Growth and Remembrance: What to Expect Your Third Year of Grief

Does grief get smaller over time, or do we instead we grow larger around it?

Two years after trauma of the death we typically move into a period of healing and self-correction.  The third year after a death is a time of re-calibrating and rebuilding your body, heart, and brain. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3ZshOc5

We previously presented information about grieving and what may be expected during the second year of grief. In this podcast we discuss the third year of grieving the death of a loved one. We bring back Claire Luckey, who has been sharing her journey as a millennial widow who lost her husband to brain cancer 3-1/2 years ago.  Claire talks about the growth she has experienced alongside the fading but recurring pain with remembrances of her husband.

Note that what happens in each year after a death is very individual experience; what we discuss is what may be typically experienced while acknowledging it may not be your experience. 

Be sure to visit our website's "Topics" menu for many more episodes about grief and healing from trauma: https://every1dies.org/category/topics/grief/

In this Episode:
01:54 - How Was Your Thanksgiving?
05:24 - Recipe - Oklahoma Onion Burger
05:56 - Andrew Garfield and Elmo Explain Grief on Sesame Street
08:16 - What to Expect the Third Year of Grief
13:55 - Claire Luckey - Experiencing Growth in the Third Year
55:25 - Outro

#findingmyselfagain #healing #growth #grief #millennialgrief #widow #everyonedies #deathpositive #palliativecare #everydayisagift 

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:00 What to Expect the Third Year of Grief
• 1:52 How Was Your Thanksgiving?
• 5:24 Recipe - Oklahoma Onion Burger
• 5:56 Andrew Garfield and Elmo Explain Grief on Sesame Street
• 8:16 Claire Luckey - Growth in the Third Year
• 55:25 Outro

Transcript

Growth-and-Remembrance-What-to-Expect-Your-Third-Year-of-Grief

This podcast does not provide medical nor legal advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording. Hello and welcome to Everyone Dies, the podcast where we talk about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement.

I'm Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I used my experience from working as a nurse for 46 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarette, an actor in New York City, and here to offer an every-person viewpoint to our podcast. We are here because we both believe that the more you know, the better prepared you are to make difficult end-of-life decisions.

So welcome to this week's show. Please relax, get yourself a cup of leftover holiday punch and a slice of apple pie. We hope your Thanksgiving was, well, thankful, and we thank you for spending the next hour with Charlie and me as we talk about what you might expect during your third year of grieving after the death of someone you care about.

Like the BBC, we see our show as offering entertainment, enlightenment, and education, and divide it into three halves to address each of these goals. Our main topic is in the second half, so feel free to fast forward to that flight of idea-free zone. In the first half, Charlie has our recipe of the week and talks about Elmo's skills during an interview with Andrew Garfield.

In the second and third half, I'm going to talk about what you may expect grieving to be like in the third year after a loved one's death, and we welcome back Claire Lucky, known on Instagram as the Grieving Bitch. She has been a frequent guest on our show, talking with us about her experiences as a millennial widow following her husband Matt's death from a brain tumor. She returns this week to give us an update about her third year of grieving.

So, Charlie, how was your Thanksgiving? Um, it was, it was turkey-ish. Um, yeah, everything, well, okay, let's just get down to the best text. Gravy, and not gravy in a good way.

Um, I, I don't... Do you just drink it in a cup, or...? Ooh, drinking gravy, maybe with the right bourbon. Okay, something to keep in mind for, uh, for Christmas. Yeah, you know, the thing of it is, I don't know what it is about New York, but people just keep dialing things up, adding all these foo-foo ingredients.

Why can't I just find a plain, simple, unadorned gravy for the turkey? So, did you? No, and I actually, and I actually... Don't they have, don't they have just plain old gravy in a can at the grocery store? Oh, I don't want any crap from a can. I want the real stuff, homemade, like my mama used to make, and like my sister made. Ah, so there's the issue.

Yes. It doesn't take mom, it tastes like mom's. It doesn't, it doesn't taste like mom's, because people put all sorts of ingredients in this thing.

You know, um, um, I don't know, like some, I've had things that look like half brown in gravy, and it's like, no, that's not what gravy should be. A flavorful gravy is fine, but gravy filled with things I just can't identify? No. My mom used to put the chopped up giblets from the turkey in there.

