Jun 16, 2023Liked by Holly Huitt, Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
My closest, dearest Annie died with just a few months' warning in 2007. She called me two days before she passed to say "I want you to know that you have been the best friend I ever had." What she didn't know is that two other close friends had just dumped me a couple weeks before, and I was shaking in self-doubt. When I had visited (out of state) 4 months before, at the start of her diagnosis, she gave me two tiny spoons for sugar or jam. I touch them daily, and want to cry for the loss of her. And I feel her with me. The loss of friends, whether rejection or ultimate, is for me the hardest of all losses. I need to write about this, I can tell by the tears in my eyes right this moment. Feel it all. Hugs.
Two little spoons….so little and so huge. Use them everyday and remember the love and the friendship you shared. She may physically be gone, but she will always be in your heart and in those two little spoons❤️❤️🩹
Jun 16, 2023Liked by Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley, Suleika Jaouad
Thank you, beautifully written and it speaks directly to my heart as I’m sure it does for others. There may be a n idea there for me, I’ve been more or less in a “sickness unto death” place since this awful disease destroyed my inner narrative. Writing what I thought would be a fairly short remembrance of the people who’ve mattered most to me, I’ve found myself well past 125 pages. For certain entries I’ve laughed crazily and for others I’ve wept at length. I’m not sure what it all means, but the discovery process is worthwhile even if Sisyphean. Perhaps one day we may all find a place to compare notes. Meanwhile, your efforts and the room they create will more than suffice!
Suleika, I have read widely and broadly, and I truly have never experienced anyone who writes quite like you....there is a soulful unfolding as you write about your experiences that puts its arms around me, feeds a place in my soul that yearns to drink from a deeper well..a well that most often doesn't exist in our culture or seems like a mirage...... Thankful to remember Stephen and Ondrea Levine as I read along today in the comments..so many years ago their work and writing were my North Star.....holding hands this morning with you and Stephen and Ondrea. Infinite Gratitude, Carol Mills
Stephen's son (Noah Levine), and also my friend, is a Buddhist and has written a few wonderful books. Look him up. I highly recommend reading his work. They really changed my life and were written a while after I met him in 1992.
Suleika, this is so deeply, richly considered and written, so full and compassionate. Thank you.
I have been shaped by loss in ways that I am now trying again, at 70 and in another round of therapy, to understand. I’m exploring early experiences in my life that relate to my mother and her untreated anxiety, her unwillingness, probable inability, to see and deal with the shame of mental illness and lack of support to do so... and so also her inability to see me.
Nevertheless, these aren’t things that can be explained to a young child, so I still have so much confusion around my early life, and a sense of deep loss.
I’ve also had losses of my own: 5 pregnancies out of 8. The severe illness and disability of one of our 3 children.
Yet these experiences have also formed me as the pastor that I am vocationally: i am able to sit with many who are suffering, or dying, just to be a presence with someone.
What a blessing to have your voice in this world choir, Suleika. And for there to be a place for us humans to encounter each other in genuine, full-force movement. My life-partner died after a six year journey with cancer. She, Monica, graced my life with a six year lesson in living into dying. So amazing to me how We have separated living from dying, as though, somehow, humans were not truly a part of Nature’s generous Symphony. For quite awhile, after Monica died, I walked our favorite walkways, my head always hanging down. Grief was my constant “companion”. What was there, it seemed at the time, but grief and sadness. Something began to shift when I reached a readiness to carry Monica’s ashes to many of her favorite places and quietly reengage Monica, myself, and life through the discreet acts of spreading her ashes in so many places where, alive, Monica had laughed and enjoyed living. Eventually, fond memories began to take grief’s hands. It has been ten years since Monica died; has she? Physically, yes, it seems. Her openness to Beauty, to Nature, which includes, now, for me, living and dying, the turning of the seasons, has opened me more and more to this Sweet and sour journey. It is the seeming contrasts that form the whole experience. What a challenging journey. For me, now, to embrace Beauty, is to embrace every aspect of this journey, often with laughter, sometimes tears, a guffaw, a scream, in harmony and dissonance, our songs resound. Let us continue to listen to each other, dare to sing our stories, and, whether solo, or as a choir, cause the Sun to shine even more brightly. Best, David 🏮
My journey has similar tones to yours, David. I lost my David and my grief is now sweet rather than bitter. Thank you for sharing the beauty of your continuing love for Monica.
