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170. Continuing Bonds After Death with Marisa Renee Lee
146 Plays6 months ago
Marisa Renee Lee is an award-winning advocate, writer, and speaker on coping with grief and loss of all forms. The past two decades of her life have been marked by loss: first of her mother, then of a much-wanted pregnancy and her fertility, and finally of the early and tragic deaths of her cousin Ebonee to COVID and more recently Imani to domestic violence. These losses transformed her life and led her to question what grief really is and what healing truly requires.
As a leading grief advocate, Marisa regularly offers incisive and compassionate advice on managing life after loss with unique insights for women and African American communities. In 2022 her first book, an instant bestseller, Grief is Love Living with Loss was released. Grief is Love has since been awarded a Gold Award from Nautilus Book Awards’ Better Books for a Better World and was recently acquired by Al Roker Entertainment for a docuseries.
Connect with Marisa
https://www.marisareneelee.com/about
Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook, and LinkedIn
Contact Kendra Rinaldi for grief coaching or to be a guest on the podcast To be a guest on the podcast:
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Bye.
Introduction to Grief and Connection
00:00:01
Speaker
According to the real experts, the people who study the impact of grief and loss on the body and on the brain, one of the healthiest ways to cope with grief and move through the hardest parts of loss is something called the continuing bonds theory, which essentially argues that we should all find a way to continue our bond, our relationship with the deceased after death.
00:00:30
Speaker
And that can and should look different for everyone.
Podcast Introduction and Purpose
00:00:37
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. 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.
00:01:01
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.
Using Zencastr for Podcasting
00:01:23
Speaker
I have been asked by many people what I use to record my podcast. I have been using Zencaster since I launched my podcast in March 2020 and it has made it so simple for me to be able to interview my guests remotely as well as do some of my solo episodes.
00:01:42
Speaker
If you have thought about podcasting before and realize that you need a lot of different tools and services, those days are over. With Zencaster's all-in-one podcasting platform, you can create your podcasts all in one place and distribute to Spotify, Apple, and any other major destination.
Special Offer for Listeners
00:02:03
Speaker
Go to zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use my code GGGPodcast, and you'll get 30% off your first month of Zencaster's paid plan. That is zencaster, Z-E-N-C-A-S-T-R dot com forward slash pricing. And again, the code is GGGPodcast. Can't wait for you to get started and be able to tune into your next podcast.
Introducing Marissa Renee Lee and Her Work
00:02:38
Speaker
Welcome to today's episode. Today I have Marissa Renee Lee. She is a writer, a speaker, an entrepreneur, and we will be talking today about her book, Grief is Love, and all the stories of her life and her own journey
00:02:57
Speaker
that really brought her to be able to be in this space of writing about grief and also now talking about grief. So welcome, Marissa. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here today. I am excited for this conversation.
00:03:12
Speaker
And I love the title of your book and it's something that I've heard now even more often that, you know, of even people quoting actors. The most recent one is probably, what's his name? Andrew Garfield. Yes, I saw it, so beautiful. Yeah, when he talked about that and kind of saying it in that way and it is such a perfect way of saying it. So again, thank you for being on the podcast and we will just
00:03:38
Speaker
Jump right in to just chatting.
Marissa's Life Journey and Family Influence
00:03:40
Speaker
So tell us first off I know it's kind of sounds odd of where I start my conversation But is where do you live and where did you grow up?
00:03:48
Speaker
Uh, so I live in the Hudson Valley and I grew up in the Hudson Valley in New York, uh, which yeah, well, I didn't stay. Um, I left, uh, well, I graduated from college and took a year off to help my mom and dad deal with my mom's health diagnoses. And then I lived in New York city and then I moved to DC and lived in the DC area for 12 years. And after.
00:04:12
Speaker
you know pandemic and really thinking about where we want to be and who we want to be close to and then as I'm sure you can attest once you have these little humans called children it is nice to be close to family assuming you can access some of their free labor which is exactly
00:04:33
Speaker
what we came here to do. So this week, my son will be with my dad one day, he'll be with my sister another day, and that just makes our lives easier.
00:04:44
Speaker
Okay, well that is definitely helpful. I know we moved closer to our parents, to my parents when we had the young ones.
The Importance of Asking for Help
00:04:52
Speaker
But something that you actually say in your book that I think it even goes into the part of parenting is the chapter of ask. I was not that good at asking for help. So that can relate with parenting as well.
00:05:10
Speaker
Oh, I think the asking for help is advice for anybody all the time. Your life doesn't have to be falling apart in some big dramatic way for you to
00:05:26
Speaker
get some help taking care of your kids.
