I had to take over all his financing including all the ones from years past that he gave me a giant
00:40:43
Speaker
box of one day and said, I haven't opened any of my mail, here you go, take it. And it was heartbreaking. And he has children and there's those long excruciating deaths, the worst. It is interesting, right? Because when you've experienced different kinds of deaths, like the sudden ones, because we're not prepared,
00:41:06
Speaker
You're not, the anticipation's not there. You just kind of deal with it the moment it happens is when it begins. And you go into a fog, so you kind of protect it a little bit.
00:41:14
Speaker
true and then but then the the long-term ones it's as you're like you're one you're like holding your breath it's that i felt like as i was holding my breath underwater every time like the phone ring i would never know like what if this is the call like you know like those kind of things right do you agree and there's i think oh i lived with a suitcase because we were constantly going into hospitals because he was aggressive it was and i think
00:41:43
Speaker
Part of you is also feeling guilty because you're like thinking, am I guilty to think that maybe
00:41:52
Speaker
I need a life and maybe he needs to go somewhere where his body won't be eating him up alive. There's a lot of guilt for feeling that. Feeling that way. Yeah, they say that sometimes those illnesses, they're the worst because you're actually desiring the death of a loved one because you're seeing the excruciating pain they're going through. This happens with cancer or with many other diseases in which you're like,
00:42:20
Speaker
It's horrible because it puts you in the situation, like you said, that guilt of like, I just wish that they could just be okay. And maybe being okay just means not even being alive anymore. And that is really, really hard, you know, to be living with that idea of like wishing somebody is death, but it's really because you're wishing their pain to not be there anymore. You love them so much. And it has a lot to do, I think, with what you believe in me thereafter. You know, my, my husband used to always say he was agnostic and he used to say to me, you know, any belief in God.
00:42:50
Speaker
It's just a crutch. I said, well, if it's a crutch, lucky me, because I do believe this isn't the end. You have to. I mean, after all I've gone through, there's no way this is what it's all about.
00:43:04
Speaker
I agree. I think it makes a huge difference in how you perceive then death, which again, this is something we wanted then to talk a little bit more about that, of having those open conversations. It really does make a difference on how you perceive it and how you talk then to your children, to your family in general about death.
00:43:23
Speaker
not just when it happens. If we already talk about it, knowing that it's something that's going to happen to us, right? We all know that. Death and taxes. Death and taxes. Is that the title of this podcast? Death and taxes. The only two things that are guaranteed in life. Guaranteed. Death and taxes. That's it.
00:43:47
Speaker
Oh my gosh. So yeah, you have a good sense of humor. Do you deal with humor? Is humor one of the ways you cope with hard things too? Because it is for me a lot. Sometimes breaking things up with humor. I think so. You have to. I mean, you just can't be sad all the time. And I think humor also allows other people to be more comfortable.
00:44:12
Speaker
That's a good way of saying it. Yeah, it kind of breaks the ice a little bit. Okay, so then what have you learned then about yourself in these years of growth and trials? What is one thing you or one or a few things you've learned about who you are that you did not know about you prior to experiencing this hardship, these hardships? Well, I think because we really were two parts of a whole because I was so young,
00:44:42
Speaker
There were parts of me that I didn't know or I didn't hear or I didn't care enough to listen to. Simple things, like what restaurants I like. If my husband liked this restaurant and I liked that one, I was like, okay, whatever, I don't care that much. But now all of a sudden, it was all me. I got to choose where I wanted to go, when I wanted to eat,
00:45:09
Speaker
how I wanted to decorate my home, like all of a sudden, it was my time. And I had never experienced that not not I'm not saying that I didn't get my way. I'm just saying, you know, it was a conversation, there was a discussion, there was give and take. And I had to find myself in so many ways in how I dealt with my children, you know, my husband had much greater patience than I did. And I had to
00:45:37
Speaker
sort of summon, I'd go, okay, I got to get your patients now because I couldn't depend on him. And I had to become me, a whole. So it's a huge learning experience aside from learning, you know, I took care of the home and he took care of the finances and learning all of that, which is a lot.
