Blogging Out Loud: Facing The Holidays When Times Are Tough

Deb and Barbara: What do you do and how do you cope when you're surrounded by all the holiday hoopla ... and you're just not in the frame of mind to enjoy it?

The Rituals That Sustain Us

Deb: The other day as we got ready to go to our friend’s funeral I was struck by ritual. Certainly not ritual in any religious or traditional way, but the rituals in our lives that keep us from ripping and tearing in two. I’m talking about the rituals that escape our notice—the daily tasks that are like breathing to us. I thought as I stood in front of my closet, choosing shoes and a dress, “What are you doing, what does it matter!!?” As I styled my hair and put on eye-shadow, I looked into the mirror and was stopped by the ludicrous nature of the moment. I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Why the hell am I putting makeup on? Why in hell am I reaching for earrings?”

Dressing for a friend’s funeral... I cannot conceive of a sadder thought. As my husband and I walked back and forth silently in our bedroom as we prepared ourselves to leave, it seemed like a most bizarre empty exercise. And then I thought, “What is the alternative? Do we wake up on the day of a loved one’s funeral and go out the door, unfed and unclothed?” Of course not. But still it felt banal.

And afterwards as we piled into the car, the lumps returning to our stomachs in anticipation of what lay ahead, I realized that the ritual of getting ready to go was a kind of glue that was holding us together. There for a few minutes, in a painful world full of minutes, the ritual was our friend. We were making choices and as a result we were grounding ourselves in our lives, the only lives we know, the lives we can be sure of at this nanosecond in time. We were clinging to the normalcy, grateful for the silent comfort in each other’s eyes in this specific second in time. 

In the last days we have been reminded once again that it is only in the seconds of now that we can find any sure peace. It is only in the very moment of a glance into your loved ones eyes that you know you have each other. That is all we ever have, and we have been reminded of that fact in our friend’s untimely death. So we hug and touch each other as we pass from shower to front door without saying a word. We are locked in the understanding of how much we appreciate this moment in time that we still have, however painful it is.

And I wondered if the ritual didn’t act as our first friend as we return gratefully and reluctantly to the land of the living. I pondered that maybe ritual is always the first step from the moment someone you love dies. You are shocked and bloody grief-stricken, but in the hours following the news, you will put on the kettle and pick up the phone and pull something out of the fridge for dinner. You will live. Your stomach will feel like lead and your head will swirl with images and memories. You will take a shower, dry off and dress, without even noticing, so far will your mind be from reality. But you will do it.

I have always observed that generally North Americans are not good at the grieving process and have acknowledged that many other countries and cultures are good at it. I have always thought how healing it must be to be able to weep and wail and scream with fellow mourners and to do little else in the way of functioning. But then I got to thinking. When the weeping and wailing is over, aren’t we all the same? Don’t we all go into that place of great void. Doesn’t our emptiness consume us as we realize finally after the formal mourning period that our loved one is not coming back? We go through the shock, the pain, the divulging, the guilt, the regret and the agony of it. We’re tossed like empty shells washed up on the shore, into the funeral and reception where we have scraps of well-meaning but empty forgotten conversation with each other. We search each other’s eyes for meaning and for explanation, and then we go home saddened at finding none. And we put on the kettle and make tea and toast and we find ourselves comforted whether we want to be or not. And in those moments we are back to living. We are reminded again that life is so very fragile.

But we are also reminded that life is in these moments.

Barbara: Deb, it’s funny that you should speak of this. Because I totally remember thinking the same thing when I was getting ready for Paul’s funeral. It felt so bizarre and weird and wrong. And yet, I did find some solace in it—which then made me feel guilty!

You have expressed this process with such beauty and eloquence it actually hurts my heart. And then you take it one step further and find the grace in it. The imperative necessity to the living. I want to thank you for that. So utterly breathtaking, I want to weep and wail and then laugh and cheer. Just … thank you.