Community Support in Grief
00:05:28
Speaker
I'm currently reading this book called Hunt Gather Parent that is all about the ways different ancient cultures that are still around today raise children and all the lessons that you can glean from that. And one of the things that she talks about a lot in this book is this concept of aloe parents, like additional parents and you know other adults in a child's life who can
00:05:51
Speaker
love them and support them and help nurture and guide them into adulthood. And I just think that's so important. Yeah, that the village component of raising. Yeah, and it's true. It does take a village and it really does make a big difference and an upbringing of a human being to know that you have this circle that it's much bigger.
Marissa's Personal Grief Stories
00:06:12
Speaker
And especially when it comes to the aspect of grief, because when, let's say you have
00:06:19
Speaker
Let's say you're an only child and you've only grown up with two adults in your family, both died, then all of a sudden you're like, who's my village now? Who do I reach out to now? Or vice versa, it could be the case. So it is definitely important to have that community around in all aspects of life.
00:06:38
Speaker
So it's great that you're there. And that part, right before we started recording, Marissa said, oh, and so my son will be coming. I'm like, wait, did I miss that in the book? I'm like, we talk about other types of grief in this book. Because you talk about navigating several types of grief. One, that was your mom's diagnosis of multiple sclerosis since you were the age of 13, correct? So you cared for her as well since you were young.
00:07:06
Speaker
as well as then afterwards her diagnosis of her cancer diagnosis. And then you also then talk about the aspect of then your pregnancy losses. So there was all these different facets and you intertwined all of that really beautifully in your book because you mentioned it in all of your chapters, which I'll go over that.
00:07:28
Speaker
titles of your chapters, you intertwine all the grief aspects in them. So you've really had a broad experience. Unfortunately. You're still not an expert. I think that every, all of us, even if we experienced grief, we're still not experts, are we? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. I don't think so because at the end of the day, to me,
Understanding Grief Beyond Control
00:07:51
Speaker
Being an expert also, I think, denotes some element of control. Like, if you are an expert surgeon, that means when shit hits the fan, you're going to be able to control and effectively manage the situation.
00:08:09
Speaker
I know a lot about grief. I've conducted a lot of research on grief and loss. I unfortunately have experienced lots of different forms of grief and loss, but I'm telling you right now, if something horrible were to happen to my husband or heaven forbid, my child tomorrow, all of that education, it will just melt away. It disappears. And not only about ourselves, but the fact that
00:08:35
Speaker
something we know when we experience grief is that it is very unique, right? The way you experience it is different than your sister, the different than your dad. Therefore,
00:08:45
Speaker
You really can't be an expert because you do not know the nuances of somebody else's grief. But you have a perspective and you have some tools, and hence why I interview people on the podcast, that give people an insight as to, okay, if I've already gathered all these tools and have this information, then when, as you say, shit hits the fan, you can see, okay, what works for me?
00:09:14
Speaker
Right now, what could be something that I can apply once you're already rational? Because it does not necessarily. Yeah. So let's go through why you chose. This is going to be a little bit of everything. Why you chose the titles
Themes of 'Grief is Love'
00:09:32
Speaker
you did through each of the books. So you have permission, safety, feel, ask, grace, intimacy, care,
00:09:42
Speaker
dot, dot, dot, and legacy and then love. So 10 chapters. And within each one, there's a lot in each one. So how did you come up with like, okay, this one, all this will be permission. Like how was that process? It was messy and hard. This was my first book. I didn't know what I was doing. And I'm happy to share that with people because I want folks to know that
00:10:10
Speaker
you don't have to have it all figured out in order to make progress on something that matters to you. And so I turned in in May of 2021, I turned in a manuscript for Grief is Love that I was proud of. But looking back, it just it wasn't the right book.
00:10:29
Speaker
And it took me about two months to figure that out. But after my editor had a chance to review it, and we discussed it, and we were both like, there's some really good stuff in here, but something is wrong. What is it? And I actually went on a silent retreat that summer. And while I was there, not reading, not listening to anything, not speaking to anyone, it hit me all of a sudden.
00:10:53
Speaker
The original manuscript was a book all about grief and what I actually need to try to book about was healing.
Shift in Book Focus: Healing Over Grief
00:11:01
Speaker
You know when people see me in my hot pink office or laughing at an event or you know smiling hanging out with friends they're like
00:11:10
Speaker
how do you hold both this tremendous grief and loss and all of this joy and fun and energy and enthusiasm? And so I made myself sit down and think about what are the different elements that have enabled me to live this big, joyful life after, and sometimes even in the midst of, grief and loss?
00:11:34
Speaker
And that was the new framing for the book that I started rewriting right around July 4th weekend. And it was due Labor Day. And so I scrapped, I would say, at least 60% of the original manuscript, maybe more. Even now, even though the book is done and no one's going to make me go back and rewrite anything, it still gives me anxiety to admit that that much of the book
00:12:01
Speaker
had to be thrown out, but that's just how it goes with writing books. And so I was working on the revised manuscript when one day in August, my husband and I got a call and we became parents in less than 24 hours.
