Surviving the Waves: Tips on How to Live Alongside Grief

Grief is often described as waves that can crash through our lives like a tsunami. But what if you can learn to float, and eventually swim forward in the midst of that grief? We discuss how in this episode today as we also hear advice to someone grieving a friend, a father who lost a son, and a husband who lost his lifelong love to Alzheimer's. https://bit.ly/48gPjBq

#grief #loss #WavesofGrief #MovingForward #coping #healing #HealthPodcast

In this Episode:

• 02:56 - Recipe of the Week: Cinnamon Rolls
• 03:07 - “My Friend Just Died and I Don’t Know What to Do”
• 09:19 - Coping Forward: Mental Health Strategies After Major Loss, by Lucy Tate
• 16:39 - Discussion - Charlie's Journey after His Son's Murder
• 20:10 - "Grief, Am I Doing This Right?" Greg, who lost his wife to Alzheimer's
• 24:18 - Outro

Related Content:

• All Grief Content
• Moving Forward After Loss
• S5E35: Growth and Remembrance: What to Expect Your Third Year of Grief
• S3E24: Can Superpowers Overcome Grief?
• S3E20: Riding the Wave: Navigating the Second Year of Grief
• S6E9: Finding Your Breath in the Midst of Grief
• S6E16: Goals After Grief – Gentle, Practical Steps to Move Forward After Loss

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Everyone Dies. This week's discussion is about softening grief's grip on our lives, not fixing it. It's an invitation to breathe, to find cracks where light and life can re-enter, and to remember that moving forward doesn't mean leaving your loss behind.

It means learning to live with it, one grounded, grace-filled moment at a time. So relax and settle in for our podcast about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement. Because even though everyone dies, no one has to face it unprepared.

I'm Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I use my experience from working as a nurse for 47 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarrette, an actor in New York City, and here to offer an every-person viewpoint to our podcast. We're both here because we believe that the more you know, the better prepared you are to make difficult decisions in a crisis.

And please remember, this podcast does not provide medical nor legal advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording. In the first half, Charlie has an Internet Post response about grief and our recipe of the week.

In the second half, we have a contribution from Lucy Tate about life in grieving. And in the third half, Charlie has a journal entry from Greg, an active poster in the Dementia Family Facebook group. Hello, Charles.

Hello, Marianne. Marianne, I've noticed recently over the past several weeks, people are dying. And by this, I mean, because obviously everyone dies.

But I don't know, Marianne, it just seems in the past few weeks, you know, big names just dropping. Well, you know, a lot of people want to get, want to do that before the holidays. When I worked in hospice, this was like a busy season because people would kind of die before the holidays.

They want to ruin holidays for their family members. And then between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it would get really, really slow. And then in January, it would pick up again.

And it did it like every single year. So although, you know, we don't have any real knowledge about being able to control when we die, apparently, at least with chronic diseases or end stage disease, sometimes people can use all their will to hold on and then come January. I did not know that.

Okay, well, makes sense to me now. All right. Thank you.

So they're just, they're just, they're just getting it done before Thanksgiving. Yeah. You know, yeah, actually, my mother did.

And what hers was way in advance of Thanksgiving. Well, my father, my father was a little before Christmas. Okay.

In our first half, our travels this week took us to Montana. Since the early pioneers first made their way west, Montana has earned a reputation for producing first quality wheat and grains packed with nutrients and bursting with flavor. And one thing they like to make with their famous flour are cinnamon rolls.

What could be better for your next funeral lunch than cinnamon rolls dripping and frosting? Absolutely nothing. Bon appetit. Next, when someone posted, my friend just died, and I don't know what to do online, they were met by this reply from a self-titled old guy.

The response describes grief to a T and is worth taking to heart as we all will inevitably lose someone we love. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived so far, and a lot of people I've known and loved did not.

I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying, but I never did. I don't want to. There's a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances.

But I don't want it to not matter. I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person.

And if the scar is deep, so is the love. So be it. I'm sorry.

Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was.

Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see. As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves.

When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was and is no more. And all you can do is float.

You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph.

Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. Then come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float.

After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe.

You can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee.

It can be just about anything. And the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there's life.

Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming.

An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing in the air. You can see it coming for the most part. And prepare yourself.

And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will again come out the other side, soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage. Well, you'll come out. Take it from an old guy.

The waves never stop coming. And somehow, you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them.

And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves and lots of shipwrecks.