There we are. At least, you know, at least, at least it's part of, of that. So, that.

I bake them, I bake them, and I chop them up for the dogs. I don't put them in the gravy. Oh, anyway.

How was yours? What do you got for us this week? Oh, mine? Yeah. It was quiet. It was quiet.

Our son is, um, being promoted to a full colonel in the Air Force. Resolutions. So, David, David is in Belgium for that.

Um, he's, Marcus asked David to uh, pin him. So, um, David's in his full dress general uniform, and, uh, he's gonna, he's doing the ceremony there. Excellent.

Congratulations. You know, and it's, and it's, and on a side note, it's great David still fits into his uniform. Oh, God, yeah.

Yeah. That man's been the same weight since he was 20 years old. Really? Nice.

Well, he runs six days a week, so. Oh, great. Yeah.

Well, and speaking of traveling, our travels this week take us to Oklahoma, where the winds come sweeping down the range and the home of the onion burger. An Oklahoma onion burger is small, even humble, but oh, so flavorful. And I'm going to tell you this, if you've ever had a Crystal's burger or a White Castle burger, and on a side note, I have had plenty, the Oklahoma onion burger is going to taste oddly familiar.

The Oklahoma onion burger spawned those classic sandwiches, and you'll recognize it in just one bite. And then every bite after, you devour your new favorite funeral lunch offering. Bon Appetit.

Elmo, of Sesame Street fame, had a visit from Andrew Garfield, of Spider-Man fame, who explained his grief over his dead mother to Elmo. I miss her a lot. Garfield has been hitting the promotional trail for his new film, We Live in Time, that included a promotional interview on Sesame Street.

A video of Garfield discussing the death of his mother with Elmo and the complicated forms that his grief has taken was released online. I'm just thinking about my mom today, he tells Elmo. She passed away not too long ago, and I miss her a lot.

Elmo tells Garfield that he gets sad when he misses people, but Garfield replies that sadness is a kind of gift. It's a lovely thing to feel, in a way, because it means you really love somebody when you miss them. It makes me feel close to her when I miss her.

It is unusual to discuss grief with a Muppet, yet there is no doubt that Garfield is being utterly sincere. He stumbles over some of his lines, his eyes tear up as he speaks, and Elmo was able to help him. This must have been some comfort, because there's something about Elmo, some innate puppet magic, that allows whoever he's talking with to be the version of themselves that they most are.

Look in the show notes for the link to the video where Andrew Garfield and Elmo discuss grief. And please go to our web page for this week's recipe for Oklahoma Onion Burger and additional resources for this program. Everyone Dies is offered at no cost, but is not free to produce.

Please contribute what you can. Your tax-deductible gift will go directly to supporting our non-profit journalism, so that we can remain accessible to everyone. You can also donate at www.everyonedies.org. That's every, the number one, dies.org. Or at our site on Patreon, www.patreon.com and search for Everyone Dies.

Marianne. Thanks, Charlie. We have previously presented information about grieving in general and what may be expected during the second year of grief.

Today, we move into the third year of grieving, the death of a loved one. As with any aspect of grief, your grief is your own. What happens in each year after death is very individual.

So what I'm going to tell you today is what may be typically experienced. It may not be your experience. The third year is a time of recalibrating and rebuilding your body, heart, and brain.

Two years after trauma of the death, we move into a healing and self-correction phase. There are still surges of sadness, missing our loved one, yearning for them. These feelings are not as prominent as they once were.

Also, we're not the same person we once were at the beginning of developing into the person we will become while trying to figure out who that person is and what that person wants and needs. There's little scientific evidence regarding how life changes over time after a death. One published by Wilcox and colleagues is a longitudinal study of 50 to 79-year-olds, meaning they looked at the same people over a three-year period.

Using surveys and medical data, Wilcox group first focused on the responses of 72,247 women who had been widowed in the past year, widowed for more than one year, or married. The researchers then examined a three-year follow-up data of 55,724 of those women. Their findings document that a widow by three years after the death have largely overcome grief-related problems such as depression, social isolation, bodily pains, and poor eating habits.

Compared with married women, widows reported worse physical and emotional health and less healthful daily habits including irregular exercise and failing to eat fruits and vegetables. These problems were greater in recent widows. Three years later, these women reported distinct improvements in mental health and social activity with smaller gains in physical health.

