‘What Losing My Husband To Cancer At 39 Taught Me About Parenting Through Grief’

— ‘We had to learn to adjust from being a unit of three to a partnership of two’

By Clare Campbell-Cooper

I will hold my hands up and say I headed into parenthood with a healthy dose of naivety. I genuinely believed that my son George would ‘pop out’ (oh yes, I was that naïve), that I would immediately embrace motherhood, complete with the sun shining, lots of floaty linen clothes, a gurgling baby and possibly some soft-focus camera shots.

The reality was less prosaic and mostly consisted of me running five minutes late for everything and leaking from every orifice. It wasn’t a glamourous time and there was definitely no linen nor soft-focused moments.

But to add insult to injury, the month before I found I out I was pregnant, tests had diagnosed that my husband had a brain tumour. And after George was born, further tests showed that the tumour was malignant and David had less than ten years to live. It felt like the rug was being pulled from under our feet time and time again. And each time it took us slightly longer to get back up.

But we were lucky, David defied the odds and we had eleven years of being together as a family unit. We had times to come to terms with the fact that David was going to die. We had time to get used to it, to say our goodbyes, and in that we were so much more fortunate than many.

But watching a child grow up with grief in the depths of their eyes isn’t easy. I think all parents feel like they can’t do right for doing wrong sometimes, and this was exactly the same for me. But suddenly becoming a single parent, grieving and watching my child grieve, heightened this. I made the same mistakes that a lot of parents make, but the ability to bounce back just isn’t there in the same way when you feel so emotionally raw from grief.

When David was alive, I was advised to keep things emotionally stable for both David and George and I did that by being the buffer to their frustration, anger and grief. In reality, these are normal emotions that any household has, but in ours it could result in seizures and hospitalisation. But after David’s death, the wheels came off.

After David’s funeral we entered the dark, dark days of overwhelming waves of grief. George was going to school, I was working, and I stumbled through the days, not really having a clue what was happening. I didn’t seem to be able to get George in the right school uniform (which is never cool). I would be scrabbling around trying to find trousers or a polo shirt that was not wet nor in the washing machine.

Always a competent cook, I didn’t seem able to get food on the table. I could never get the bins out on the right day. And there didn’t seem to be a reason why I couldn’t, as nothing had changed; school was school, food was in the cupboard, bin day was still bin day. But I didn’t seem to be able to join the dots. And George watched me, dry eyed and shell shocked, not sure of anything; but needing continuity and surety, and so I tried my best to give him that.

And over time I adapted. I bought more school uniform so that I had more time to get things through the wash. I signed up to one of those pre-prepared food companies that deliver kits to your door. I tried to finish work at a reasonable time. I took George to his clubs and we saw more of my parents.

We had planned an amazing summer, which we knew would have been David’s last. He died at the end of May, before our summer. But George and I still went to Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Gone Wild Festival, and Center Parcs. We learned to adjust from being a unit of three to a partnership of two: me at 46 and George at 11. We learned how to lean on each other for support. Where I would have told David about my day, I found myself telling George. Where George would have wanted David to play football I donned my trainers and did my worst (and my worst was very bad).

I am not saying that it was easy, it wasn’t, and we still have our moments, but we muddle through. We both have regrets, but who doesn’t? We have regrets of how we have treated each other, those cutting comments that seem harmless at the time but burn into your memory. We have regrets of what we should have done but didn’t – the hours spent away from each other, in front of a computer, when we could have been touching, laughing, feeling. But we also have memories and we have been blessed with so much love. And we still have each other.

And I have learned that everyone has something. No-one’s lot in life is any harder or easier than anyone else’s and we are all doing the best we can to raise our children and to get through life with our heads above water…and that’s just fine. I’m still waiting for the moment when I can float around in linen, looking elegant with a soft-focus lens but I have found that a large gin and tonic and some love and laughter with our friends is much better for the soul – and far more likely to happen!

Complete Article HERE!

Asian Elephants display complex mourning rituals similar to humans

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Elephants are smart animals with strong feelings and they often work together. In India’s Bengal area, scientists found that elephants buried five baby elephants, according to a study published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa.

Researchers have limited the study of elephant thanatology—the examination of death and related practices— to the burial of calves. Observers had noted this aspect of behaviour in African elephants but had not documented something similar in Asian elephants until recently, despite both species diverging 4.2 million years ago.

The researchers wanted to clear up the second question – do Asian elephants, like African elephants, mourn their dead calves? And the answer is yes, and it is loud. The vocalizations from the elephants lasted between 30 and 40 minutes, but only in places far from human settlements.

They point out that this behaviour suggests elephants distinguish human spaces from non-human spaces to avoid disagreements. They also mention that elephants limited vocalisation to the burial phase.