00:12:18
Speaker
And all of a sudden I found myself, you know, both parenting a newborn, which was amazing, you know, the greatest joy, but also one of the most exhausting human experiences while trying to run my business and finish this book. So when you ask about the titles, the titles for me were ingredients
00:12:40
Speaker
on my healing journey and they were the things that I found were also rooted in the leading research and evidence and data around grief and loss that generally help people. You know, everyone's roadmap is going to be a little bit different and I expect certain chapters to resonate more with different individuals versus others. But at the end of the day, all of these chapters and all of these things both let me live this big and joyful life
00:13:09
Speaker
But they are also supported by the leading research and data around grief and loss and healing and racism. Okay, yes, because that is another part that you also intertwine in your book is this aspect that as a black woman to like what is expected of you or even just the generational, you know, kind of trauma as well as just the upbringing that comes with it.
00:13:36
Speaker
how that even impacted the way that you grieved. So if we can talk about that, let's talk about how it was for you to actually be able to feel and express your grief and how you actually would hide your grief because of what was expected to some extent by society or those around you.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah, I when my when my mom died, I had just turned 25. I was working on Wall Street at the height of the financial crisis. And, you know, it was 2008 Wall Street. So generally, I was
00:14:16
Speaker
the only person of color, I won't even say black, like the only person of color of any kind and often the only woman and usually the youngest person in the room. And so with all of that in mind, you know, I was really thoughtful and intentional about how I presented myself in that environment and emotional vulnerability
00:14:41
Speaker
Not only was it just not something that was celebrated generally, you know, this was this was the time before the Brene Browns and the Glennon Doyles and, you know, all of these other female leaders that encourage us to lean into our feelings and emotions.
00:14:57
Speaker
This this wasn't that time. And so I felt uncomfortable, you know, openly sharing grief at work. It was one thing to talk about my mom in a factual way, you know, because people would definitely ask, how is she doing? How are you doing? What is going on?
00:15:14
Speaker
And I could give the talking points on, you know, where she was in terms of her disease progression, how she was being treated, how I was supporting her, you know, doctor she was seeing, etc. But I did not want people asking me about my feelings because I didn't feel comfortable sharing them there. And then when she died,
00:15:33
Speaker
You know i i didn't have any other plan for taking care of myself financially and so i went back to work right away and. It was it was horrible you know every day i could get myself dressed and out the door usually on three four hours sleep.
00:15:53
Speaker
And then it was when I would leave the subway in New York City, you know, climbing up those subway stairs and doing the walk from the station to my office, I would start having the most debilitating panic attacks, like could barely breathe type situation. And so every morning I would manage to like get to the building where the bank was,
00:16:16
Speaker
And I would go down to the basement where we had a training center that was usually empty. And that is where I would just have a complete hyperventilating panic attack. And then I would text the only other girl in banking.
00:16:33
Speaker
who thankfully had become a friend and was only a year or so older than me, and she would come rescue me with soy latte and Xanax from my desk. I would redo my makeup and then go up to work as though nothing had happened. And I didn't even, until I was doing the research for Brief As Love, I didn't even know how long I lived like that for.
00:16:55
Speaker
But I asked her and she said it was definitely months and not weeks. So please don't anyone do that to yourself. You know, panic attacks are a normal part of the grieving process for some people. Anxiety is a very normal part of grief for a lot of people, but just get better help than I did. You know, you don't have to suffer day in and day out with debilitating panic attacks as you're trying to make your way through the worst of grief.
00:17:24
Speaker
and continue on with your life.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yet you mentioned, had it been like 13 years or so later that you thought that you had already, was it about that when you went and did like somatic therapy? Oh yeah. It was about 12 or 13. You're right.
Processing Anger in Grief
00:17:41
Speaker
12 or 13 that you then also seek then for other therapy because you realize that one of the ways that you were processing grief was through anger. Anger being one of these emotions. So talk about that.
00:17:56
Speaker
aspect of the grief, how anger holds a space. And at the same time, the love, you know, again, there's so many dualities and grief and even shared laughter. Yes, yes. Also, Kendra, think about this. Are you married?
00:18:14
Speaker
Yes. Who is the person in your life who can make you the angriest? Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. You know, like, yes. It's like the people we love, and it's true for all of us, like the people we love the most, whether it's our spouses, our children, our parents, our siblings, like those are also the people we come closest to like wringing their neck and that can like really get under our skin and just make us so, so mad.
00:18:40
Speaker
And the same thing can happen even if the person is no longer here. And I want people to know that and I want to normalize anger as a part of grief because for me, you know, I have so much active love for my mom. You know, just last week was 16 years since she died.