The death of a spouse may have relieved many of these women from the strain of constant caregiving or allowed them to seek support from friends or mental health workers, the researchers theorized. The findings underscore the resilience of older women faced with the sea of changes in their lives. Beth July wrote in a blog post, quote, three years after losing my husband, I honestly say I'm in a healthy and happy place.

Mr. Stile will forever live on in my heart because he was one of the most important people in my life and always will be. Most days when I think of him, it is with a joyful heart. Although I know too well there will be days when missing him seems almost unbearable.

To all of us who have suffered the loss of a loved one, move forward at your own pace and don't be afraid to feel the pain. Spend time with your grief and allow yourself to heal. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen the jars with the balls in them, but it's a picture of how grief changes with time.

And if you look in the show notes, you can see a picture of this. So imagine three jars all the same size. In the first jar, there's a huge ball.

In the second jar, there's a medium-sized ball. And in the third jar, there's a small ball. And it's supposed to rep the ball represents grief, but our grief isn't what shrinks over time.

The ball doesn't get smaller. Now imagine three jars, a small one, a medium, and a large ball. Now imagine three jars, a small jar, a medium jar, and a large jar.

And in that jar, and in those jars are three balls, and the balls are all the same size. And that is more of what you will see or feel in grief. The jar gets bigger.

We grow around our grief, but the grief itself doesn't get smaller. How we react and how we feel about the grief is taking up less space in our jar over time. In the words of Anne Lamott, quote, you will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken.

And the bad news is that you will never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But there's also good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up.

And you come through. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly. It still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with a limp, end quote.

So now let's have a listen to what Claire Lucky has to say about her third year of grieving. Hello, and we are here with Claire Lucky, who went on Instagram. You can find her as the grieving bitch, unless that's changed.

I haven't asked her yet. But we met Claire over a course of probably the first maybe two, two and a half years of her widowhood after her husband Matt died from a brain tumor. And Matt has been dead for about three and a half years now.

He died on Father's Day. And so we're recording this in November. And so it's been about three and a half years.

And we haven't talked with Claire in a year and a half, because we are terribly remiss. Actually, she's been on my mind. And her birthday was the other day, and I wished her happy birthday.

And then I said, you know what, we really need to talk. So here I am with Claire Lucky. Claire, welcome.

Hi, Marianne. So great to talk to you again. I know I've missed you.

Me too. I've missed you also. You don't have to say that, but I have missed you.

So, you know, we talked through your first year of grieving and we talked through your second year of grieving. We did a podcast on both of those, you know, second year of grieving. So what can you tell us about the third year of grieving? The emotion is still right there.

I think I have probably made more peace with the fact that I'm not going to get over the loss of my husband. And that grief is a complete phenomenon. And I think that I have some peace.

And I think I'm not in a choke hold, like I used to be in the first two years of grief. I feel like that colored every single day a little bit more like I was on a roller coaster and I didn't know when it was going to start or stop. And I think now in the third year, I'm a little bit better at knowing when I'm going to have a good day or a bad day and how I can sit down and step back.

But just last night, I had all these emotions take over me. Last night, I was with a bunch of people from grad school and we were at karaoke. And the people in grad school are about my age.

They're all in their mid 30s. And they're in a different stage of life. So a lot of them are either married and considering kids, have kids, or they're with a partner that they've been with for a while and maybe considering marriage.

And there's quite a few other single people. But anyway, we were at karaoke together and there was about 40 of us. And then this song, we were all singing together.

It was really more like a sing-along than karaoke. But we were singing this song by Ed Sheeran, All of Me. And then there's something about seeing the lyrics and then singing it together with that full group.

It made me so emotional. It made me think of, my laugh came up so much that I thought I was going to cry in front of everyone and everybody else was so happy. And they were all drinking.

So there's that. And I'm not drinking this semester because I need every brain cell that I can muster to get through accounting. So I didn't have that barrier between my emotions.

And so they were right there. And I was just like, I think somebody noticed that I wasn't okay, but she was like across the room and I was just not making eye contact with her because she doesn't know I'm a widow and I can't get into it at like 11 o'clock at night, but in that huge setting. So I ended up leaving like, I don't know, 30 minutes or so after.

And on the subway ride home, I was just bawling. It just came up. So I think sometimes these things creep up on you and it's okay.