The increasing encroachment of human activities into natural habitats and the resulting environmental degradation are forcing elephants to venture into human-dominated areas in search of food and other ecological necessities. This interaction has led to new behaviours in these majestic creatures.

Asian Elephants’ mourning behaviour

Parveen Kaswan, an officer with the Indian Forest Service, and Akashdeep Roy, a researcher at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, spent 16 months reviewing literature relating to elephant burials. They found five case reports that document this behaviour.

An elephant calf was buried on a tea estate with its feet visible.

Researchers have revealed that Asian elephants, similar to their African counterparts, engage in what we can describe as mourning rituals. Observations showed them vocalising loudly and burying their deceased calves, exhibiting a level of ritualistic behaviour that parallels human funeral rites.

The study reports a heartbreaking journey of a mother elephant. The mother elephant carried her dead calf for two days before letting it go. This extended time of grieving shows the deep attachment between mother elephants and their offspring. This could have been made stronger possibly by hormonal influences like oxytocin and the long gestation period elephants experience. This response is consistent with other studies on chacma baboons, olive baboons, African elephants and Thornicroft’s giraffes.

As per the study, the burial process is a collective effort, involving not only the mothers but also other females within the herd who act as surrogate caregivers, as well as elephants of various ages. This communal participation underscores the intricate social fabric of elephant herds and their collective mourning when faced with death. Notably, this ritualistic burial is reserved exclusively for the young. The physical impracticality of carrying the larger, heavier adults precludes them from receiving the same rite. This selective practice indicates that the elephants’ mourning and burial customs are particularly significant for the young, whose passing deeply impacts the social structure of the herd.

Compassionate behaviour

The research aimed to understand the ‘perimortem’ strategy and ‘postmortem’ behaviour of Asian elephants. The main evidence shows that someone or something transported the corpses from afar, treated with great care. They buried the corpses in preferred locations, always in a specific posture, which was an unusual lying position with legs upright.

The author said, “Our study found an interesting thing – the placement of carcasses with their paws raised in narrow irrigation drains. This strategic behaviour shows the care and affection of herd members toward the deceased animal and suggests that in a potential crush situation, pack members prioritize the head over the feet,” they highlight.”

“Elephants are social and affectionate animals and, based on an external examination of the carcasses, we also suggest that herd members gently placed the dead calves by grasping one or more legs,” the experts conclude.

The authors of the report thoroughly investigated the underlying reason for the death of the offspring through postmortem examinations. One of the conclusions is that there was no direct human intervention in any of the five deaths.

A buried carcass corresponding to case 3 of Bharnabaritea estate.

“Through direct and indirect evidence, this study highlights compassionate and helpful elephants’s behaviour during carcass burial. Asian elephants transport their deceased calves to isolated places, away from humans and carnivores, while searching for drains irrigation and depressions to bury the body,” the report states.

No infanticide among Asian elephants

Many animal groups, such as monkeys, meat-eaters, and rodents, commit infanticide or baby killing. Different reasons, such as elimination of competition, scarcity of resources, or maintaining social order within a group, contribute to this phenomenon.

However, the researchers found that there was no infanticide among the Asian elephants. They believe there are a few reasons why elephants don’t kill babies:

  • Elephants, particularly females and their young, live in close family groups forming strong bonds. This closeness possibly prevents them from hurting the young, actively encouraging them to cooperate in caring for them.
  • Baby elephants require long term care from their mothers and other females in the herd. This extended care and help from everyone might decrease the likelihood of someone killing a baby.
A buried carcass corresponding to case 2 of Chunabhatitea estate.
  • In the breeding process, elephants reproduce without having to kill their babies to quicken the mother’s readiness for another offspring. Unlike some other animals, the mother cannot immediately have another offspring if she loses a baby. Thereby, eradicating the need for males to kill babies.
  • Male elephants neither directly contribute to raising the babies nor participate in the close female groups. They prioritize finding females ready to mate rather than assuming control over a herd and eliminating other males’ babies. This social structure and breeding style decreases the likelihood of elephants killing babies.

Complete Article HERE!

Overdose or Poisoning?

— A New Debate Over What to Call a Drug Death.

Sandra Bagwell of Mission, Texas, holding the remains of her son, Ryan, who died in 2022. “Ryan was poisoned,” she said.

Grieving families want official records and popular discourse to move away from reflexive use of “overdose,” which they believe blames victims for their deaths.

By Jan Hoffman

The death certificate for Ryan Bagwell, a 19-year-old from Mission, Texas, states that he died from a fentanyl overdose.

His mother, Sandra Bagwell, says that is wrong.