Please go to our webpage for this week's recipe for cinnamon rolls and additional resources for this program. This is the part where we ask for your financial support. Your tax-deductible gift will go directly to supporting our non-profit journalism so that we can remain accessible to everyone.

You can donate at www.everyonedies.org. That's every but number one dies dot org. Or at our site on Patreon under Everyone Dies. Marianne? Thanks, Charlie.

Grief is a destabilizer. It unroots the known and floods even simple moments with weight. After a serious loss, you're not just grieving the person or thing that's gone.

You're adjusting to the way the world now behaves around you. Managing your mental health in this space isn't about moving on or finding closure. It's about making space to feel what's real while learning how to live alongside it.

You won't fix grief with strategies, but you can soften its grip enough to breathe. Grief doesn't always look like tears. Sometimes it's yelling at the toaster, blanking out mid-sentence, or sleeping 12 hours and waking up exhausted.

You might feel fine one moment and gutted the next, then guilty for laughing at something on TV. All of that belongs. If you're wondering whether your feeling is normal, know that grief can distort emotional responses in unpredictable ways, especially in the early aftermath.

The grief process doesn't follow rules, and neither do the emotions inside it. Let them happen, even when they don't make sense. When the inside of your head is too loud or tangled to speak clearly, writing can become a pressure valve.

You don't need poetic language or a plan. Just sit, open a notebook or document, and start with what's hardest to hold. People who've grieved deeply often say that journaling offers therapeutic benefits, not because it's cathartic once, but because returning to the page each day gives your pain somewhere to live that isn't in your chest.

Whether you write to yourself, to the person you lost, or to no one at all, the act of naming what's true has power. Grief gets lonelier the longer it lingers. Friends may stop checking in or avoid bringing it up entirely.

You might feel like you're too much for people who haven't lived through it. That's where group spaces can matter. Whether in person or online, support groups offer shared healing experiences, the kind where you don't have to explain why a song wrecked you or why Mondays feel unbearable.

In these spaces, you see yourself in others' words and realize you're not broken. You're human. Grieving.

The burden gets lighter when it's shared. When you're grieving, things like sleep, eating, taking a shower can feel like mountain climbs. Start small.

Create a short, realistic rhythm, not for productivity, but to restore a sense of ground. If that means drinking water first thing, stretching for two minutes, or going outside once a day, that's enough. Just one act of structure can stabilize you when everything else feels unstructured.

And when that still doesn't work, remember support is still available when overwhelmed. You don't have to carry everything alone. Let someone in when you can.

When grief is locked inside the body, words often don't help or can't reach it. That's where art therapy becomes useful. In this setting, a licensed professional helps you express difficult feelings using drawing, painting, sculpting, and other forms.

Not to make art, but to reveal what's underneath. Research documents that art therapy unlocks inexpressible grief feelings and helps regulate nervous system responses by getting shaped to emotions that are otherwise somatic and stuck. This isn't about being creative.

It's about being guided through creative processes to access what's been suppressed. Food becomes background noise during grief. Some people forget to eat while others can't stop.

But what you feed your body affects what your body can hold. Balanced nutrition supports emotional resilience by stabilizing blood sugar, reducing inflammation, and giving your brain what it needs to regulate emotions. You don't need to overhaul your diet.

Just notice. Am I eating enough real food? Am I drinking water? Try adding one nourishing meal per day. Your body is part of your healing.

Don't leave it out. For some, grief cracks open more than pain. It opens questions.

What now? What do I want to be? And that in-between going back to school can offer focus, scaffolding, and a small sense of future when the present feels unlivable. Take a look here. If your bandwidth is low, flexible online degree paths let you engage at your own pace.

Whether you're curious about psychology, healthcare, business, or tech, structured learning can reintroduce routine, momentum, and a longer arc to orient toward. Grief often hijacks your nights with insomnia, early waking, and restless thoughts. This steals energy you need to survive the day.

It's not just being tired, poor sleep compounds grief, making emotional regulation harder and hurting your immune system. One thing you can try is to follow a consistent sleep routine. Same bedtime, same wake-up time, dim lights before bed, no screens.

For many people, improving your sleep environment and protecting the hour before bed can reduce late-night rumination that fuels grief. Also, movement, even in small doses such as walk, stretching, or gentle yoga, helps reset your body, release some normal stress hormones, and clear the fog. You don't really need to do anything that I've mentioned.

You don't need a plan or a perfect system. You need a crack just wide enough for air to get in. Some days that crack will be writing.