00:18:59
Speaker
And I will never stop loving that woman. My son is being raised to love this woman. She was truly a wonderful mom. You can ask all sorts of people, not just me. She was a great mom, great person, great friend, et cetera. And she was also human. And for bereaved children in particular, there are often feelings of anger and abandonment.
00:19:22
Speaker
Because at the end of the day, you know, obviously it wasn't her fault that she had MS and then she got stage four breast cancer. But at the end of the day, I'm still a kid and my mom left, you know, like that, like there is a really primitive part in our brains.
00:19:38
Speaker
that understands any sort of loss as a form of abandonment and so anger is very natural and at the time I was angry because you know first of all we were in the middle of the pandemic which was
00:19:53
Speaker
just rage inducing and miserable and hard on all of us for a myriad of reasons. I had just experienced about a year earlier a devastating pregnancy loss and my husband and I were in the adoption process and you know it just felt like we were never going to become parents. We were almost five years into our parenthood journey at that point and I was also still very physically sick
00:20:21
Speaker
from the pregnancy loss and some underlying hormone health issues that I have. So like I had a lot of reasons to be angry at the time and not having my mom there to comfort me, to guide me, to support me. It made me really mad.
00:20:38
Speaker
and thankfully through this therapy experience i was able to work through that and so if you feel like there is something that is weighing you down or there is something that you are holding on to and you can't quite wrap your mind around it or figure out
00:20:59
Speaker
what it is or how to get it out of your body. I just want to encourage people to seek more help. You know, we're not supposed to know how to do all of these things. Like we're just, we're not.
Role of Therapy in Grieving
00:21:11
Speaker
And so it was through, it was through this therapy session and like deep meditation that I was able to get at what was really going on in my body and in my mind, and then get it out.
00:21:23
Speaker
The only thing, I say this in grief is love, and I try to say it every time I talk to people about grief and loss. The only thing we know about emotions based on science is that they are fleeting. They are impermanent. And the only thing that gives them less control over us is naming them. So give yourself space to feel whatever it is and to name it and to be okay with it, because that is how you're going to move through it.
00:21:51
Speaker
It's so important to normalize again, first off, we're normalizing the conversation around grief. We're normalizing the conversation around death and we're normalizing all these aspects that come with grief and not
Societal Norms and Grief Expression
00:22:05
Speaker
judging others by how they're grieving either, but at the same time, allowing that space
00:22:12
Speaker
to feel because if society doesn't talk about grief, then people, for example, like yourself, you went back to work. You didn't even take time off from work probably right after that as enough time or even there really isn't even enough time because what if you have a grief episode 10 years down the line? Do people in a work environment even know how to navigate their own
00:22:36
Speaker
staff going through grief, too. Right. So. Yeah. Yeah. And how it shows up, it's very different. It could show up at that laughter. You mentioned how you laugh in the. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, is it okay to talk about that little scenario? I don't want to go for it. Give it. OK, so no, you share about that at the funeral. OK, I'm actually here. Let's see how much I can remember. So you one thing you guys knew for sure. Your mom loved gospel music. Right. And soulful music.
00:23:06
Speaker
And you knew you wanted this really beautiful
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Presentation and song. Now, I forgot which song it was now that I forgot. Oh, yeah. Right on the mountain. Was it? No. His eyes on the sparrow. His eyes on the sparrow. Yeah. His eyes on the sparrow. And then that the pastor said, oh, I have somebody. Perfect. Oh, my God. Perfect for the part. And go ahead. You go from there. To this day. I mean, this was now 16 years ago. To this day, I have never
00:23:37
Speaker
heard a worse performance. I don't know that I ever will in my life. It was almost as if, you know, if someone is like intentionally singing in a way to make fun of someone or make fun of something, like that was what it felt like. And we're sitting in, you know, the front row of the church. My mom's casket, open casket is, you know, 10 feet away or whatever.
00:24:04
Speaker
And it was so bad that we all started laughing and like, you know, trying to do it quietly and not be terrible human beings, but it was me, my cousin, who's one of those people who laughs when people get hurt.
00:24:22
Speaker
my sister and then my grandmother trying to tell us to like stop laughing, but she was also kind of laughing herself. It was so bad. And I share that story because, you know, then minutes later, literally minutes later, the funeral is over and they're about to take my mom's body out of the sanctuary. And like, I get to see her one last time and completely, completely, completely lose it.
00:24:52
Speaker
And so I want people to give themselves permission to laugh and experience joy when it comes up for you and not feel guilty about it or feel like, oh, OK, so I had a good laugh. I must be good now. And I want to make sure other people don't see folks who are living with loss or in deep grief have a good time and think that they're suddenly over it.
00:25:18
Speaker
And they don't need to keep checking in on them or asking about the person they lost, etc. Like, can we normalize the full range of the human experience? It doesn't have to be just sadness or just joy. And for me, and I know you said your kids are in high school now, but I'm sure you remember this.