On an April night in 2022, he swallowed one pill from a bottle of Percocet, a prescription painkiller that he and a friend bought earlier that day at a Mexican pharmacy just over the border. The next morning, his mother found him dead in his bedroom.

A federal law enforcement lab found that none of the pills from the bottle tested positive for Percocet. But they all tested positive for lethal quantities of fentanyl.

“Ryan was poisoned,” Mrs. Bagwell, an elementary-school reading specialist, said.

As millions of fentanyl-tainted pills inundate the United States masquerading as common medications, grief-scarred families have been pressing for a change in the language used to describe drug deaths. They want public health leaders, prosecutors and politicians to use “poisoning” instead of “overdose.” In their view, “overdose” suggests that their loved ones were addicted and responsible for their own deaths, whereas “poisoning” shows they were victims.

“If I tell someone that my child overdosed, they assume he was a junkie strung out on drugs,” said Stefanie Turner, a co-founder of Texas Against Fentanyl, a nonprofit organization that successfully lobbied Gov. Greg Abbott to authorize statewide awareness campaigns about so-called fentanyl poisoning.

“If I tell you my child was poisoned by fentanyl, you’re like, ‘What happened?’” she continued. “It keeps the door open. But ‘overdose’ is a closed door.”

For decades, “overdose” has been used by federal, state and local health and law enforcement agencies to record drug fatalities. It has permeated the vocabulary of news reports and even popular culture. But over the last two years, family groups have challenged its reflexive use.

They are having some success. In September, Texas began requiring death certificates to say “poisoning” or “toxicity” rather than “overdose” if fentanyl was the leading cause. Legislation has been introduced in Ohio and Illinois for a similar change. A proposed Tennessee bill says that if fentanyl is implicated in a death, the cause “must be listed as accidental fentanyl poisoning,” not overdose.

Meetings with family groups helped persuade Anne Milgram, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which seized more than 78 million fake pills in 2023, to routinely use “fentanyl poisoning” in interviews and at congressional hearings.

Various snapshots of Mrs. Bagwell’s son, Ryan, on a cork board.
Ryan died after swallowing one pill from a bottle of what he believed to be Percocet, a prescription painkiller.
A dog sits on a chair on a patio, seeming to look through the window at a framed portrait of Ryan Bagwell that rests on a table.
Ryan Bagwell left behind his dog, Macy.

In a hearing last spring, Representative Mike Garcia, Republican of California, commended Ms. Milgram’s word choice, saying, “You’ve done an excellent job of calling these ‘poisonings.’ These are not overdoses. The victims don’t know they’re taking fentanyl in many cases. They think they’re taking Xanax, Vicodin, OxyContin.”

Last year, efforts to describe fentanyl-related deaths as poisonings began emerging in bills and resolutions in several states, including Louisiana, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and Virginia, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures. Typically, these bills establish “Fentanyl Poisoning Awareness” weeks or months as public education initiatives.

“Language is really important because it shapes policy and other responses,” said Leo Beletsky, an expert on drug policy enforcement at Northeastern University School of Law. In the increasingly politicized realm of public health, word choice has become imbued with ever greater messaging power. During the pandemic, for example, the label “anti-vaxxer” fell into disrepute and was replaced by the more inclusive “vaccine-hesitant.”

Addiction is an area undergoing convulsive language change, and words like “alcoholic” and “addict” are now often seen as reductive and stigmatizing. Research shows that terms like “substance abuser” can even influence the behavior of doctors and other health care workers toward patients.

The word “poison” has emotional force, carrying reverberations from the Bible and classic fairy tales. “‘Poisoning’ feeds into that victim-villain narrative that some people are looking for,” said Sheila P. Vakharia, a senior researcher at the Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group.

But while “poisoning” offers many families a buffer from stigma, others whose loved ones died from taking illegal street drugs find it problematic. Using “poisoning” to distinguish certain deaths while letting others be labeled “overdose” creates a judgmental hierarchy of drug-related fatalities, they say.

A portrait of Fay Martin, who wears a gray, long-sleeved sweater and leans on a fence overlooking a canal with boats docked in it.
Fay Martin of Corpus Christi, Texas. Her son Ryan died in 2021. “When my son died, I felt that stigma from people, that there was personal responsibility involved because he had been using illicit drugs,” she said.

Fay Martin said her son, Ryan, a commercial electrician, was prescribed opioid painkillers for a work injury. When he grew dependent on them, a doctor cut off his prescription. Ryan turned to heroin. Eventually, he went into treatment and stayed sober for a time. But, ashamed of his history of addiction, he kept to himself and gradually began to use drugs again. Believing that he was buying Xanax, he died from taking a fentanyl-tainted pill in 2021, the day after his 29th birthday.

