Grief

Greetings, gentle Dot Calm readers -

I have been in the thick of grieving the passing of the beautiful, brilliant, and too-good Dot Calm.

It's hard when you lose your best friend in the world, especially when that friend was extraordinary as Dot Calm was.

Fortunately, though, as I walk the path of grief, bright spots emerge.

One bright spot has been remembering all the lovely people she took care of. One young man, whose wife left him with four kids, comes to mind. He treasures Dot as she deserves to be treasured. I find that validating.

Another has been a new friend, who is completely accepting and understanding. It's nice not to have to explain or defend myself for a change. Some people think they can be your best friend without understanding friendship. Some prefer to judge and condemn rather than support or help. So it's nice when a true friend comes along, and you get to know each other and develop that friendship, and this friend is totally present with you when you melt down from grief and holds you in complete love and support.

Another came to me from one of my favorite Facebook pages: God at TheGoodLordAbove. There are other Facebook gods out there, but, in my humble opinion, this is the real deal. He is strong enough in His selfhood to quote Voltaire, a famous atheist: "God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh." Even atheists believe in God at TheGoodLordAbove. You may, too, when you read the piece below, which Facebook God posted on grief right when I needed it. Pour yourself the beverage of your choice and toast your love for someone you have lost, make sure you have Kleenex handy, then read the article.

This early in the day, I'm going for decaf.

But don't be eating or drinking when you watch the Carol Burnett video I've posted below the article from Good (thanks, FB God!). I don't want to be responsible for any damaged keyboards.

From Good Magazine--GSnow wins teh Internetz with this piece about grieving.

Response To Person Grieving For Friend Might Be Best Internet Comment Of All Time

by Adam Albright-Hanna

  

 December 1, 2015

  

 

Upvoted, an online publication from Reddit featuring the most compelling content from their site, recently republished this “classic” piece originally posted four years ago. The beautiful piece of writing was done by a commenter in response to a poster asking for advice on grief.

The original post simply read: “My friend just died. I don't know what to do.”

Here was redditor GSnow’s moving advice: 

Alright, here goes. 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. I never did. I don't want to. It tears 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 was the love. So be it. 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. They 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 is 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 at O'Hare. 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, but 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.

What's all this about grief, then?

Dot Calm was one of those rare people who understand just how temporary, how ephemeral, we humans are.

She used to say, "When I die, just put me in a shopping cart." Or, "When I die, I don't want a gravestone or a memorial. I don't want anyone to know I was ever here. I don't want any trace of me left." As a result, she requested in her will to be cremated and sprinkled over the place where the Twin Rivers--the Trent and the Neuse--meet. She wanted to be cremated at the Black people's funeral parlor for stated and unstated reasons. What she said was that she wanted to support them. She was all about supporting people, especially anyone disadvantaged. Her unstated reason for being the likely lone White person at the Black people's funeral home was that it was a quirky thing to do. Dot Calm was nothing if not lovably, hilariously quirky.

She understood that, no matter what we may hope or wish, we as individuals are just not permanent. We cannot be, and we never will be.

The secret is to do as much as you can for the people around you and the world at large so that every life intertwined with yours, as every life is from the moment of our births, will be better because of you. Then sneak out the back door before anyone even knows you were there.

As you know if you read this blog regularly, Dot Calm had a wonderful, irreverent sense of humor. She didn't take life too seriously, and she didn't take herself too seriously.

And she would have wanted more than anything, as much as possible, to be celebrated rather than mourned.

With that, here's what Dot Calm would want me to post about grieving.