00:25:40
Speaker
Every time my toddler goes from completely losing his shit over whatever to laughing and smiling and saying, you know, mama, I love you so much within 30 seconds. I'm like, okay, so this is how we show up in Jacqueline. Hi.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah, it is so wild. And so for me, being around this child is a reminder that life is more like up and down and all around emotionally, not just very direct and prescripted and one or the other. It is very much both and.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it's not linear. It is the roller coaster. It's ebbs and flows. There's so many different ways of describing this array of emotions that show up. And again, as you were mentioning before, you can hold them.
00:26:36
Speaker
in both hands simultaneously both emotions at the same time. So regarding the part of connecting then, because in that moment when you laughed at the funeral, there was something about it that was also just, you were feeling like, how am I going to even live after this loss? Yet that release of emotion and laughter was a reminder that you felt was kind of like a little tap on the shoulder from your mom of your life.
00:27:05
Speaker
Okay, so talk about that part of how now how do we live in this world? How are you living in this world? Still bringing her into your life because that's been something you've had to do even now after you met your now husband is how do you bring someone into your life that did not know the person that
00:27:28
Speaker
you raised you and who meant so much to you. But anyway, I asked too many things at the same time. It's okay. No, it's okay. I get where you're at. How do you continue to bring them along? Yeah. So first of all, I just just again to keep us grounded in the research that's in the book. I came to believe before looking into the research that this whole concept we have around grief where we look for people to get over it and move on.
00:27:57
Speaker
I felt like that was wrong. You know, it was 11 years after my mom died when we had our last really bad pregnancy loss. And all I wanted in that moment, you know, curled up on like a tiny bath mat in our master bathroom, couldn't even pick my head up off the floor. I was so sick. All I wanted was my mom. And I have an amazing husband, by the way, but like, I just, all I wanted was my mom.
00:28:26
Speaker
And so I ended up writing an article in May of 2020 that went somewhat viral based on this concept, like that the idea of getting over it is foolish and that I'm never going to get over it. And I don't care what anybody else thinks. And that resonated with people and became the foundation of grief is love. And as I was doing the research for the book, what I learned is
00:28:50
Speaker
According to the real experts, the people who study the impact of grief and loss on the body and on the brain,
00:28:59
Speaker
One of the healthiest ways to cope with grief and move through the hardest parts of loss is something called the continuing bonds theory, which essentially argues that we should all find a way to continue our bond, our relationship with the deceased after death.
Revisiting Continuing Bonds Theory
00:29:19
Speaker
And that
00:29:20
Speaker
can and should look different for everyone. You know, I know in our family, what I decide to do is very different from what my dad does, which is very different from what my sister does and doesn't do. And so I don't want people to feel like there's only one way to do this. But in my
00:29:39
Speaker
experience and leveraging the research, there's a multitude of ways to think about how you continue to have a relationship with your person when they're no longer here. So one of them is just simply like honoring your grief and giving yourself permission to grieve and accepting whatever feelings come up. So that's like one piece of it that I think is really important
00:30:03
Speaker
for living a full life after loss. Another piece around legacy that I think about a lot is very internal. You know, like, who was my mom as a person? What were the values that she held most dear that she worked really hard to instill in my sister and I in the time that we had together?
00:30:24
Speaker
And how do I live those values? How do I lean into those values? How do I pass them along to my son Bennett, this grandchild who she's never met, even though he says all the time that he knows her, which is hilarious. And then the third piece are the different external things. So in my case, I did start the nonprofit, and I wrote the book, et cetera. But the ones that matter most to me are actually
00:30:52
Speaker
the smaller things. You know, my mom made pancakes, no matter how sick she was, most Sundays, like maybe not every Sunday, because sometimes she really couldn't get out of bed, but
00:31:03
Speaker
most Sundays she made pancakes so the week that we launched grief is love on that Sunday we gave Bennett pancakes for the first time. We also we talk about her a lot you know like that's how Bennett knows her we we don't just talk about her but like I wanted him to have some
00:31:23
Speaker
agency and ownership around her and his own relationship with her. So for him, it's Gramelisa. Like for me, it's my mom. For him, it's Gramelisa and it's Gramelisa was Pop Pop's wife. You know, like that's kind of like how we frame it for him and just keep her alive in his mind and it seems to be working. But you know, at the end of the day,
00:31:48
Speaker
I realized we feel so much pain from grief because of the love that we continue to share with people. And the reason why we feel so much pain is because love is both feeling and action. And while I can continue to feel loved by my mother, she's not here to act on it.
00:32:09
Speaker
She's not here to help me take care of Bennett. She's not here to give me like recipe X, Y, or Z. She's not here to take my husband's side when we're having an argument. She's not here for any of those things, and that is what makes it hard. And I think we make it easier on ourselves by identifying our own individual ways of continuing that love, no matter what it looks like.
