Dear Grief Guide, My Heart Breaks For My Grieving Loved One

Hello and welcome to Dear Grief Guide,

A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost,

Stuck,

Heartbroken,

Or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.

My name is Shelby Forsythia.

I'm a grief coach and author,

And I'm here to help you create a life you love from the life loss forced you to live.

Let's get to today's letter.

Dear Grief Guide,

In October 2022,

My cousin died unexpectedly at just 44 years old.

Three days later,

My uncle,

His father,

Who was 72,

Also passed away.

We think in part because of the stress of my cousin's death.

It was a huge shock,

And needless to say,

The past two years have been incredibly difficult.

My aunt,

Who is 74,

Is devastated.

Not only did she lose her husband of almost 50 years,

But she also lost her only child.

They were so close that they could finish each other's sentences.

He used to drop by a few times a week to say hello,

Or to drop off his kids to visit.

My aunt is still caring for my cousin's teenage kids,

And despite a strained relationship with my cousin's wife,

We,

My aunt and I,

Do everything we can to support her.

However,

Seeing my aunt so sad and depressed breaks my heart.

She keeps herself busy and tries her best to go out with friends a few times a week,

But a lot of the time,

Little tasks,

Everything from making a deposit at the bank to doing a load of laundry are stressful for her,

And she breaks down.

Whenever this happens,

I try to calm her down.

I reassure her that we can take things step by step,

Without rushing,

And that seems to help in the moment,

But I think it's hard for both of us to keep going like this.

Our relationship has always been great,

And now that I'm an adult,

It's even stronger.

My aunt shares her feelings with me,

And I do my best to take care of her in all the ways I know how,

But I genuinely don't know how to help her more.

This morning,

When I left her house to work my job as a nurse,

She hugged me with tears in her eyes,

And said,

You're the only hope I have left.

I hugged her back and said,

Oh auntie,

I love you.

It just broke me.

I wish I could bring her more joy in the last part of her life.

My heart breaks for my aunt.

How can I help her find more happiness and peace?

Signed,

Just a couple of broken hearts.

Hi there,

Broken hearts.

First off,

I want to acknowledge the enormity of what not just your aunt,

But your entire family including you,

Has been through the devastating loss of somebody so young,

44,

And somebody so suddenly,

At 72,

Your uncle and to have two really key figures,

It sounds like in your life,

Gone,

As if vanishing into thin air,

Without a trace and all of a sudden,

You at whatever age you are,

And your aunt at 74,

Now being forced to,

Against,

You know,

Any sort of opt in,

You did not get to choose this experience,

Must keep going.

With all of this being true,

Must remake your lives without your cousin and your uncle and you're pitching in where you can,

And you're going out and seeing friends when you can and you're going to work and taking care of his kids and,

And all of these things that seem and potentially even feel important.

And also,

I just want to acknowledge like how big of a deal that is.

Oftentimes,

I don't think we take enough time to pause and just acknowledge that loss,

Any sort of loss,

Is literally life and world rearranging,

And how much energy and how much time and how much focus and how much attention and how much care,

And how much rest and how much compassion that takes.

So my heart really goes out to you both.

I want to share a tool that I often share with grieving clients and students.

And it's two words to instant self compassion.

If you've ever taken my free workshop on my website,

It's included in there.

So consider this a free taste of it.

And that's to add the two words while grieving to any sentence,

Any story that you tell yourself about your life.

So for instance,

I'm taking care of my aunt while grieving.

Your aunt is going out to see friends while grieving.

You're looking after your cousin's teenage kids while grieving.

You're trying to insert more joy or play or lightness into your life while grieving.

You're working your job as a nurse while grieving.

You are doing everything you used to do before loss and more now with the added weight of grief and sometimes just acknowledging the fact that grief is in the room.

We're making a deposit at the bank while grieving.

We are doing a load of laundry while grieving.

Just simply acknowledging how much you are carrying and that you are carrying it still and that you have no option to put it down can help each of you give yourselves more compassion in the moment.

And it can make these things,

I don't know if you're into self conscious about these times when you say that she breaks down,

But we are trying to do things that we used to do in life before loss,

After loss,

Now with the added weight of grief.

You validate her so well by reassuring her that you don't have to rush,

That you can just do things step by step,

But also acknowledging that you are doing everything you used to do and more with the added weight of grief can help just alleviate this pressure of I need to be okay,

Or she needs to be okay,

Or we need to be okay.

I will say,

On the road to returning to okay,

What you call happiness and peace,

Kind of offering more of these things to your aunt,

In terms of practical suggestions,

I wonder if you can outsource any tasks that you do on a recurring basis,

Whether it's grocery shopping or making deposits at the bank or doing laundry,

Or picking up the mail,

Any sort of errand that happens on a regular basis,

If there are still people in your life,

Whether they're friends of yours or friends of your aunt's or anyone else in your family,

Would be willing to take that on for you.

If there's still people in your life asking,

How can I help?

What can I do?

These are really good tasks for them.

So to take something off of your plate,

To subtract something that feels stressful,

Can feel really helpful right now.