suleika--- everything you share, your beautiful words and deep understanding of human beings, your acute knowledge of grief and pain, your honesty and authenticity---- i cannot say enough wonderful things about how you share this gift you have. i am grateful for our friendship even though we have never met, you are in my daily thoughts and prayers wishing you strength and healing and blessings. shabbat shalom ✨i am definitely going to read the book you mentioned
Barb, Bill, and I all started teaching in the same school in the same year. We became fast buddies and bonded in laughter and the difficulties accompanying teaching. Every Spring, Barb would invite us to her deck, pop the cork off champagne and yell, "Freedom!" First, Bill died of cancer, and then a few years later, Barb. My pals were gone. I had never had my contemporaries die before. Spring comes and goes, and I have learned to welcome the grief of never having "The Deck" ritual again. I cry and remember. I committed myself to living life, and when I find I am living it "small," I call them both to mind and heart so that I may live it bigger! FREEDOM!
I needed this today. I have 2 cancers in remission. I have 6 friends who have and had breast cancer. 2 friends died (I think of them often), 1 is thriving, 2, I helped get better treatment and they are healing, My neighbor and friend has breast cancer and she does not understand treatment options and from her conversation, I see her doctor is lying to her, this made me angry. Angry at the medical establishment for putting money before wellness. The anger and grief are hard to carry. I want to help my friend but I need to respect her decision not to understand the consequences of doing nothing. I am at a loss at how to explain to her about the need for a second opinion. Any help will be appreciated.
Within the last year I have lost 8 precious people. I attended the memorial two days ago of the biggest loss. I am overwhelmed with grief, finding it so hard to keep my footing on this rocky precipice. Earlier this week my dear friend of 45 years told me that her husbands cancer has returned. I cannot help thinking of all the losses that are still coming. Anticipatory grief is mingling with actual grief. The uncle we celebrated this week was the father I did not have. He meant everything to me. Already, I have taken lessons from his life, his joy in loving so many. I am thinking as I write this that the memorial I might make to help me walk through these recurring losses would be to start a notebook where I write about each, remembering why I loved them and they me. Then on the facing page I will make a visual art piece that seems right for them. I think this will work for me both to memorialize them but also to celebrate our relationship. Perhaps then I will not feel quite so overwhelmed because at 72 the losses will keep coming. Thankyou Suleika. Once again you have shown me the way.
The idea of writing about them & adding art to the journal, to me is a way to process but also remember them. Beautiful testament to your connection ❤️
I’ve felt these dear friend losses from early age of high school car accidents to the after college years death from disease or drugs and even one unsolved murder...and now later in life the zillions of kinds of cancer have demolished my best friends and brothers, strokes have been sudden for my mom & other friends.
I talk to them, I call on them for guidance & help. I’m self-employed and I consider them my board of directors....I say hey Russ you were great at marketing, what the heck do I do to boost this? Or Sue, you were so ethical and clear I need that right now. I call on my mom so much I wonder when you’re ever free of your children! I’m a mom & nana, what if my heirs don’t let me rest and keep calling me? I think I’ll love it, love transcends everything. That deep connection we had is still with us. I surely miss the physical hugs & conversations but writing stories about my board of directors helps too. I keep them with me. ❤️
This is such a beautiful response to her query- thank you for posting your words which are obviously deeply felt but also magnificent in explaining exactly how you feel. It comes through Loudly and Clearly and Honestly.
Beautiful, and so giving outside of the nuclear. I grew up with loss and isolated people to grieve with-not of blood. As a grieving child, I was fearful as was my brother and we had difficulties going to sleep. Over the years, i have lost dear friends some to death others to moves and abandonment. That is life, we get up--I don't know if you have a furry friend- if not maybe they are great comfort--and they teach other as they come an go-- I have their ashes and one day we will join.. Sending loo and hugs.