Picasso And Paul

Deb: Today myself, Colin, and the boy spent the afternoon at the Picasso exhibit at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario). We had planned it specifically as a healing and inspiring thing to do the day after our friend Paul’s funeral. Beyond the imagery that dominated the afternoon, I was struck by a quote. It said, “Picasso was a genius and he knew it.” All I could think of as we walked painting to sculpture, canvas to board, was that I wish Paul had known his own genius.

Paul O'Sullivan

The tragedy of Paul’s sudden and untimely death is, of course, his death. But the heartbreak that will stay with me is the fact that he did not know his worth. Not really. Not the way he should have.

Paul was a genius. I know that word is grossly overused, but in the world of comedy both scripted and improv, he was considered a genius. He was someone that every single person in our group was not only happy to work with, but thrilled to work with. He simply did the work. Just did it without the fru fra and the fan fare and the signposts. Just did the funny funny smart smart. We always talk in the acting work about commitment to character. Paul’s commitment was so deep that you were actually shocked at the end of the scene to see him return to Paul. The other thing that makes an actor great is strong choices. Paul’s acting choices were “The Hulk”. He dared. He jumped off cliffs. He went places and took you with him. And he respected where you were taking him and delighted in following you, all the while ramping up each of your offers with a sweet, irreverent, silly, crass, meaningful or truthful choice. Or sometimes all of those choices at once. He was a proud actor on stage. He lived there and, when you watched him, you lived where he lived.

But offstage I fear that Paul did not grasp his brilliance. More than that, I fear he had no idea the esteem in which he was held by his peers. If he was watching us yesterday, the hundreds and hundreds of us who gathered to pay tribute to his sweet memory, I am sure he would have wrongly assumed that there must have also been a wedding going on, or even another funeral. Because Paul never ever would have surmised that this weeping laughing throng was all for him.

Paul, I wish I had said out loud to you that you were brilliant. I wish I had told you out loud that Colin and I revered you for your talent. I wish I had told you to your face that your passion for Linda and your deep devotion to your family made us fall madly in love with you. I wish I had told you that I loved you for the fact that you were so referenced and so hip and yet would respond sincerely to a shocking tale with the phrase, “My Word!” and mean it without irony. You were a gentleman of another time who we were lucky enough to love in our time. And now that your time with us has ended, I do have regrets. Deep regrets. And Paul I am generally not one for regrets.

But I regret that I didn’t see that you needed to hear it. I wish I had gleaned that you felt less than what you were. We assume when someone is brilliant they know it. Like Picasso. Not boasting of your talent was certainly part of your charm, Paul. But the fact that you did not believe in your brilliance is causing my regret.

In Paul’s memory I am going to start telling people what they are worth. I like to think that I am a compliment-giver to friends and strangers alike. But because of Paul I am going to start saying it out loud or in writing to those I care about and admire.

And, Paul, when I meet you again, I will tell you to your face. That is if I can get it out before you make me pee myself laughing. Dear God, Paul, you are missed. I pray that somewhere, somehow you finally know that.

Skating with Paul (on left, with Colin and Deb, and Luke up front).

Barbara: I didn’t know Paul like you did, Deb. I came to know him when I worked with him over those glorious weeks we spent filming Getting Along Famously so many years ago (if you don’t know the show, it was a brilliant 60s-styled show, conceived, produced, and written by Deb and Colin. They did 60s before Mad Men. It had style, it had grace, it was hilarious; I still can’t believe it didn’t last past the six episodes.).

As I worked with Paul, I bowed in reverence before the genius that was uniquely his. But he was also all those other things that a mensch ought to be: kind, attentive, straight-forward, honest, true. I remember being surprised when it seemed he didn’t know his own talent. It was unimaginable to me that someone with his gift didn’t see it, or feel it like a Superhero power suit. His funeral reflected the incredible legacy he left in the hearts of all who knew him: it was equal parts pain and joy, purging tears and cathartic laughter. 

I echo your wish, Deb. I wish I could have let him know just what a huge impression he made and left. I also like to believe he knows “now”.

I wish I knew him better in life. I wish it hadn’t stopped so short and so suddenly. But these wishes in reality are as delicate and evasive as butterflies: now here, now shining with iridescent beauty, and then gone.