Although he, like thousands of victims, died from a counterfeit pill, his mourning mother feels as if others look at her askance.

“When my son died, I felt that stigma from people, that there was personal responsibility involved because he had been using illicit drugs,” said Ms. Martin, from Corpus Christi, Texas. “But he didn’t get what he bargained for. He didn’t ask for the amount of fentanyl that was in his system. He wasn’t trying to die. He was trying to get high.”

To a growing number of prosecutors, if someone was poisoned by fentanyl, then the person who sold the drug was a poisoner — someone who knew or should have known that fentanyl could be lethal. More states are passing fentanyl homicide laws.

Some people note that the idea of a poisoner-villain doesn’t account for the complications of drug use. “That’s a little too simplified, because a lot of people who sell substances or share them with friends are also in the throes of a substance use disorder,” said Rachael Cooper, who directs an anti-stigma initiative at Shatterproof, an advocacy group.

People who sell or share drugs are usually many steps removed from those who mixed the batches. They would likely be unaware that their drugs contained deadly quantities of fentanyl, she said.

“In a nonpoliticized world, ‘poisoning’ would be accurate, but the way it’s being used now, it is reframing what is likely an accidental event and reimagines it as an intentional crime,” said Mr. Beletsky, who directs Northeastern’s Changing the Narrative project, which examines addiction stigma.

In toxicology and medicine, “overdose” and “poison” have value-neutral definitions, said Kaitlyn Brown, the clinical managing director of America’s Poison Centers, which represents and collects data from 55 centers nationwide.

“But the public is going to understand terminology differently than people who are immersed in the field, so I think there are important distinctions and nuances that the public can miss,” she said.

“Overdose” describes a greater dose of a substance than was considered safe, Dr. Brown explained. The effect may be harmful (heroin) or not (ibuprofen).

“Poisoning” means that harm indeed occurred. But it can be a poisoning from countless substances, including lead, alcohol and food, as well as fentanyl.

Both terms are used whether an event results in survival or death.

Photos of Ryan Paul Malcolm arrayed on a kitchen table in Fay Martin’s home.
Ryan Paul Malcolm went into treatment for addiction, but when he started using again, he kept to himself. Believing he was buying Xanax, he died from fentanyl in a tainted pill in 2021.
A shiny orb on a stand, a special urn containing Ryan’s ashes, sits on a bureau in a bedroom under a television.
Ryan’s urn in Ms. Martin’s home. He was an avid Denver Broncos fan.

Until about 15 years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an esteemed source of data on national drug deaths, often used both terms interchangeably. A C.D.C. report detailing rising drug-related deaths in 2006 was titled “Unintentional Drug Poisoning in the United States.” It also referred to “unintentional drug overdose deaths.”

To streamline the growing drug fatality data from federal and state agencies, the C.D.C. shifted exclusively to “overdose.” (It now also collects statistics on reported nonfatal overdoses.) The C.D.C.’s Division of Overdose Prevention notes that “overdose” refers just to drugs, while “poisoning” refers to other substances, such as cleaning products.

When asked what unbiased word or phrase might best characterize drug deaths, experts in drug policy and treatment struggled.

Some preferred “overdose,” because it is entrenched in data reporting. Others use “accidental overdose” to underscore lack of intention. (Most overdoses are, in fact, accidental.) News outlets occasionally use both, reporting that a drug overdose took place due to fentanyl poisoning.

Addiction medicine experts note that because most of the street drug supply is now adulterated, “poisoning” is, indeed, the most straightforward, accurate term. Patients who buy cocaine and methamphetamine die because of fentanyl in the product, they note. Those addicted to fentanyl succumb from bags that have more toxic mixtures than they had anticipated.

Ms. Martin, whose son was killed by fentanyl, bitterly agrees. “He was poisoned,” she said. “He got the death penalty and his family got a life sentence.”

Complete Article HERE!

Last lesson from a big sister who’s died?

— What to do without her

Leanne Friesen cherishes this photo of her and her sister Roxanne Howse, which was taken in 2013 just a few weeks before Howse died.

Leanne Friesen’s experience with grief after losing her sister to cancer has led to a new book

By Bernice Hillier

We might think we know what someone else is going through, but we have no idea until we’re in their shoes, and author Leanne Friesen learned that firsthand in the most devastating way possible: losing her beloved sister to cancer.

Friesen’s job as a pastor involved ministering to dying and grieving people on a near-daily basis, so she might quite reasonably have expected that she’d be equipped when it was her time to grieve.