00:45:59
Speaker
I had to learn more intrinsic things about me. And also I had to learn, whereas he would sort of say, you know, he would sort of, you know, talk to me at the end of the night and you'd complain and they would, and he would say, well, this is how I feel about this and that. There was no one to do that. So I had to learn.
00:46:22
Speaker
a lot about who I am and who I want to be. And I really, truly believe I've changed a tremendous amount. Better. So much better than I was. Because I had to be. I couldn't hide behind anyone anymore.
00:46:39
Speaker
That is so beautiful, everything you just shared and the aspect of that growth and the discovering really, who are you? Like, who were you in that, right? Because it's like when you have grown alongside somebody else, then you wonder, do I really like steak? Or is it just because I've had to eat steak because that's what my head's like, you know, because that's just kind of how it's been like. And so that individuality had been lost to some extent.
00:47:07
Speaker
in that marriage, yes? 100%. And believe me, I miss that banter. I miss his opinions very, very much. But I'm very proud of what I do now on my own. I mean, a curse when I had to climb at 3 o'clock in the morning. It's on my video, actually. I have it on my Instagram, I think. It was 3 o'clock in the morning and the alarm was beeping.
00:47:37
Speaker
And I had to go get a ladder and climb up and change it. I was cursing, cursing him. Why did you go, Neil? Look at me at 3 AM going up here. Thanks. Thanks, buddy. But I'm also proud of what I've been able to accomplish. Not only things like that, but even with relationships, it's given me strength.
00:48:07
Speaker
to know better who I am, who I want in my life, who I don't. COVID has enforced that even more, those people who are there for you and those that just forgot that we exist when you're home alone. I just keep adding, I never thought in my 50s that I would be learning so much. I'm amazed.
00:48:36
Speaker
And my niece, who I'm very close with, always says to me, it's also because you're open and you want to learn. It's true, but I also was forced to learn, you know, it's a combination. Yes. You were put in a situation in which you just, you had no other choice. Right. You had no other choice, yeah. And even my, I mean, I'd never seen a dead body in my life. Well, now I've seen three and three of the rocks of my life, the people that I love, I'll never love.
00:49:05
Speaker
people like that again. And I talk so differently about death than I did. And I and I took a coaching program so I could learn to talk to help other people. There's so many wonderful coaches out there. I don't need to be another one. That's not where I see my my value in life. But I did see that I became a quote unquote expert.
00:49:36
Speaker
And I wanted to make sure that what I'm saying and how I'm saying it are okay. And it was a huge lesson there also for me just to learn.
00:49:51
Speaker
I like how you said the quote-unquote expert because it's true. We can't really truly be an expert on the subject because everybody experiences grief in their own way because it's based on their own journeys and whatever they've had. But you now know the terminology or things that are okay. So share a little bit more about that then. Share about the things that you are now doing because you would otherwise not be doing this had you not gone through this.
00:50:20
Speaker
share with our listeners and then we'll wrap it up. So I was very comforted by some widows at the beginning and I think it's really important and I now basically have an open door that if someone's grieving I'm available and
00:50:45
Speaker
you know, it's gone beyond widows just because my relationships with death, I have been, you know, daughter, sister, friend, whatever. And that's what put me into coaching. And then I'd been thinking and thinking and thinking for years now that I wanted to start some kind of site for widows, because that's who I know.
00:51:09
Speaker
moving forward. So okay, you're being grieving, you are grieving, you're always gonna grieve, but what else is there about you? You know, when you describe yourself in three words, is widow always one of them?