Paul plays on the set of Getting Along Famously.

Mr. Reid

Deb: My oldest friend in the world just lost her dad. I cried with her and worried for her as she drove home to see her Mom and her siblings during a fierce thunderstorm. She sounded controlled and resigned.

Then she wept and the sound killed me, cracking with the thunder, but so much smaller. 

Such is the stuff of Carol Ann Reid. I think it is fitting that she drove through a fierce thunderstorm.

Her Daddio, one George Reid, could appear to anyone like a fierce thunderstorm with his booming voice and his thick Scottish brogue. But he was really a soft Scottish toffee, a bold lover in love with the lovely Nan, with whom he was about to celebrate their 59th anniversary.

When I was a kid he was a daunting figure. Always kind and sweet, but with a boom of a voice that I laid in wait to hear lest I should act out. But it never came, this reprimand, however deserved. It came in the sound of the pipes, which he played with such skill and pride and passion that it breaks my heart that I did not realize the scope of it then. It was simply to me, a big big sound from a big big man. I would sit in awe with my best friend, his daughter Carol Ann at my side, listening to her Dad.

George.

He would play and we would listen. Then he would smile and we would melt in his love.

He lived to love, and boy did he hit the jackpot. Nan, his loving devoted wife, Carol Ann, first born and the heart of my heart, Heather, Kirk, Craig, and Wendy. How I would love to travel back there and live those innocent memories.

I am heartbroken for you all tonight. Each child, grandchild, and great-grandchild. George Reid has left us. And we are taking notice.

Barbara: I am so sorry for your loss, Deb, for your dear friend Carol Ann’s loss, for the loss borne by her entire family, and for the loss of another great man.

It’s funny this business of so many souls and so little time to know them all.

I often read those tributes in the paper to a stranger’s life lived––I don’t know why I read them exactly, I’m not morbid. But of course reading them leaves me with a profound sense of sorrow. It suddenly occurs to me that this (possibly morbid) urge comes from the unsettling sense of not knowing them. As if I ought to have known them. As if it was some mean hiccup in the fabric of the universe that prevented me from knowing them, and not a simple logistical reality.

It feels patently unfair that we can’t know them all. It feels not right somehow.

It must be that ancient tie we have to one another through our tribal roots. That long-ago ancestor deep within my soul wants to rear up and don the primitive mourning garb and ululate in unison with all of you. Another of our friends, of our tribe (and we are one tribe), has passed away.

Does Mourning Become Her ... Or Is She Just In The Way?

Barbara: One if the joys of blogging, certainly for us, is that we have a forum for our opinions. It’s liberating and exciting to get to be honest, to delve into the psyche. Even if we don’t always agree with each other, or you don’t agree with us, we absolutely agree with ourselves! 

But I find myself in a conundrum this week. I actually don’t know what to do, don’t know how I absolutely feel about it, and so can’t make up my mind. At first I couldn’t even blog about it—it felt too personal to describe this process. Funny, huh? The end result of any of my musings: okay to reveal; the process: too painful. Hmmm. Anyway, Deb encouraged me to write about it, feeling that if I was struggling, maybe other people would want to a) know and b) know they’re not alone if in similar shoes. So here I am, fodder for your advice, opinion, and personal experiences.

There is a funeral this week that I am struggling to decide whether I should or shouldn’t attend. Normally, this is easy territory for me. If there is a funeral significant to me, of course I try my utmost to go. Even funerals of people I don’t know … because the departed was someone important to one of my beloveds. But this week there was a funeral that was big––big in import, big in profile, big in devastation, big big in loss. I had no direct link to the deceased or the family, but my beloveds were deeply involved. And because of that I felt this loss deeply. I also felt compassionate love for the grieving family because of how well I “knew” them through the connection to my beloveds. So part of me thought I should be there, felt I would regret it if I didn’t pay homage. And the other part of me knew that this was a big enough funeral that I could actually be “in the way”. I wouldn’t be providing comfort to the family or friends (who don’t know me), and probably wouldn’t be able to provide comfort to my beloveds (who would be otherwise occupied). A mutual friend described this conundrum really well: we don’t want to be, or look like we are, “death groupies”.