Well, yes. I think we've talked about this a lot, but it will forever. I haven't had the death of a husband, but I've had two sisters die and my mother died.

And sometimes I'll smell juicy through gum and I'll get tears in my eyes because that was my dad's gum. And that smell, you don't smell it that often anymore. I don't know that many people chew it, but when I smell it, it's like takes me right back or something will happen and I'll want to talk with my sisters and I can't.

And so I don't know that you get this sobby after almost 20 years for some of those deaths and way longer for others, but that emotional reaction will still come. And I guess what I hear you saying is that in some sense you're at peace with that and knowing that that's going to happen. Is that accurate? Yeah, that's accurate.

I think in the first two years, I was probably maybe less than the second year, more in the first year, I was more like, okay, what can I do to stop this? Maybe I can be different. Maybe I don't have to have this forever. Maybe it can just go away.

And I think now I agree. It's like, I just accepted that these emotions are going to come up. And I also think that that's nice that I'm capable of having these emotions.

Now, something you said is that you don't feel like it has a choke hold on you and you don't feel like you're on the roller coaster anymore. Do you know, or do you feel like you know when these things are going to occur or are they just kind of smack you in the head? They are. I think some things I can plan to be a mess, quite frankly.

I think the month of June is the worst month for me because Matt died on June 21st. So even if I try to say, oh, everything's fine. I know that that month is just, I have to slow myself down because these emotions are going to come up and my body's going to keep the score.

And I think in terms of events, weddings are difficult for me. So I just have to plan to have an excuse to leave early if I need to. And other social events can be challenging for me.

I'm used to, I mean, I'm used to go, and even though I'm just a month in or two months into school, I'm used to going to school and work and being okay and not really being triggered. But I think it's some certain events for me that will get me and the events that make me, that highlight this normal life. Like you go through regular school, you get married, you have 2.5 kids.

So it's events that highlight the normal life that usually trigger me a little. And the other, and other situations that are really routine, mundane, I can, I have a good sense on. And then there's always just the wild card of like going to karaoke and just getting teared up and knowing you just have to, I just have to leave.

And I think there's sometimes if I'm with a group of people, or if I'm with someone that knows that I'm a widow and how I lost my husband, then I can maybe cry on their shoulder. But if there's no one there that I've told yet, then I have to, I have to leave because I, if I don't want to tell the story when I'm triggered, because that'll just make it worse. And then they'll say something stupid and then I'll get upset.

So I think I have that foresight that I didn't have in the first year. Like, you know what the sequelae of events is going to be. And you just say, we're just not going to do that.

I'll just go cry on the subway. So I was wondering when you're talking about, you know, I, I can relate to, you know, that mid 30 years, I can remember when I was in my mid 30s and my, my friends were having babies and I wasn't in a place or a relationship to do that. And how do you, do you find that that piece of it is, is difficult, looking at these people around you starting their families and knowing that the dream that you have with now isn't going to happen or wasn't going to happen right now? I think, I think it's more for the relationship.

I think that is what gets me when I see people getting, getting married or getting engaged, then, then that really brings up something for me. But at the same time, I'm happy for them that they can have it. So I'm, I'm, I'm excited for them genuinely, but there's two emotions coexisting.

There's, there's happiness for them. And then there's the sadness that I didn't get that. And it's, it's easier for me when I see other people have children, because for me, it's always been a no I'm childless by choice.

And that I'm not really envious of, but I'm happy to be in their village with their children. I've said that too. I have a few child-free with female friends in my life, and I call us the village people, where it takes a village to raise a child, and we're happy to be in their village.

And it, and it does, it's always good to have aunties. My, my girls grew up like this, my entire faculty, we had a small faculty, there were eight or nine of us, but my girls called everyone on the faculty Auntie Brenda or Auntie Sue or Auntie Char-Char, you know, like they were aunties. And it wasn't until we moved from my job that the girls said, they're not really our aunties are they? And they didn't realize that until then.

Yeah, it was hard because, you know, these women who they moved from, you know, their beginning of consciousness, you know, my husband would bring them in for lunch. And, you know, they'd, I mean, everybody knew them because they would come and they were breastfed. So they would, you know, they were around a lot because they needed to eat.