00:51:22
Speaker
And should it be? And is it? And why? I'm always curious about that. So I started Evolve during the lockdown. But then, interestingly, the more I got involved in Evolve and the social media world and the books and everything else, the more I realized there is a lot, a ton of information out there and websites and
00:51:49
Speaker
Facebook sites and Instagram sites, there's just tons of them available. And I went on many, many, many of them just to understand and to hear what people were talking about and what I could provide if there was anything I could offer because my background is writing and I thought that could be a way, I do blogging for some groups and things like that. And what I came to realize was
00:52:16
Speaker
people keep going online and saying we're we have no one else to talk to either because we don't want to upset you know my mother my mother-in-law by reminding them as if they forgot or or it's we've been told this I hear all the time we've been told by our friends our family our colleagues it's time to get over it and that time
00:52:42
Speaker
seems to be anywhere from six months to 18 months. Within there, you're magically supposed to be cured. Yeah. Like a flip of a switch. And so they are writing to strangers and pouring out their sadness and their pain and their memories because they don't feel as vulnerable and they have a need, a great need. I mean, one of the huge problems of being
00:53:08
Speaker
of mourning as you go into extreme states of loneliness. My most lonely place really is at a wedding when there's many, many people because I'm all alone. I've been thinking a lot about it and I've been doing some writing and what I think would really and truly make a difference, and boy do I need help doing it.
Changing Conversations About Death
00:53:33
Speaker
is if we can change, there's so many taboos that thankfully we've changed in the world. We've changed, thankfully, sexual preference, especially in Canada, but thankfully now happening in the US, is not such a big deal. We've had gay marriage here for a decade, probably at least, if not more. Mental health was a huge issue, a huge taboo, and that's slowly crumbling away because people are opening up and they're talking.
00:54:02
Speaker
Famous people are talking, so it's becoming a norm, and it's okay, and you can talk about it, and you can be, and it's okay. So I think that death, which is really, as we said, one of the only things we all are gonna share. We're not all, thankfully, gonna have cancer or mental health issues or whatever, but the average is you'll experience five or six deaths of someone you love in your lifetime.
00:54:30
Speaker
So I thought, well, we need to shatter this taboo. It needs to be spoken. So all these people who are, it's for both. It's for the people who are grieving. They need to be comfortable speaking and sharing and not being told, you know, you need to see a therapist because you just had a memory that you wanted to share. And it's also for the people who are wanting to comfort
00:55:00
Speaker
someone who's grieving and they don't know how so they say nothing and they run away or they say the wrong thing not intentionally trying to be cruel but boy do people say the wrong thing and even people who have experienced death seem to be afraid
00:55:18
Speaker
to talk to somebody else. It's really fascinating. And we can still put our, I still put my foot in my mouth, even though I've experienced it, I can still end up saying the wrong thing because maybe it was just not the right thing I could have said to that particular person, because it came from maybe my perspective. So you never really know sometimes even what to say that is correct. But yes, I love this. So how are you then doing this of shattering this? What is then this, one is this here, we're talking about it here.
00:55:48
Speaker
Is it starting to show up? If you talk more about death than in your Instagram, share to the listeners where they can read more because you're a blogger too. I blog for Hope for Women and I put the blogs on my website, which is called Evolve Beyond Grief. I've been in some newspapers and been on some media, but
00:56:16
Speaker
often when I now, when I go onto these sites and I see people say, you know, I'm so sad or I would love to speak out or I can't for whatever reason, I now say to them,
00:56:29
Speaker
Why? Why can't you speak out? What can we do? We need to talk. We need to make a difference. We need to speak out. We need to. We need Brene Brown to come and say, okay, everybody in the world, let's change this. And then what happens? Just like how she did with vulnerability, right? Yes. Please, Brene.