You are not alone, dear Heartbroken. I have also lost friends to cancer, both my kind and other kinds. I'm part of a women's support group that honors the women we've lost each year at a retreat, saying their names and placing a carnation in the river along our retreat center. It's comforting to me knowing that after I die (I'm fine right now), my name will also be added, and I will be remembered. There are other ways of losing people, too, sadly. I've lost dear friends who couldn't cope with the cancer or its aftermath and wandered away; they are living but lost to me. Susu has wise advice for you. I would add, if you can bear to hear it, that a spiritual practice—prayer or lighting a candle, singing or art—can also help. Peace to you.
Like so many of you, I’ve had a huge amount of loss as well, most significantly the loss of my dear husband, way too young, after years of living with a rare, aggressive neoendocrine cancer. I just got off the phone with our eldest daughter, who let me know one of her best friends had a medical emergency and was without oxygen for an indeterminate amount of time and is in a non-responsive coma on a ventilator and hospital is trying to determine if she has any brain activity---this young woman has a five year old child and all our hearts are breaking. Flip side is our youngest daughter is halfway through a pregnancy with what will be our first grandchild. I will carry my lost loved ones with me forever but have experienced so many moments of beauty and bright hopefulness in the world, all the whole, that make you just long to keep you going
Your response is beautifully written with wisdom and heart. As usual you go to the depths. It’s hard to fathom how to deal with such loss, then and now. Yet you teach, with your words and your intense living. The best way to honor loved ones--live life!
My closest, dearest Annie died with just a few months' warning in 2007. She called me two days before she passed to say "I want you to know that you have been the best friend I ever had." What she didn't know is that two other close friends had just dumped me a couple weeks before, and I was shaking in self-doubt. When I had visited (out of state) 4 months before, at the start of her diagnosis, she gave me two tiny spoons for sugar or jam. I touch them daily, and want to cry for the loss of her. And I feel her with me. The loss of friends, whether rejection or ultimate, is for me the hardest of all losses. I need to write about this, I can tell by the tears in my eyes right this moment. Feel it all. Hugs.
Oh, what a gift, those two spoons. I hope you write about them. ❤️
Two little spoons, maybe they represent you and your friend. I’m deeply truly sorry for your loss(es) . The little spoons made me cry too. Much love
😢
Two little spoons….so little and so huge. Use them everyday and remember the love and the friendship you shared. She may physically be gone, but she will always be in your heart and in those two little spoons❤️❤️🩹
Thank you, beautifully written and it speaks directly to my heart as I’m sure it does for others. There may be a n idea there for me, I’ve been more or less in a “sickness unto death” place since this awful disease destroyed my inner narrative. Writing what I thought would be a fairly short remembrance of the people who’ve mattered most to me, I’ve found myself well past 125 pages. For certain entries I’ve laughed crazily and for others I’ve wept at length. I’m not sure what it all means, but the discovery process is worthwhile even if Sisyphean. Perhaps one day we may all find a place to compare notes. Meanwhile, your efforts and the room they create will more than suffice!
Querido Steven, Writing a name keeps memories warm in my heart. Seems so for you, too. Hugs, Cyn
Suleika, I have read widely and broadly, and I truly have never experienced anyone who writes quite like you....there is a soulful unfolding as you write about your experiences that puts its arms around me, feeds a place in my soul that yearns to drink from a deeper well..a well that most often doesn't exist in our culture or seems like a mirage...... Thankful to remember Stephen and Ondrea Levine as I read along today in the comments..so many years ago their work and writing were my North Star.....holding hands this morning with you and Stephen and Ondrea. Infinite Gratitude, Carol Mills
Your words, as always, ring so true for me. What a gift you are to all of us -- I appreciate your wisdom and enormous heart so much, Suleika.
Side note: Stephen Levine was the dad of one of my closest friends. His work on dying, loss, and grief is unprecedented.