So, um, those aunties from, from point of view of have, having had a couple kids was really important to me and to them. So I don't believe you have to have your own to really be a good parent, you know, really relied on those women. Um, one of the things I remember, I think it was maybe on your second wedding anniversary that you put your wedding dress on.

And I'm wondering on your third and your fourth wedding anniversary, do you still do that? Yeah, I did not. I honestly, I was this past anniversary on September 14th. I was so overwhelmed with the mixture of doing graduate school and working at the same time.

And it just so happened to be a really busy month at work that I didn't, I didn't do anything. And I, I just laid at home and I made sure I ate extra dessert that day. And, and I'm okay with that because I think I also had, I think this, this can happen during grief is that you maybe in the, in the beginning, you're like, okay, I'm going to do this pomp and circumstance every year.

And I think this past year I was like, I can't do it. I just like, I just had to sit down and and I, I, Matt is going to have to be okay with that. And from what you've said about Matt, he's perfectly fine with that.

Is that sound right? Yeah, I think so. I think, I think that's totally accurate. He, he would have been like, babe, I'm so proud of you for, for doing what you did going to school.

I think he's, he's very happy looking down on me. Mm-hmm. So what do you see ahead, you know, as you, so, well, wait a minute.

So we talked about the third year grieving, but you're three and a half then. So what's the fourth year of grieving? Do you have any sense of that yet? Not, not yet. I, well, I actually have gotten into a rhythm at my day job where every year I do some sort of talk for the people at work about my story.

And I, I just share it in an intimate setting and talk about some of the things I did when I was a caregiver or after death. And this, this time around, we made it more interactive and people were bringing some of the stuff that they experienced and something really tragically magical happened where I connected with another young woman who is about, I think she's in her late twenties, I mean, approaching 30. And her husband actually was diagnosed with glioblastoma and he's at the, he's about five years.

He's almost at the five year mark, which is remarkable. And she, she, and she and I have been connecting one-on-one since, since then. And we only met each other in August, but what I am happy to do is have this one-on-one relationship with her because I know how important that was for me.

And when I was going through it, I, I found a glioblastoma mentor and I, um, sometimes, sometimes I think I, I wouldn't have survived without her. So I think that, I think being able to give back to this colleague of mine and make sure that I can be there for her and anybody else that kind of comes across my path is really important to me. It doesn't mean that, um, that every, you know, for me, I, well, the, also the other thing that comes up is I don't want to say everything happens for a reason cause that's bullshit, but it just makes me feel a little bit better that I can give to someone.

And I think that's probably what the fourth year holds for me. I haven't told all of my classmates that I'm a widow yet, but I am, we do this thing at school where we can do a presentation about ourselves and I'm going to do a presentation to the full class about me and I'm going to go through the story. And I'm that's, I think that's what I want to continue to do every year is make sure that I'm in front of people and talking about this because I know I'm not the only one.

And I know there's so much room to grow for my millennial age group on dealing with loss. And we, we just need to stick together. We have funny in education.

We, how we teach is we, um, you know, show somebody how to do it, have them do it, and then have them teach someone else how to do it. And what you're talking about sounds like that same model. You know, it's like we talk about it, you know, you went and you've lived through this, through what you're going through, you're living through it.

And now you're kind of at the point where you can share it, teach it, if you will, you know, mentor somebody and, and be able to be, to be helpful in that. Yeah. I, I think that's a great model.

The, the showing someone doing it with them and teaching someone all that. You said it better than me, but I think, I think that's critical for grief. I don't think there's a rule book.

I think there is interaction. And so are you still doing your dance? Is that a self-care thing you're still doing? Oh, yes. Yes.

You still dancing? No. Yeah. I have to, I, I, I think the thing I'm giving up more is sleep, but I'm unwilling to give up dance.

Unwilling. Good. And I, I think I looked for you on, um, you know, the grieving bitch and did you shut that down or what happened? No, I it's still there.

I just haven't really been making any memes. So it's up. I just made it pride.

I made it like where you have to request me and then I'll, and then I'll accept you. So I just put in a little, a little extra step for people to request me. And then, and then I'll, I'll let everybody in, uh, the other, I mean, sometimes I think about dabbling and creating more memes, but I was going through them last night and I'm so proud of them.

They're so funny. So I'm glad they're there. Yeah.