00:56:50
Speaker
We need to be talking to people who aren't grieving and it needs to be spoken in a way that they don't freak out and shut down. So I think it really needs to start with children at school. It should be in the educational system. There should be a day every year or a week
00:57:09
Speaker
where death is the subject, just like we have beautiful, do you have Black History Month there? Yes. Okay, so we have Black History Month and we have Mental Health Week. We have all kinds of things. And I've looked into this. There is in the UK, they're way ahead of us. They even have a minister who is in charge of like social isolation or something. But we don't really have a day that funnels down into educating
00:57:39
Speaker
our children. My kids have always known about death. They were brought into a family where we're suffering from the loss. And it's very open. We go every year together to the cemetery. We talk. And those memories and those stories would stop people from being so afraid.
Educating Families About Loss
00:58:04
Speaker
And it also may make you live a fuller life
00:58:08
Speaker
if death is a reality instead of some hidden secret brushed under the rug? I cannot agree any more than what you just said. I agree so much because that is just so true. Even with my kids, they probably get tired about it because just like you mentioned about talking about their uncle Darren, the same thing my kids know
00:58:30
Speaker
Thea sordis, I speak Spanish, and so thea is aunt. So thea sordis, you know, na, na, na, thea sordis, and I share memories. There's pictures of her. They've grown up knowing about death. And then also, I had a miscarriage. My first pregnancy was a miscarriage. And so when they were a little bit older, I also shared with them that mom had been pregnant, my first pregnancy, and that they actually had a baby sibling, you know, as angel.
00:58:58
Speaker
And the stuffed animal that my son sleeps with, that's how it happened was because that stuffed animal, my husband brought home to me when, because we were expecting he brought some flowers and he brought this big stuffed cow. And this is before the miscarriage and that was gonna be for the baby.
00:59:18
Speaker
And so when the baby died, then we still had this stuffed cow. And so when I got pregnant with our son, I used that cow. I slept with it between, you know how, because it was big. I used it to sleep, put it between my knees like my, yeah, yeah. And then later on when he was baby, that was his cow. So he's still, he's 13. He's 13 and he still sleeps with the cow.
00:59:42
Speaker
I just have to whisper that in case he gets up. That's when I had to share. Is that yours? We're on video, so she just shared. You've had that bear for how long? This bear I've had for
00:59:58
Speaker
years because my daughter gave it to me because I have a bear that my husband bought me when I was 15 that I sleep with every single night and he travels everywhere I go in the world. Yes, they bring so much comfort. It was because of that cow that I shared then with the kids, you know that that cow actually was and that's how I shared.
01:00:19
Speaker
And that's again, it's again normalizing the conversation because if we don't talk about it, oh, this is something else. I don't know if you heard the episode I did with Rabbi Steve Letter, an author of a book. I've heard a lot of them.
01:00:33
Speaker
Okay, so you can listen to this one's called. Oh, no, I forgot what the name of the of the interview was, but is that a Rabbi Steve leader, sorry. And he was talking about that one of the biggest things we do as parents, that is a mistake is when we
01:00:51
Speaker
basically bring a new goldfish home when the new one dies and just replace it in the gold. For example, things like that, right? We miss those opportunities of being able to talk to our kids about death. And not just about death. It goes back to even just the fact of talking about when things just have not gone their way.
01:01:17
Speaker
It's part of life. Yes. All of these experiences of grief, of loss, and how they're part of life, we're always trying to fix it. There's nothing to fix. It's a life. It's not fixable. It is just something we live with, and we learn to live with these pieces that are missing in our life, and it's okay. It's still beautiful.