But Friesen said nothing prepared her for the shock and devastation she experienced when her sister Roxanne Howse died of melanoma in 2013 at the age of 48.

“I was not prepared for the depth of grief and loss I felt when this person I loved so deeply died,” said Friesen. “The heaviness of grief is shocking and overwhelming.”

That’s what led Friesen to write her book, Grieving Room, to encourage other people to make room for their grief. The author, originally from Dildo, N.L., is now touring Newfoundland to promote her book.

Beginning and end

Friesen was 13 years younger than her big sister, so she had always looked up to her as a role model, mentor and friend.

In the early stages of Howse’s battle with cancer, Friesen said it was easy to forget or at least push to one side that her sister was facing a terminal illness.

As the end drew near, Friesen writes in her book that she found herself coveting the time others were spending with her sister and wanting more of those moments for herself.

She now realizes that, deep down, she was hoping for what most families don’t get: what she calls a “Hallmark goodbye.”

Friesen said she believes most people’s expectations around the end of life are unrealistic, so much so that she devotes an entire chapter of her book to “imperfect goodbyes.”

A young teenaged girl sits on the hood of a 70s model car, with a baby girl in her arms. The baby is wearing a pink top and pink sunhat.
Leanne Friesen (the baby in this photo) treasures many happy memories of Roxanne Howse. Up until Howse’s death in 2013, Friesen had never known life without her big sister.

Friesen said families may feel cheated if they don’t get final moments at the bedside with their loved one while the dying person is still able to utter a few words, and when relatives and friends who will be left behind can communicate and say what they need to say.

“In all my years of ministry and being at many deathbeds, I have never seen anyone have a death like that,” said Friesen, who is a Baptist pastor.

Friesen wants to assure people that, no matter how their loved one’s life ended, they can find their own way and time to say goodbye, whether it be at a graveside or, as in her case, on a sandy beach, months later when the grieving person can reflect on how much the person who died meant to them.

“Whatever your last moments were like with your loved one, they become your story. And you need room for that story, even if it didn’t look like something that was on TV,” said Friesen, who also has a post-graduate certificate in death and bereavement from Wilfred Laurier University.

A teenaged girl with curly hair sits on a red couch reading a book to the little girl beside her.
Roxanne was 13 when little sister Leanne was born. Now, the death of the sibling who read books to her has inspired Leanne Friesen’s own book.

Open book

In Grieving Room, Friesen is candid and forthright about her family’s experiences as they supported her sick and dying sister, sharing about the heartbreaking resistance of some family members to accept that healing and recovery weren’t going to happen.

Friesen said it was important to be respectful of privacy considerations but that she also wanted to share as much as she felt her sister would feel comfortable with her sharing.

She said too often people view death as being too embarrassing or private to talk about openly, and she wanted to counter that by sharing from the depth of her own emotions.

“What’s been beautiful is how many people have written me and said ‘Thank you for sharing this,’ or ‘This story meant so much to me,'” said Friesen.

She said people tell her that reading her book made them feel normal again and validated what they were going through.

Two women smile as they look into the camera.
Sisters Leanne Friesen, left, and Roxanne Howse were born and raised in Dildo, N.L. Howse was a teacher in St. John’s for many years. She battled cancer for eight years before she died at the age of 48.

Finding the right words

Friesen has a word of caution for people who want to support those who grieve without causing them extra hurt or pain.

She said people are usually well-intentioned when they offer advice or guidance to grieving people but, especially if you haven’t lost someone yourself, those words can land in a way that you didn’t expect.

“The things that we say that are trying to minimize or encourage people in any way to not feel what they’re feeling, as a rule, aren’t really as helpful as we think they are,” said Friesen.

Among the least desirable phrases, Friesen includes: “They wouldn’t want you to be sad,” or “At least they had a long life.”

But the worst thing to say, according to Friesen, is nothing at all. She said grievers often tell her what hurts most is when people just don’t bring up their loss or acknowledge it in any way, as if mentioning their loved one will make them sad.

“It’s on their mind all the time. You’re not reminding them of their loss. You’re acknowledging that you see them in their loss,” said Friesen.

Friesen recommends following the grieving person’s lead. If you don’t know what to say, she said, it’s okay to say that; tell them you’re sorry for their loss, you’re there for them, you’re sad with them.

A smiling woman with shoulder-length brown hair and glasses is wearing a white top and a necklace with circle pendant.
Leanne Friesen is in back in her home province this week to promote her book. She is doing book signings and workshops on grief in Dildo, St. John’s, Gander and Corner Brook.

Turning the page

Friesen’s book tour of Newfoundland this week is in many ways the concluding chapter of a path her sister’s death set her on more than a decade ago, one she would never have chosen.