And you were working on planning your funeral with a company or something. Did you ever do that? Yeah, we did a Instagram live reality series where we planned my funeral and I got my parents involved. And that is also on grieving bitch.

It's in my, my reels. So it was like an eight week journey where we talked about what my, my plan would be if I were to die tomorrow. And there were all these little bumps along the way.

Like, of course, my parents don't know where my, my passwords are for my email accounts. And of course they don't know, actually, I still don't even fully know what I want to do with my own funeral. I have some ideas down and I did be, you know, the, um, the healthcare directives because that's, that's really important.

Yeah. And then I, I also came out with the idea for sure. I know I want to be cremated, but I also came out with the idea.

I think for my funeral, I want to give out my ashes in disco balls. There's the Claire, I know. Right.

How did you come up with that? I, I think we, we were talking about being able to give away funeral gifts or like funeral swag. And I really latched onto that idea. And, and that's what I thought.

Cause there's, there's so many, I mean, Matt has so much ashes. I think that's also something that nobody talks about is the amount of ashes that you have. And it's, it can be overwhelming for the bereaved.

So I just figured it would be nice if I gave people like a little piece of me and they can spread me wherever. Cause I want to really diversify my ashes, you know, like throw me everywhere. So I figure I, I think, I don't know if I want to make a key chain, but it's key chain disco balls with some ash for everyone.

Oh, yeah. Might have to look into legality of that though. Cause there's something in my head that says that like my brother-in-law gave me some of my sister's ashes, but he gave me this piece of paper because they're human ashes and human remains and something, something's in my head that you might have to give them a little piece of paper that says, you know, they didn't like burn somebody and they just start carrying it around or whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. I hear you.

I mean, that's, that's what, I can't believe like the hoops that we have to jump through sometimes to do something so much fun, but yeah, we'll get the paper. Well, yeah, it's just, it's something that's like in my head and maybe that's just from 20 years ago and nobody's requiring it anymore, but you know, I'd hate to have your ashes and a disco ball key chain and then get arrested, Claire, just, you know, it would be a buzzkill. Total buzzkill.

So what else do you want to tell our listeners? Is there anything in terms of a catch up or a aha moment from, you know, this last year that, you know, you think the listeners have been following you all along need to know? I think I have more memories of the relationship I had with Matt more so than the times that we were in hospital and I was caring for him at end of life. And I think that that's a relief for me. And I think it's because I just, I think how, I don't know the science behind it, but I think memory works in a way that if it's a few years ago, your brain starts to move it to the long term.

And I really have to dig for some of those memories now. Like when I was, for example, when I was talking to the other woman who had, her husband has glioblastoma, she was explaining to me how she found out. And then I, when she was explaining to me, I started to cry because then it came up for me how it happened to Matt.

And then I reflected on that after, and I was, and I thought, oh, it's because it's, it's far away in my mind. So, so basically what I'm saying is I'm glad now that I have to go digging for some of those hard memories. And sometimes, you know, maybe it'll just pop up in a particular situation, but I'm having less of those flashbacks of being in the hospital or, or some of the harder moments.

And that is something I'm really grateful for. And now it's mostly just, I miss him and there's a longing for Matt and there's memories of our relationship that come up more so. You know, I think, I think a lot of probably what it is, Claire, is, you know, how matured women talk about, you know, like giving birth to a child and it's this horrific pain and that kind of thing.

And then when it's over, it's over, you know, it's sort of like, yeah, it really hurt, but I have this baby, you know, and I think that there is this mechanism within our brain that kind of lets the bad things, the painful things that happened to us, recede, and you have to really go looking for them, you know, maybe as a coping mechanism and the good things they're, they're right there. Yeah. And I'm glad that my brain finally let it go.

Sometimes I, I think the other, another thing is for me personally, I am an anxious person. It's a predisposition that I have. And I think I, going through the post-traumatic stress and the grief together, there was some part of my brain that was thinking I have to, I have to continue to use these skills.

And then my brain finally said, no, no, nobody's dying again. Your husband's not dying again. You can, you can use all those skills that now you need to learn accounting.

Now you need to learn statistics, which is painful in a different way. And, and there's, I was, another thing that that's kind of going on right now, and it's not as, it's not as bad as the first or second year of grief, but something that, that, that I had to deal with for a few days was I'm really like, why am I so, why am I so anxious about school? And like, why am I so freaked out about some of these deadlines? And then I thought, oh, it's probably because the last time I was balancing work with something else was work and caregiving to my husband that was terminally ill. So I think I was reverting to that perfectionist.