And it may not immediately add something that's joyful,

But it can offer space for something joyful or happy or surprising in a good way to appear.

It can give you both more room to kind of look around and say,

Okay,

What feels different or what feels curious or what feels exciting or what feels fun,

If we can think about something that feels fun right now.

And then in terms of inserting fun,

So subtracting hard things or difficult tasks,

Especially if they're recurring,

And then adding something that feels fun,

Start small.

Do something like,

You know,

Getting a new board game or a book of puzzles together.

Go to an art museum or do arts and crafts at home if going out is too hard.

Go on walks to a local nature garden or a botanic garden or just in your neighborhood and play I Spy with different colors of flowers.

Install a bird feeder.

One of my favorite things about talking to my sister on FaceTime is that she and her husband put a bird feeder in the backyard and my mom and my dad fed birds at our childhood home when we were kids.

And just watching who comes to visit is a source of so much joy.

And for my sister and brother-in-law,

A source of learning.

They're learning the names of new animals in their neighborhood.

They kind of notice the recurring visitors and they also notice who now comes to their yard and to their home as a result of the bird feeder being present.

For instance,

The neighborhood cat.

So it has brought so much spontaneity and joy and familiarity to their lives to have something alive to watch.

So in whatever way you can,

Just a couple of broken hearts,

Find small but meaningful ways to add or inject joy or play or delight or curiosity into your lives.

You could do Friday night ice cream club where you try a new flavor of ice cream every Friday and see what you think.

There are just so many different ways to,

While grieving,

As you are doing the work of grief,

To also invite in a little bit of lightness or play.

And I think a lot of people would consider this taking a break from grief,

But what you're doing is taking a break from the hardness and the pain of grief,

The heaviness of grief.

Because grief is going to come with you wherever you go.

Grief will be with you while you're watching birds.

Grief will be with you as you're doing puzzles.

Grief will be with you as you're doing arts and crafts.

Grief will be with you on the nature walk.

But the flavor of grief that comes with is going to be something that feels lighter and softer.

It may be full of stories of your uncle and cousin.

It may be full of both of you sharing memories of that one time you tried creamsicle orange and got it all over your cousin's shirt.

Like there are so many,

There are so many ways that play and joy can also be an invitation to interact with grief in a new way.

One that doesn't feel as if my life is ending.

I am in crisis,

I can't do this anymore.

But this could be what life looks like with grief.

This could be a way of remembering.

This could be a way of holding both joy and grief together.

I want to share one last thing with you and this is just for fun,

But I wonder if you and your aunt could brainstorm something together,

A nickname for the two of you.

Because I love the way that you signed your letter.

So perhaps when you have these days,

When you have these moments where she's breaking down or you're breaking down or you're both breaking down together,

You could turn it into something light and laugh and say,

Well,

Just another day in the broken hearts club.

This is just another day in the broken hearts club or in the grief for,

Insert names of your people club.

How can you make yourselves and the lives that you're living right now?

Something that can be,

If you're willing to,

Laughed at just a little bit or laughed with if that resonates better in your body.

My very dear friend Tammy,

Who died from COVID in 2022,

She and I were fans of this comic strip and right now I'm not remembering the name of it,

But almost every single comic,

The first pane would feature a character just announcing into the void,

Oh boy,

Am I sad?

And then the characters in the next panes would offer some sort of compassion or silliness or companionship for the first character who said,

Oh boy,

Am I sad?

And so whenever hard or bad things happened in mine and my friend's life,

And we lived together for four years.

So we very much shared a life amidst really hard election seasons amidst the early years of COVID.

There was a lot of hard and bad and sad stuff going on,

Especially in a major city like Chicago.

And sometimes we'd just come home and put down our bags after a really long day and look at each other and say,

Oh boy,

Am I sad?

And it was funny because it was based on this comic strip,

But it was also so grounded in a reality that we shared together in that we are doing a hard thing in a world that feels very hard right now.

And so I have then expanded,

Oh boy,

Am I sad?

As a funny truth that I share with my sister,

That I share with my wife,

That I share with my larger group of friends.

And so now we know when we declare,

Oh boy,

Am I sad?

We're telling the truth about something,

But we're also laughing about it.

I'm getting chills right now,

But to be able to come to that sort of balance when you're grieving,

We are just a couple of broken hearts,

Welcome to the broken hearts club.

It's a really beautiful way to do something that's really hard and might continue to be really hard.

And also to remember that you have each other as you're doing this,

And that there is so much room for laughter,

Even when the laughter is accompanied by misery,

Even when those two things are holding hands.

I so appreciate the compassion and the empathy that you very clearly hold in your heart for her situation and your situation and the circumstance and the story that you are living together.

And also I see possibility here.

I see room for joy.

I see room for play.

They may not look like they used to.

We've talked about that on previous episodes.

Joy comes back having seen some shit.

Laughter's gotten beaten up a little bit.

Humor's gotten a little darker,

But they do come back in the aftermath of loss.

And the fact that you're asking this question,

How do I bring more happiness and joy to her days,

Shows me that you're ready,

At least to try in small ways to bring these elements to your shared life together.

I have faith in you.