From the time her book was picked up by publishing company Broadleaf Books, her plan has always been to have a homecoming with Grieving Room.

“I absolutely couldn’t imagine not bringing this book home to the people that had journeyed with me for so much of my life, been part of my sister’s journey, and continue to be part of my journey,” said Friesen.

As she’s found her way through her own grief, she said it’s been a privilege and a motivation to help others who grieve.

It seems fitting that the sister who, in life, was Friesen’s role model would inspire a new purpose as she moves on without her.

Complete Article HERE!

Why I imagined my husband’s death

— What if fiction can alter the real world?

By

In my new novel, A Book of Days, a husband is dying slowly. While I was writing it, my own husband died suddenly, with no warning. He died in his sleep, I was told. His children and I hope that is true. He was 400 miles away, and on his own when it happened. The thought of his loneliness, if he was conscious and aware of what was coming, is unbearable, so we do not think of it. Or we try not to. We do know that he was in bed and his window was wide open; before he could hear nothing more, he would have heard the sea breaking on the rocky shore just below the cottage.

Ever since, I’ve been thinking about the lived experience of death. I don’t mean the first-hand testimonies of people who have actually died. If Lazarus told his sisters what it was like to be dead, they did not record it. If Jesus ever described the loneliness of the tomb, his words have been forgotten. No, I mean death as experienced by the living, the survivors.

The experience of death was once far more widely shared. Two hundred years ago, around 15% of babies in Britain died before their first birthdays. “Death borders upon our birth and our cradle stands in the grave”, said a 17th-century bishop of Exeter. Childbirth was dangerous for mothers too. And back then, most people in this country died in their own beds at home, with their families watching. If they did not, if they died on Flanders Fields for instance, their deaths were still not private in the main. But now many people reach adulthood without ever seeing a corpse.

I have seen several corpses, but I did not see the dead body of my husband. For complicated reasons to do with autopsies, transport and distance, neither I nor our children saw him until he was in a sealed coffin in the back of a hearse. I put my hand on his coffin as we filed past it on our way out of the crematorium, but I wish now that I had asked for it to be unsealed. Or that we had gone to the mortuary where he was. If you don’t see that the one you loved is really dead, how can you believe it?

My main feelings when he died were disbelief and a stony sort of shock that left me dry-eyed and clear-headed. And then there were weeks and weeks of paperwork and practicalities that left no space at all to think about my unfinished novel. There was only the haunting fear that by writing a death I had brought a real one into existence. My rational self knew that was not true. Fictions are not premonitions, any more than dreams are. But still.

“There was only the haunting fear that by writing a death I had brought a real one into existence.”

Even when life returned to something close to normal, I could not write the novel. For a while, I thought about writing a memoir instead, a painfully truthful one, about my husband, my grief and anger, and how complicated mourning is. Truth seemed somehow more relevant than fiction; I kept remembering something novelist Rachel Cusk said in an interview: “Once you have suffered sufficiently, the idea of making up John and Jane and having them do things together seems utterly ridiculous.” I made a start on the unvarnished work I had in mind and then abandoned it almost at once. I knew then that I had had more than enough of me.

If I had written and published that memoir, I would have been asking you, the reader, to sympathise with me. Even, perhaps, to identify with my lived experience of grief. Why should you want to do that? My experience is particular but not in any way unique. If, on the other hand, I could write imaginatively enough to transcend the limits of that experience, to widen it, to bring to it the resonances of other lives, other ways of seeing — well, that I felt would be worth doing. I, as the author, would be opening windows for the reader, not beckoning them to follow me into a shuttered room.

Autofiction — fictionalised autobiography that dispenses with the traditional elements of the novel such as character and plot — is arguably the prevailing literary mode of our time. It suits the general demand for self-revelation in life as well as art: in print, on screens, in public, people share the most intimate of details and bare their souls — or seem to. For years, aspiring writers of fiction have been told to “write what you know”, to stick to their own experience and their own boundaries, and by writing their own lives in thin disguise they are demonstrating their obedience to the rule. This is in many ways a good thing. Care must be taken not to trespass clumsily on territories of gender, racial identity, or sexual orientation. But there’s a difference between unacceptable cultural appropriation and creative imagination. That difference can be described as empathy.

However carefully curated, whatever balance it strikes between “truth” and “story”, auto-fiction requires ego. It says: look at me, even though what you see may actually be a mask. And it implicitly assumes a degree of mutual recognition between writer and reader. It’s a mirror, not a clear window. This can often be immensely valuable. But how, then, can a reader step outside their own personal experience, to feel as Keats felt when he first read Homer: “like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken”, breathless with anticipation like Cortez’s men, “silent, upon a peak in Darien”? How, indeed, unless writers can still write of lives beyond their own known and confined realities?