Oh my God, I have to do this by that deadline. And, and it's just not that way. If I miss an assignment or get a bad grade on the test, it's not, it's just, nobody's going to die.

It's, it's, it's not the end of the world, but I think I've, since I've been able to articulate that now, I'm just even more calm about it. So I think the calling out, oh, this is where that's coming from, that that's where, that's where this is hurting me. I think that action I didn't have in the first year per se, it was just all a hot mess.

Right. And I'm glad that I have some of the, the call-out skills now. Well, is that, that perspective that you begin to develop over time in terms of how things fit into your life and what's urgent and what's not, and what's really important? You know, you have a perspective of, I would think probably a much older person because the experience you've had is not the typical experience of a 32, 33 year old woman when you were going through that, right? That's not what young women are typically doing at that age.

And so you have to learn how to do it and then you have to learn how to cope with it and how to continue to do all the other things that, you know, regular 30, mid 30 year old person has to do. So it's a major upheaval beyond the sort of quote unquote normal upheaval of becoming a widow and caring for a terminally ill husband. Yeah.

That part, I understand where you're coming from and many people say it to me and internally, I feel like it's so normal. I still have that sense of looking at someone that's my age that's married with, or, you know, just at a different, you know, basically with a husband that's alive. I'll just like, I'm just like, what, how does that? I'm like, that's just, it's just like, oh, that's normal for you.

Like this, it's just my reality. So I feel like I went from normal girl from New Jersey to not to counter culture in, in a matter of a year until, you know, someone that JD Vance hates. And I'm like, well, you know, I'm sorry, you feel that way.

I do appreciate what you're saying. And maybe it's, um, maybe it's something in the sixth or seventh or eighth or 10th year of grieving that you're able to say, this wasn't, you know, the normal 30 year old experience. And, oh my God, what an incredible woman I am that I did this and I survived and I grew.

And, you know, I don't, I don't think it doesn't sound like you see that yet, but I think you will. Yeah. I, I also appreciate that comment that I don't see it yet.

I think I'm 37 right now, just turned, that was the age I just turned. And I, I have a feeling when I get to 40, there's going to be a lot of feelings. And I also think I'll be coming into my bad bitch era.

And I think some of that, the confidence work that I'm trying to do now will probably pay off. And I, I think theoretically I should be approaching life like full force, like, oh my God, I just did that. But I think losing my husband in the manner in which I did has taken such a toll on me.

And I think I've tried so much to, to stop his death. And I still hear, think I still have days where I think, damn it, I can't, I couldn't say them. And I think that's some of where some of the perfectionism grew was like, if I just give him all of his meds on time, if I just get them to the doctors, if I just do everything by the book and do it to the letter of the law, he'll survive.

So I think I'm still in a place where I'm feeling like a, like it's a failure, but hopefully within time that'll change. I believe it will. That's like, isn't Gideon's book, um, the, you know, the, the magical thinking kind of thing, you know, that, that there's, there are things we control that we really don't.

Like, I just saw, I don't know if you've seen it. There's a 2023, um, or documentary is maybe four parts on the Kennedy assassination. It's like the last two days and it's interviews with people who were there at the time who are now 90 some years old.

And one of the guys that they interview is the secret service agent that his job was to protect, um, Jackie. And here he is at 91 years old, 60 years after this happened, tears in his eyes in this interview and saying, my job was to protect them. And I failed at my job.

And I think there must've been something that I could have done. And I'm working to him thinking, what could you have done? They didn't know what was going to happen is in a moving car. I mean, after 60 years, he is still feeling and verbalizing that he didn't do what he was supposed to do.

I saw something that you said really hit me home just now. Is it the magical thinking? I think, yeah, I think that's, what's going on for both of us. I think he had some magical thinking that he could do something.

And I also had magical thinking I could do something. And I, I better not be sitting here. And even five years, I'll give myself till 40.

I better shake that. And I, I really, I really do want to somehow internalize that there was nothing I could do. There was, and there was nothing that Matt could do.

Right. Because he would have done it. You would have done it.