Other days it might be a walk, a group, or just choosing to eat well. Grief doesn't obey your all at once. It's about coping forward, slowly, clumsily, with grit and grace in equal measure.

Grief changes everything, but with time we learn how to live beside it. If today feels heavy, know that you're not doing it wrong. Every breath, every small act of care is a step forward.

Let yourself rest. Let someone in. You don't have to carry this alone.

Thank you for listening, and remember, healing isn't about moving on. It's about finding moments of gentleness and breath, even here, even now. Charlie, any thoughts? Um, yeah.

I know for me, and long-time listeners know that my son Michael was murdered, like, gosh, five and a half years now. People were, and this was during COVID as well, people were just so kind and generous, and as you were saying, I mean, people wanted to come over, you know, just to hang out, bring food, and et cetera. I said no.

I mean, a few people came, um, but I said mostly no because I'm one of those who needed to have to work through my grief privately, and what I found, I was house-sitting at the time. There were these huge windows, and I just found comfort with all the sunlight coming in. You know, I'd have my bad moments, but it was, um, yeah, it was, I needed that solitude, and like I said, without realizing it, the sunlight just really, it was, yeah, obviously it was warmth, but it just, I don't know why, but it just provided me with comfort, and I know that's not for everyone.

I mean, you know, folks want people around them, but I'm different that way. So, yeah, I mean, like you were saying, I mean, people deal with grief in their own way, but the thing of it is to deal with it, and it's never going to go away 100 percent, which is fine. There are times now I need to give myself a timeout, and I take it because suddenly something pops in about Michael, and for me, it's usually around, yeah, every Halloween, those, when they sell those little miniature candies, that was the first, yeah, when Michael went out on his first trick-or-treat, he didn't quite, so what, he was a year, almost two years old.

He didn't quite graft the concept of why he needed to be in a costume, carry this orange plastic bucket. I said, well, just say trick-or-treat, and the first candy that was dropped in his eyes just went. He said, look, Daddy, like, well, let's try the next one.

Yeah, after that, I had to keep running after him. He just kept running. It was really cute.

Yeah. So, yeah. That's a great memory.

Yeah. So, yes, deal with it in your own way, but deal with it. It's there.

It ain't going to go away 100 percent. For our third half, long-time listeners are familiar with our sharing of Greg's blog posts from Facebook. Greg has been writing for years about his girlfriend from grade school, whom he married, had children, and in their later years, cared for during her end of life with Alzheimer's disease.

His girlfriend died on October 14, and with his permission, is a recent blog post. It has been one week today. Grief, am I doing this right? Grief is natural and personal.

There's no way to grieve, no fixed timeline. It can come in waves, sometimes when you least expect it. Over time, it may soften, but it doesn't always go away.

You learn to carry it. I have heard that all grief is unique. Let me explain mine.

After my girlfriend passed last Tuesday, when she was declared gone, I expected a jolt of pain, maybe a collapse to the floor moment. It didn't come. I was stunned because I didn't feel any different.

Nothing. Not a thing. I don't feel much different now.

The truth is, I was already crushed, still crushed. Can you be more crushed? I did not moan or cry out. I fell silent, and I remain silent.

Some have asked if I am relieved. I've answered no. I feel no relief at all.

My heart has been broken for years. I cried myself to sleep too many nights to count. I've come home to a dark and lonely house every night since September 2021.

Friends, I wish with all my heart she were still here. My grief is confusing. It may change tomorrow or the day after.

Please don't judge me. I'm just trying to be transparent, hoping maybe my honesty helps someone else on this same painful journey. I received this note from a friend.

She said she was simply delivering it for my girlfriend. And when you missed me most, remember that I have only built a house next door, a single breath away. We can whisper through the walls and send love notes in the shape of stars and sunsets and raindrops that look like jewels from heaven.

And although things are hard for you now, I am not far away. I am absent only in flesh, but my spirit is dancing with the heavenly ones. We will reach each other again, I promise.

Just not yet. Find laughter again, okay? Find music and purpose in ways that feel alive. We are separated by a glimmer of time, an interval, the gentlest blink.

Take comfort, boyfriend. I have only built a house next door. Signed, Greg, without his girlfriend.

Please stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies, and thank you for listening. You can find more episodes from our series about grief on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app. Follow and subscribe to the show.

Share it with someone who needs a little hope today. This is Charlie Navarette, and from Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale, people die. There's things you can say that you wouldn't say when they were alive.

And I'm Marianne Matzo, and we'll see you next week. Remember, every day is a gift. This podcast does not provide medical advice.

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