Great writers don’t need lived experience to convey emotion. The psychologist Steven Pinker described an experiment in which people listened to an interview with a heroin addict, who was either a real person or an actor. When the listeners were asked to take the addict’s point of view, they became more sympathetic to addicts in general, even when they knew the interviewee was acting. In other words, they did not need to believe the “addict” was sharing a lived experience in order to empathise. We can see this in William Golding’s astonishing novel, The Inheritors, which takes us into the world of the last Neanderthals and shows us how it feels to be on the wrong side of the cusp of change: disempowered, under threat and fearful. He achieved this masterpiece through an empathetic leap across millennia that owes everything to his brilliance as a writer and his understanding of unchanging human nature, but little to his own experience of life in 20th-century England.

As T.S. Eliot said: “What every poet starts from is his own emotions [but then transmutes] his personal and private agonies into something rich and strange, something universal and impersonal.” To me, that’s a counsel of perfection, the highest of aspirations. My husband’s death caused me great grief, but when eventually I could write that grief upon the page, through voices that were those of imagined people who lived centuries ago, I hope I turned it into something shared, something that could strike chords in hearts other than my own.

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How to Support Someone Who Has Lost a Pet

— The death of an animal companion can be every bit as devastating as other types of loss.

By Catherine Pearson

On “The Daily Show” this week, the host Jon Stewart broke down as he announced the death of his beloved, three-legged brindle pit bull, Dipper — a raw, touching segment that exemplified the deep grief many pet owners feel.

When an animal dies, owners lose companionship, affection and “just plain unconditional love — and we don’t find that in many places in our lives,” said Sherry Cormier, a psychologist and author of “Sweet Sorrow: Finding Enduring Wholeness After Loss and Grief.”

Our society tends to be “grief-phobic,” Dr. Cormier said, and there is a sense that the feelings prompted by the loss of a pet are relatively low in the hierarchy of suffering, or that it’s something that people should be able to cope with and move on from quickly. Dr. Cormier and other loss experts said that is not always true; and they shared ways to help a loved one through the loss of a pet.

Validate the owner’s loss.

Pet loss can lead to disenfranchised grief, meaning it is not validated or acknowledged by the wider world, said Michelle Crossley, an associate professor at Rhode Island College and vice president of the Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement. Therefore, “a lot of individuals end up grieving in isolation because of fear of rejection from other people,” she said, adding, “They worry that they won’t understand or they’ll minimize the loss.”

Keep it simple when expressing your sympathies, Dr. Cormier said. She suggested something like: “I know your animal was such an important part of your life and family. I can see how much he meant to you and how much you’re already missing him.”

Pet grief is often complicated by feelings of guilt if your friend or loved one opted to put an animal down to minimize suffering, Dr. Cormier said. She has done so with two golden retrievers, but noted the circumstances were quite different. One lived a long, happy life; the other had to be put down unexpectedly because of an aggressive brain tumor.

Resist the urge to say “I know how you feel,” she cautioned, even if your intention is simply to express empathy. “Everyone’s grief is unique,” she added.

Ask how you can help honor the pet.

Rituals are an important part of the grieving process, Dr. Crossley said, but they are sometimes overlooked when an animal dies. Perhaps your friend would welcome a memorial service, she suggested, or would like to make a memento box with photos and a few of his pet’s favorite toys.

If your friend or loved one is experiencing anticipatory grief — that is, she knows a pet is getting old or is likely to die soon — you might ask whether you can help plan any “bucket list” activities that she would like to do with her pet. You could consider giving your friend a meaningful gift. For instance, Dr. Crossley has seen people turn a pet’s water bowl into a planter. (She has a shelf where she keeps the ashes from the five dogs she has lost, along with their photos and paw prints, she noted.)

Keep in mind the physical component of your friend’s loss. “People report really intense physical longing, oftentimes comparing it to what they imagine the loss of a limb feels like,” said Judith Harbour, a veterinary social worker with the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center in New York City, who helps run pet loss support groups (which are another option for people experiencing acute grief after the passing of a pet). There is not an easy fix for that longing, she said, but sometimes an object to hold or cuddle with, like a blanket that belonged to the pet, can help.

Reminisce with your loved one.

The fact that people sometimes feel embarrassed to open up about how much they are missing their pet can contribute to feelings of loneliness and isolation, Dr. Cormier said. Simply encouraging them to share stories, photos or videos of their pet if they are up for it can help them feel less alone in their suffering, she said. And, if possible, listen more than you talk.

Be there for the long haul.