But some, and I think that's something as humans that we don't want to accept is that so much of life is just so random. And that we have as much as we think or we want to have control, we really don't. Yeah, I can barely control my cat.

I agree. We can control cats. But, you know, it's like we, that's like a hard thing to give up.

It's a hard feeling to give up is like we, especially I think as Americans, we, you know, that whole, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and you can do anything you set your mind to doing, but it's not true. Yeah. And the, the resilience culture is you have to be so resilient.

And yeah, it's just such BS. I was actually talking to my therapist. I, well, I wasn't actually, I still see my therapist twice a week.

And she, we were discussing the positivity effect and she was like, you know, negativity, negativity is so underrated. And I was like, thank you. This is why she's my therapist.

But what, tell me more about what she meant by that. So she, she actually just got injured and she, she's okay now, but she, she broke a few ribs and a lot of her clients were telling her, Oh, you know, feel better or this, or like, you know, asking her about her progress. And she said, it just, it made her feel like she was doing something wrong by not healing.

And I think that's so true. I think people just want progress. And I think, you know, when something bad happens and, and just even just an injury, I think sitting with your feelings is really important.

And I think you should be sitting with your negative feelings because if you don't sit with them, then they're, they're going to come back tenfold. Or in some other way, right? Exactly. This is, this is why I also said earlier that I was happy that I was crying on the subway and I feel like nice that I could indulge in, in a moment of sadness.

And I don't want to take that away from myself. And I cry usually within every 72 hour period, at least. And I'm happy about that.

And I know there's a lot of people out there that, that don't do things like that. And I actually, you know, don't let themselves. Right.

Yeah. And I wonder about them. Well, I, I always, I always say the, the Shrek line, you know, Shrek would fart and he'd say better out than in.

And that's how I feel about grief. You know, let it out. It's better out than in.

Amen. Amen. Well, can we make this a yearly birthday chat so that we can continue to learn from the terrible hard work that, that, that has been given you to do? Heck yeah.

Cool. Well, thank you, Claire. I love talking to you and I really appreciate you sharing your, your heart with us.

Me too. What fun. Thank you.

So Charlie, do you find that your grief is changing over time? Yes, it has. It's now for long time listeners know that my son was killed four and a half years ago. He was, he was 21 years old.

And it's funny, Marianne, as you were, as you were talking, I realized, okay, one, one of the times that was most difficult for me was Halloween. Because I, I still remember, you know, he was what, about two years old, when two and a half, when he went trick or treating for the first time, and he was cognizant of it, and just didn't understand the concept of, okay, say trick or treat, and someone will put candy in your little, you know, little plastic pumpkin. Yeah, but after the first door, and he did that, and he saw someone throw in a candy bar, he just started running to the next house.

He, you know, slow down, daddy ate as young as he used to be. And that first year, when, you know, after he, after he was killed, the, you know, Marianne, I was just, you know, just grocery shopping. I just lost it in the candy aisle.

There are all those, you know, those little miniature candies. Yeah, I just lost it. The following year, I'd forgotten about that, and I didn't lose it, but I just, it was, it was still difficult.

Yeah, but last, last year, you know, this, sorry, this year, I mean, it was, it was the first time, and I just realized that now, speaking with you, I didn't even think about it when I saw the little candies. But to your point, I mean, it'll always be there, and I just, when I need to take the time to, you know, think about him, feel, you know, sadness, yeah, I just take that time. There's rarely anything I'm doing that I can't stop doing.

Not always, but the times I can, I just tell myself, okay, finish, finish this up, and then, you know, go sit down, read a book, take a walk, have a martini, yeah, whatever. But it's just that, just, you know, acknowledge it, and take that time, and like you said, it's not going to go away, and it's fine. But yeah, that, just, you know, give yourself what you need.

Yeah, and sometimes people have some grief about feeling that way. Yeah, yes, yes, yes. And, and we're, we're here to say that's normal.

Yeah. That's, that's normal when, when that ball is taking up less space in your jar. Yeah.

But it's there, it'll, it will always be there, and that's it. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it was very nice to hear from Claire again. And that's it for this week's episode. Please stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies, and thank you for listening.

This is Charlene Everett, and from author and podcaster Nora McKierney, we don't move on from grief, we move forward with it. And I'm Marianne Matzo, and we'll see you next week. Remember, celebrate the people that you miss, and be thankful that you knew them.

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