01:01:42
Speaker
There's growth. It's meant to be. I mean, it's part of our lives. It's meant to be. But if you live in an island and you've never seen a tree and then all of a sudden you see one, you're like scared. But if it's something that's just part of your vernacular,
01:02:00
Speaker
then it's, oh, there's a tree. Okay. You know, it, I think it's so important and I want so badly to get this day and shatter this taboo and get going with people being able to be vulnerable because, you know, just from a point of view, and I know people don't want to talk about it, but it's so important financial to the government, the amount of money that it costs for
01:02:29
Speaker
The government well for us is for the government because we're we're on health care about whatever When someone dies they and and the loved one stays and isn't you know stays behind? They very often can go into extreme sadness and sorrow and isolation because they don't have an outlet to discuss it and they're embarrassed and
01:02:54
Speaker
And that leads to so many issues. They die earlier. They have heart disease. They've linked now Alzheimer's to it. I mean, it goes on and on and on. So if we can stop this,
01:03:07
Speaker
You know, we can keep our hospitals open free for other things. It's just, it doesn't make sense to me. Well, it has a ripple effect in other areas too, because then if you don't have, like for example, when somebody dies in your family, if you don't feel comfortable, if people let's say in your office, like you even saying that people are, you know, opening face Instagram accounts just to be able to talk about their loved one because they have nobody around them that understands or the people around them are tired of hearing about their loved ones. So they're sharing it on Instagram, for example.
01:03:37
Speaker
Or they think that they're being helpful by saying, okay, it's time for you to stop. They actually believe that that is the right thing to tell. I've looked up mental health and grieving, and in Canada, it even says in our famous Canadian Institute for Mental Health, it says,
01:03:59
Speaker
If a person is grieving after a year, you got to start wondering if maybe it's a more serious kind of grieving and they need mental health support. No, they need to be able to talk. Exactly. Well, put me in a hospital because it's been 24 years since my sister died. Put me in a harness then. That's the thing. If we don't normalize it, then that also affects the work environment. If somebody doesn't even
01:04:27
Speaker
can't even go to work and be able to be open with their co-workers or they have to, let's say, take a longer leave of absence even from work because of how they're going through their grief.
Sharing Grief Experiences
01:04:40
Speaker
And they may be, like you said, they feel so isolated and alone even in their own environment when they're with people just because they can't talk about it because it's such taboo.
01:04:49
Speaker
So, yeah, it just affects so many areas in our society and until we just start kind of ripping the bandit. And I'm sure it's not like this in all societies. I'm sure there's other societies and indigenous societies or things like that in which it is so much part of life that it's celebrated. This is, again, we're talking about our particular service. Anybody listening to this has a completely different experience of how death is talked about in your culture as police reach out. We'd love to hear those stories, right?
01:05:18
Speaker
I'm searching all the time and I'll get people who say, oh, it hasn't been like that for me. Yeah. Well, you know, come back to me after a year and tell me how it isn't like that for you. And then if you experience multiple deaths like I have, um, you know, I feel like I've used up the, the quota of reaching out. I really do. Honestly, it's, it's, it's, they are afraid of me because I'm like this black widow.
01:05:46
Speaker
Oh my goodness, the fact that you've reached your quota, that is just, you're like, wait, it's already, like, who can I call that I haven't called already for when this person died, this person died? Who can I talk to that I have not already? Oh wow, Susan. Like that's like so unreal, right? Yeah, that is unreal that we have to think that way. It's been such a pleasure talking to you. So share your website again. So it's evolvebeyondgrief.com.
01:06:13
Speaker
Evolvebeyondgrief.com, correct? And I'll put it in the show notes. Any other things you want to say before we close out? You know what I would really love and I think I can use is if people would share their stories of when they have been told and not using their names. Just a quote. I was told by my colleague or by my sister or whatever to get on with it because I want to gather those.
01:06:41
Speaker
and start some kind of petition to start this day that I'm dreaming about.
01:06:46
Speaker
And the way to do that would be on your website. That would be the contact page where they can email you. Sure, or yours. Or mine and I pass them down to you. Perfect. Either one, send them to us. Let us know what were some of the things you've ever been told about grief, like move on, get over it, those kinds of things. And in what environments were you told these things? Was it at work? Was it at school? Was it at this? And we can start gathering some of this information and seeing what can be done. Yes? In the taken village.
01:07:16
Speaker
Well, thank you once again.
01:07:22
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
01:07:51
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.