What an amazing coincidence and what an amazing man. I’ve gifted his book to so many people I’ve lost track. Much love to you, Becky ♥️
Stephen's son (Noah Levine), and also my friend, is a Buddhist and has written a few wonderful books. Look him up. I highly recommend reading his work. They really changed my life and were written a while after I met him in 1992.
Suleika, this is so deeply, richly considered and written, so full and compassionate. Thank you.
I have been shaped by loss in ways that I am now trying again, at 70 and in another round of therapy, to understand. I’m exploring early experiences in my life that relate to my mother and her untreated anxiety, her unwillingness, probable inability, to see and deal with the shame of mental illness and lack of support to do so... and so also her inability to see me.
Nevertheless, these aren’t things that can be explained to a young child, so I still have so much confusion around my early life, and a sense of deep loss.
I’ve also had losses of my own: 5 pregnancies out of 8. The severe illness and disability of one of our 3 children.
Yet these experiences have also formed me as the pastor that I am vocationally: i am able to sit with many who are suffering, or dying, just to be a presence with someone.
Loss and presence are both now woven into me.
"Loss and presence are both now woven into me." Yes.
What a blessing to have your voice in this world choir, Suleika. And for there to be a place for us humans to encounter each other in genuine, full-force movement. My life-partner died after a six year journey with cancer. She, Monica, graced my life with a six year lesson in living into dying. So amazing to me how We have separated living from dying, as though, somehow, humans were not truly a part of Nature’s generous Symphony. For quite awhile, after Monica died, I walked our favorite walkways, my head always hanging down. Grief was my constant “companion”. What was there, it seemed at the time, but grief and sadness. Something began to shift when I reached a readiness to carry Monica’s ashes to many of her favorite places and quietly reengage Monica, myself, and life through the discreet acts of spreading her ashes in so many places where, alive, Monica had laughed and enjoyed living. Eventually, fond memories began to take grief’s hands. It has been ten years since Monica died; has she? Physically, yes, it seems. Her openness to Beauty, to Nature, which includes, now, for me, living and dying, the turning of the seasons, has opened me more and more to this Sweet and sour journey. It is the seeming contrasts that form the whole experience. What a challenging journey. For me, now, to embrace Beauty, is to embrace every aspect of this journey, often with laughter, sometimes tears, a guffaw, a scream, in harmony and dissonance, our songs resound. Let us continue to listen to each other, dare to sing our stories, and, whether solo, or as a choir, cause the Sun to shine even more brightly. Best, David 🏮
My journey has similar tones to yours, David. I lost my David and my grief is now sweet rather than bitter. Thank you for sharing the beauty of your continuing love for Monica.
suleika--- everything you share, your beautiful words and deep understanding of human beings, your acute knowledge of grief and pain, your honesty and authenticity---- i cannot say enough wonderful things about how you share this gift you have. i am grateful for our friendship even though we have never met, you are in my daily thoughts and prayers wishing you strength and healing and blessings. shabbat shalom ✨i am definitely going to read the book you mentioned
Barb, Bill, and I all started teaching in the same school in the same year. We became fast buddies and bonded in laughter and the difficulties accompanying teaching. Every Spring, Barb would invite us to her deck, pop the cork off champagne and yell, "Freedom!" First, Bill died of cancer, and then a few years later, Barb. My pals were gone. I had never had my contemporaries die before. Spring comes and goes, and I have learned to welcome the grief of never having "The Deck" ritual again. I cry and remember. I committed myself to living life, and when I find I am living it "small," I call them both to mind and heart so that I may live it bigger! FREEDOM!
I needed this today. I have 2 cancers in remission. I have 6 friends who have and had breast cancer. 2 friends died (I think of them often), 1 is thriving, 2, I helped get better treatment and they are healing, My neighbor and friend has breast cancer and she does not understand treatment options and from her conversation, I see her doctor is lying to her, this made me angry. Angry at the medical establishment for putting money before wellness. The anger and grief are hard to carry. I want to help my friend but I need to respect her decision not to understand the consequences of doing nothing. I am at a loss at how to explain to her about the need for a second opinion. Any help will be appreciated.