Opening Up to Love and Legacy
00:32:37
Speaker
So I was like, okay, this will be the promo. I always choose like a little part to put in the beginning, like the little intro kind of promo beforehand. I'm like, this will be it. Like, but now I'm like, it's so good. Now with Matt, let's talk about Matt because you met him a few years after your mom had died. So how did you come to that part within yourself of being ready
00:33:05
Speaker
to love again and also if you can talk about that part, well, love again, I mean, you always, you still do, but to love someone after your mom had died and to know that there, because you mentioned that aspect of fear of losing is always kind of there when you've already lost somebody you love and that fear of losing. So how did you kind of crack open that shell and allow his love back in and your love back out?
00:33:33
Speaker
I was a basket case. Let me lead with that. I am prone to anxiety when things aren't quite right. And so we moved, we became close really quickly. We moved in together really quickly. And almost immediately I had horrible anxiety and was like, Oh my God, did I make a mistake?
00:33:58
Speaker
I knew that I didn't but I was like why am I freaking out like this is really weird and so I took myself to therapy again and only met with this woman for maybe three sessions but she basically helped me see how
00:34:18
Speaker
it would be much easier for me to not let someone in and to just keep it moving and date casually and focus on my career. And that, that was one path that I could take in this life, or I could figure out what I needed to do to get comfortable fully letting someone in, knowing that at some point I'm going to lose them. You know, whether you have the time, like the relationship might not work out or
00:34:44
Speaker
they're gonna die or I'm gonna die, you know what I mean? Like that's just life. And so I realized in that moment, like I had a choice to make. I could either just keep to myself indefinitely and continue to love on the people who were already in my life
00:35:01
Speaker
Or I could open up to new people and new experiences and this experience of at the time, you know, I thought the relationship I was in was one that could last for a long time. I felt like if I were to choose the former,
00:35:21
Speaker
and walk away from this relationship with Matt, that would be not only doing a disservice to myself, but it would also be doing a disservice to the person that my mother raised me to be. And so I decided to get my shit together and now we've been living together.
00:35:39
Speaker
Uh, for almost 12 years, uh, and married for almost nine and we have Bennett. So it all worked out. Um, but it was, it was not pretty. I can remember, this is so ridiculous. I can remember this one.
00:35:56
Speaker
fight because you know i was super anxious and just not in a great place so it was very easy for me to pick fights about just about anything and it was really easy for me to end up in a place where he just was on my nerves even if he didn't do a single thing wrong you know and he was driving me nuts and i didn't have like anywhere to go or any way to hide i was like in the middle of making dinner and so i literally just
00:36:23
Speaker
stood in the refrigerator like with the refrigerator door open my head as far in the refrigerator as possible just to like cool off and try to get myself together and you sound you sound like what women do with hot flashes by the way that oh yeah no that's real that's real those are real those
00:36:42
Speaker
Okay. Sorry. Oh my God. I was just, I was so mad and I don't even know, like I don't even get to do anything, you know, like I don't even remember what I was mad about. But I just remember being so mad and my head being in the refrigerator and he said, are you just going to hide in the refrigerator all night? And I was like, okay, okay. I need to just, I need to keep taking baby steps forward and get it together so that I can stay in this relationship.
00:37:05
Speaker
I can say I will add, uh, Matt became a really big part of me figuring out, you know, what it looks like to continue my relationship with my mom and how he could encounter her. And, you know, what were some of the things that we could do together?
00:37:22
Speaker
to really lean into her legacy. That's actually what I was gonna ask you. That's what I was gonna ask you is how did you then start introducing her? And especially when he hadn't met her or somebody understanding the array of emotions that even go in grief, when you're with someone else that maybe has not experienced something similar, like how do they accompany an individual in that journey?
00:37:49
Speaker
of grief too so how beautiful that he even was the one to like say okay how do we incorporate it oh yeah he leaned into it and i think i think a big part of what made it work and this is something i think is important in relationships especially when there are significant differences between you and your partner you know he was quick to acknowledge that
00:38:15
Speaker
he didn't know exactly what I was experiencing. And that was really important to me. It was also important to me later in 2020 as we all watched the murder of George Floyd for him as a white guy from Green Bay, Wisconsin to acknowledge that he doesn't understand that experience either. I think that acknowledging that we can't fully understand someone else's pain
00:38:42
Speaker
opens up the door to them feeling more comfortable sharing that pain with you, I think. Well, that's honesty there, which is in the chapter of Ask, you talk about the importance of honesty and even just the honesty of knowing that even what you
00:39:00
Speaker
know what you don't know what to do, even when you're accompanying somebody that's grieving. Marissa, I really don't know how to hold space for you right now. I want to let you know that I'm here for you as you're going through your moms.