All of the experts noted the common misconception that pet-related grief doesn’t last as long as other types of grief. But it is cyclical, Dr. Cormier said, and she urged people to check in with friends and loved ones not just days or weeks after a loss, but for months or even years after the fact.

Do not ask whether your friend or loved one intends to get another pet, Ms. Harbour said. She lamented that almost everyone she had counseled after the loss of a pet had been asked that question. Mourning takes time.

“Don’t forget about them,” Ms. Harbour said of grieving pet lovers. “Check in and give them time to chat about their pet with you. That is really meaningful, because people often feel that the world is turning and time is passing and no one remembers their animal.”

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Speaking of death

— Christians have an opportunity to eschew euphemisms and talk honestly about mortality.

By Rachel Mann

When my father died a couple of years ago, my family asked me to take the lead in organizing his funeral. I was happy to take this role: I am an experienced cleric used to working with funeral directors, and I have a strong understanding of the funeral process. What I’d never previously experienced—at least not from the point of view of a grieving person—is how readily those involved in the ministrations around a death speak in euphemisms. Perhaps it was a token of my grief, but I was annoyed by how many people couldn’t even say that my dad had died; most people, including the funeral director, said, repeatedly, that he’d “passed.”

Does it matter? At one level, no. The phrase “passed away” has been used to refer to death for 500 years. Still, it troubles me theologically. I fear that the prevalence of using passed as a way of speaking (or not speaking) of death indicates a society frightened by the finality of death, one that has opted for an overly spiritualized response to the last enemy.

A common refrain in my clergy circles is about how, on visits to plan funeral services with the bereaved, the only person prepared to use the “D” word is the priest herself. The bereaved will typically resort to any number of euphemisms to avoid it. This is entirely understandable. Shock is a natural reaction to death and, as creatures of language, we may be inclined to retreat to clichés that seem to soften the blow.

Indeed, at one level, euphemisms are entirely comprehensible as strategies to avoid the things we struggle with most. As Voltaire noted, “One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.” This applies to any difficult aspect of life, not simply death. Terms like downsizing and rationalization have been used for decades in business settings to avoid speaking directly about job cuts. In almost every area of life that really matters or troubles us—from sex through to war—there are forms of words that have been found to smooth out what’s difficult.

If death is the greatest human fear, it is hardly surprising that most of us will find ways of avoiding talking about it. The sheer number of ways humans have of avoiding the “D” word is both a testament to our creativity and an indication of how much we fear death.

Yet I think one of the imperatives on us as Christians is to be as honest as we can about death. Priests in particular are called to help people to pray and prepare them for death. Ironically, in an age when Christians are often parodied as delusional fantasists, we in fact have something powerful to offer as people who model realism and honesty about death. And one way we do that is by avoiding euphemisms at the point of death. If euphemisms are deployed in part to soften the nature of something shocking and appalling, ironically they serve to draw greater attention to that which they are meant to conceal. By being carefully and humanely honest about the singular finality of death, both priests and laypeople may be key agents in helping the bereaved to come to terms with the simple fact that, in this life at least, their loved ones are gone.

I am not suggesting that Christians should be crass. I trust we will always be sensitive to death’s ability to strip any of us of our certainties. But the quiet acknowledgment of the final nature of death may be significant both pastorally and for mission. In being clear that death has a shocking finality about it, Christians—as people who are committed to resurrection and new life—may be better placed to speak the good news of Christ. One thing we should not be afraid of in our faith tradition is the bleak reality that God incarnate, Jesus Christ, actually died and died horribly. He did not fall asleep or pass over or, to quote George Eliot, “join the choir invisible.” He died, in a vile and appalling way.

Resurrection is predicated on death. This is a powerful message in an age and culture in which technology and market economics have created the illusion that life and growth are almost endless. Growth is taken to be always good—and to be fair, growth is often a sign of life. Yet Jesus invites us to remember that unless a kernel of wheat falls and dies it remains a single seed. Jesus himself models a way of living abundantly that is grounded in the unavoidable reality of death.

Increasingly I read stories of billionaires seeking to cheat death altogether. In a culture where medical technologies have extended life among the wealthy to unprecedented levels, Christianity retains a potent voice on the inescapability of death. Even more powerfully, the figure at the heart of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ, signals that a fulfilled and rich life is not by its nature dependent on its length. At a time when religious faith is often parodied as absurd, childish, and fantastical, there is a profound opportunity to speak to the privilege of individuals and societies that seek to isolate themselves from the facts of human existence.

I know that there is nothing much I can do, as an individual, about the use of passing as a euphemism for death. At the same time, I can think of no greater vocation as a person of faith than to speak honestly about death, trusting in that even deeper reality of God’s resurrection.

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