Within the last year I have lost 8 precious people. I attended the memorial two days ago of the biggest loss. I am overwhelmed with grief, finding it so hard to keep my footing on this rocky precipice. Earlier this week my dear friend of 45 years told me that her husbands cancer has returned. I cannot help thinking of all the losses that are still coming. Anticipatory grief is mingling with actual grief. The uncle we celebrated this week was the father I did not have. He meant everything to me. Already, I have taken lessons from his life, his joy in loving so many. I am thinking as I write this that the memorial I might make to help me walk through these recurring losses would be to start a notebook where I write about each, remembering why I loved them and they me. Then on the facing page I will make a visual art piece that seems right for them. I think this will work for me both to memorialize them but also to celebrate our relationship. Perhaps then I will not feel quite so overwhelmed because at 72 the losses will keep coming. Thankyou Suleika. Once again you have shown me the way.
The idea of writing about them & adding art to the journal, to me is a way to process but also remember them. Beautiful testament to your connection ❤️
I am inspired by your idea. Thank you for sharing it. And my greatest sympathy to you for all of your losses. So many, I am so so sorry.
I’ve felt these dear friend losses from early age of high school car accidents to the after college years death from disease or drugs and even one unsolved murder...and now later in life the zillions of kinds of cancer have demolished my best friends and brothers, strokes have been sudden for my mom & other friends.
I talk to them, I call on them for guidance & help. I’m self-employed and I consider them my board of directors....I say hey Russ you were great at marketing, what the heck do I do to boost this? Or Sue, you were so ethical and clear I need that right now. I call on my mom so much I wonder when you’re ever free of your children! I’m a mom & nana, what if my heirs don’t let me rest and keep calling me? I think I’ll love it, love transcends everything. That deep connection we had is still with us. I surely miss the physical hugs & conversations but writing stories about my board of directors helps too. I keep them with me. ❤️
This is such a beautiful response to her query- thank you for posting your words which are obviously deeply felt but also magnificent in explaining exactly how you feel. It comes through Loudly and Clearly and Honestly.
Beautiful, and so giving outside of the nuclear. I grew up with loss and isolated people to grieve with-not of blood. As a grieving child, I was fearful as was my brother and we had difficulties going to sleep. Over the years, i have lost dear friends some to death others to moves and abandonment. That is life, we get up--I don't know if you have a furry friend- if not maybe they are great comfort--and they teach other as they come an go-- I have their ashes and one day we will join.. Sending loo and hugs.
You are not alone, dear Heartbroken. I have also lost friends to cancer, both my kind and other kinds. I'm part of a women's support group that honors the women we've lost each year at a retreat, saying their names and placing a carnation in the river along our retreat center. It's comforting to me knowing that after I die (I'm fine right now), my name will also be added, and I will be remembered. There are other ways of losing people, too, sadly. I've lost dear friends who couldn't cope with the cancer or its aftermath and wandered away; they are living but lost to me. Susu has wise advice for you. I would add, if you can bear to hear it, that a spiritual practice—prayer or lighting a candle, singing or art—can also help. Peace to you.
Like so many of you, I’ve had a huge amount of loss as well, most significantly the loss of my dear husband, way too young, after years of living with a rare, aggressive neoendocrine cancer. I just got off the phone with our eldest daughter, who let me know one of her best friends had a medical emergency and was without oxygen for an indeterminate amount of time and is in a non-responsive coma on a ventilator and hospital is trying to determine if she has any brain activity---this young woman has a five year old child and all our hearts are breaking. Flip side is our youngest daughter is halfway through a pregnancy with what will be our first grandchild. I will carry my lost loved ones with me forever but have experienced so many moments of beauty and bright hopefulness in the world, all the whole, that make you just long to keep you going
Your response is beautifully written with wisdom and heart. As usual you go to the depths. It’s hard to fathom how to deal with such loss, then and now. Yet you teach, with your words and your intense living. The best way to honor loved ones--live life!