00:39:18
Speaker
death, but I don't know what to do. So guide me if there's any way, right? Even as a, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm here for you is a way of holding space, by the way. I'm like, let me just throw that out there. So yeah. So him acknowledging that he was never going to fully get it because of the unique relationship that I had with my mom was a big part then of me feeling comfortable sharing more with him. And then he just really insisted on
00:39:47
Speaker
bringing the joyful parts of my relationship with my mom back to life because there was still a lot of sadness at the time when I met him. And so through his support, we actually started we started an annual tradition
00:40:03
Speaker
a holiday party called Tacos and Baby Jesus in honor of my mom. She was a big Christmas person, like she might be buying Christmas presents for like this Christmas now. And so we get people to dress up in ridiculous holiday costumes, we do a cookie swap because she was an epic baker, and we do some sort of charity drive as well, usually for bank or something like that locally. And that is one of the ways that we have come up together to honor her.
00:40:31
Speaker
Another thing, my mom loved lilies. Stargazer lilies were her favorite. And they were all over the funeral. So for years, I couldn't accept flowers from people because it would just remind me of the funeral. I'm like, I didn't want to have anything to do with them.
00:40:46
Speaker
And then a few years ago, maybe like five or so years ago, Matt suggested that we plant them in our backyard in DC. And I wasn't ready. And so I said, absolutely not. And then a year later, you know, I decided on my own and I'm using air quotes for folks who are listening.
00:41:06
Speaker
to plant them in our yard and it was so amazing like the blooms were gorgeous they came up like perfectly and I'm not somebody who has a green thumb either so she was definitely involved in that one.
00:41:19
Speaker
You just said so many things like you shared about legacy. You shared about a way of being able to do things on your own terms too. Like people may share ideas of what worked in their grief and maybe that doesn't work in your grief. Or maybe it won't. But it's just something that could be helpful.
00:41:41
Speaker
Before we kind of close off, share with us, because one of the chapters is about care and self-care. Having been a caretaker for so long yourself to her as she was sick, how did you then also shift that aspect of self-care for yourself, and what were some of these ways in which you did?
Self-Care and Wellbeing
00:42:01
Speaker
Lord, I'm still working on it, to be honest. I think that's something I'll probably be working on for the rest of my life. I am someone who is a really hard time taking care of herself and not feeling like it is something selfish. I know now that it is not, but it's still just something I struggle with. Being a caretaker is my default mode. I think a lot of us are wired that way as women and as someone who
00:42:28
Speaker
helped take care of somebody else, you know, since I was 13 years old. It's just a really hard mindset to break out of. And there are elements of caretaking that I do enjoy, or at least that I think I enjoy, but I don't even really know anymore, you know, just because it's a role that I've been in for such a long time. But
00:42:52
Speaker
What I have committed to is being mindful about what I need and doing as much as possible to care for myself. If for nothing else, you know, I want to provide a different model for Bennett.
00:43:11
Speaker
And I want to honor my mom in that way. You know, she was always looking out for me and my sister and my dad, no matter how sick she was. She passed away on February 28, 2008.
00:43:27
Speaker
My dad and I are 25 years apart, almost exactly, like within a few days basically. And before my mom died, and she was in a place where she was no longer undergoing treatment for her cancer or her MS.
00:43:43
Speaker
she in the months before she died was so sick that she battled tuberculosis and pancreatitis and like all sorts of other terrible infections and awful things and yet she was trying to plan a surprise joint 25th and 50th birthday party.
00:44:01
Speaker
And I didn't find out about it until right before my actual birthday. She was in the hospital and just, you know, it didn't come together, but she had managed to get these custom candy bars made like for the party because that's how much of a planner she was. And last week when I was going through some of like my box of old mom stuff, I found one of those chocolate bars. It's probably so nasty.
00:44:28
Speaker
Oh, okay. What did it look like? Because I was thinking of like the little M&Ms, sometimes people would like it. What does this one look like? This was old school girl, because this was back in 2008. It looks like a traditional Hershey's chocolate bar, just like flat and basic. And then the wrapper is all customized with all of this birthday stuff.
00:44:51
Speaker
Like the celebration of the century, you know, Sam and Marissa, like this whole thing. I'm like, Oh my God, you were planning a big party. So yeah, she was special. Yeah. Cause that was, yeah. So you were a quarter of a century old. Your dad was turning half a century and she wanted to make sure that.
00:45:10
Speaker
Yes, definitely do not. Make sure Bennett does not find that chocolate and end up eating that stale piece of chocolate. It's probably white now inside. Oh, my God. You know it's disgusting. You know it's disgusting. You got to keep it just for the fact that if not, keep the wrapper, right?
00:45:29
Speaker
But that's good. That's a good idea. Why didn't I throw out the chocolate bar? Why do I still have the bar in a wrapper? It's so gross. OK. It's OK. It's OK. I'm glad we're talking about this. You're not living in Texas where I live, which it could melt. So that would be really gross. So at least it's not that. OK, so is there anything I have not asked you that you want to make sure that you share with the audience? And then we will, of course, talk about how people can get your book. But any other thing regarding grief,
Advice for Supporting the Grieving
00:45:59
Speaker
that you'd like to share with the audience? The one thing that I usually get asked, and I think it is an important thing to share, is how do I show up when somebody loses someone they love? What can I do? What can I say? And I'm telling you this as a person who's written a lot of words on grief and loss, there is nothing that you can say that is going to really make them feel better when the worst thing in the world has just happened.
00:46:26
Speaker
So worry less about your words and more about your actions. And I put actions into three buckets. So the first is just the holding space. You know, when Matt and I found out about our pregnancy loss, like we couldn't even talk about it that day.
00:46:44
Speaker
But three of my roommates from college who live locally all descended on our house with whiskey and homemade chocolate chip cookie dough. And we watched American Ninja Warrior, which is so random, but highly entertaining and distracting. Nobody talked about it. Nobody, nobody even asked like how we were doing because they knew it was, we were just, we didn't have any words yet. All we could do was sit and watch a silly TV show and drink booze, frankly.
00:47:13
Speaker
And that just being with us while we were in it was so incredibly meaningful. And the next thing on the list is do something practical. We know from science and the research that grief has a really meaningful and tangible impact.
00:47:33
Speaker
on our bodies and our brains because your brain is literally going through a process to make sense of the loss that has just occurred. And because of that, it means you are much more limited in terms of your mental capacity for dealing with other things.
00:47:49
Speaker
And so drop off a meal, ideally something that can be frozen. Send seamless or Uber Eats gift cards. Pick up their kid from school. Walk the dog. Send a cleaner to their house. Take a work project off their plate. Do something practical to show them that you care and to lessen the burden of just everyday life on them. And then the last one, and this is one of my favorites,
00:48:17
Speaker
do something or give them something that brings them some joy, something that reminds them maybe of their person or just of who they are outside of this moment. So when we had our pregnancy loss, a good friend, the same friend who was with me down in the basement of the investment bank every day for months,
00:48:42
Speaker
She sent a care package from this amazing, amazing cheese shop that we both love in New York City. And she was like, you know, now that you're not pregnant, you don't have any rules about what cheese you can and can't eat. I know other people are going to send bottles of wine and this is my contribution. And it just, it was so random, but so delicious and so helpful. And again, made me smile because it was reminding me of my life outside of this tragedy.
00:49:11
Speaker
Um, another girlfriend sent, this is also ridiculous. I really do have the best friends. She sent a package from Amazon with 50 individual taco stands so that I would be encouraged to still host the tacos and baby Jesus party that year. I know, I know they're good.
00:49:32
Speaker
I have a really good crew. I have a really good crew. Man, they need to write like a list of all these ideas because sometimes it's like, we're like, what do I said? I'm going to tell you the big thing they did, they partnered up. These are my roommates from college. We're 12 type A, maybe one that's not type A, but 12 really intense.
00:49:53
Speaker
get after it kind of girls. And they combined financial resources with one of my childhood friends and gave us a gift certificate to the Four Seasons. Because the whole time we were in the IVF process, it was like, this is our last shot. This is our last embryo. It has to work. It has to work. But if it doesn't work, I told everybody we were just going to run away from home.
00:50:18
Speaker
And so they gave us the extra push to run away from home for a little bit, which is exactly what we did.
00:50:26
Speaker
What an amazing group of people, how creative they are and how well they knew you because that's the thing they knew you, they knew that the taco stands would be, you know, because I was like, if I get, you know, like, Oh, like, what do I need this for? But then it was in order for you to continue your mom's legacy with the taco tacos for Jesus. Is that correct? Yeah. Tacos and baby Jesus.
00:50:51
Speaker
Wonderful. So Marissa, now let's share with the audience where they can get your book. Again, we tried to not give everything away here with this conversation. Hopefully people are still intrigued, I know they will be, to be able to dive into the book because again, each of these chapters will not only give you background about what you yourself experienced, but again, giving palpable moments and information for the reader. So how do we get grief as love?
Engaging with 'Grief is Love'
00:51:21
Speaker
Um, you can find grief is love wherever books are sold. I'm very fortunate. Uh, there's still a number of independent bookstores that carry it. If you want to head to bookshop and buy it there, Target, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all of the places. And you can find me on Instagram as Marissa Renee Lee, or head over to my website, which is MarissaReneeLee.com and sign up for my newsletter.
00:51:45
Speaker
Wonderful. And all those links will be below in the show notes. And I again, thank you Marissa for taking time to share about your journey here with me and the audience. It was a joy talking to you. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you.
00:52:07
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.
00:52:36
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.