And yet the energy still vibrates around this question, because a life is only lived once and begs to be remembered and celebrated. Is there such a thing as “in the way” at a funeral or memorial?

What would you do in my place? And why?

Deb: Barb, I will give my answer through your words. “I had no direct link to the deceased or the family, but my beloveds were deeply involved. And because of that I felt this loss deeply. I also felt compassionate love for the grieving family because of how well I “knew” them through the connection to my beloveds.”

In a nutshell, my friend. Thank you for coming. I may have been occupied, but it will always mean the world to Colin and I that you came. You now share our friend. The only difference is you got to know him after he was gone. Xo

Edited to say: Barbara wrote her post before making her decision and Deb responded afterward. Barbara wrestled with this decision until the last moment, but absolutely does not regret going at all. And still wants to know your opinion … even if you disagree with her choice :)

A Marriage

Deb: Today is my 22nd wedding anniversary. As I have said in previous blog-posts, I have a happy wonderful marriage for which I feel truly blessed and grateful. But today, on the occasion of this anniversary, I am getting a first hand look into the heart and soul of another beautiful marriage. On our wedding day, I wonder how many of us really take it in when the phrase “for better or worse” is uttered? On that glorious day, none of us can really fathom that it is not always going to be better, like the eternally happy figures at the top of the cake.

Today I am celebrating my anniversary without my husband who is physically three thousand miles away, but emotionally tucked right into the heart of me. Right now I am sitting in the palliative care ward of Princess Margaret hospital in Toronto on this the second day of a loving vigil. I am here because of my darling friend Sheila and her wonderful husband Pete. Pete we are told, is in the last days of his life and the panic to grasp it is welling up in my already full heart.

Pete is in his bed sleeping, unable to communicate anymore, except occasionally with his eyes. He cannot move on his own or speak. And yet, his marriage is thriving.  I am watching Sheila sweetly talk to him as she wets the sponge that will moisten his lips. I see her cry rivers of tears, and seconds later laugh at a visitor’s funny story of Pete. She is loving him and clinging to him and watching him slip away from her. She is not grasping at him or begging him to stay, although I know she would like to.

She is simply honouring her love for him by working on their marriage. It is probably not the first time she has had to work on it. Heaven knows we all have to from time to time.

But today her marriage needs tending and she is tending it as bride, wife, and mother of his children.

Although she is powerless to stop this train in motion, she is loving him as if he were not going anywhere. She spends the day greeting their visitors and making them feel at ease, which is no easy feat during this heartbreaking drop-in. She has spent their marriage playing the consummate hostess, doing it with joy. These endless gatherings over the years would end I am sure with she and Pete clearing the dishes and talking over the night’s events. This one won’t. But you would never know it. Sheila is a dancer and although this is a dance she never wanted to perform, I have never seen her so graceful. With the grace of a prima ballerina she shifts effortlessly between repeating Pete’s condition to a newcomer, to comforting one of her beautiful daughters who has just broken down, and back to her husband’s side where she kisses and strokes him and reminds him that she is “right here, sweetheart”.

People kept asking me “how is she able to do it, how is she able to cope?” The answer is simple. She is tending to the “for worse” part as promised in their vows. The “better” has been their whole entire marriage. This is a “worse” no one should have to face. But she took her vows and she loves her Pete more now than she ever believed possible on that wedding day. And so, as hard as her task seems to those of us on the outside, I realized halfway through the day that it is actually an easy job for her. Easy to love him, easy to help him, easy to be his wife. Because that’s what she is for better or worse.

***Peter died tonight night within a half hour of the last visitor leaving. He was surrounded by his girls and he just quietly and gently slipped out of this world.

And every anniversary of our lives Colin and I will raise our glasses to Pete and Sheila,  filled with the precious reminder of what marriage is and should be.

Barbara: Deb, this homage to a marriage and to a deathbed vigil is absolutely heartbreaking and stunningly beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing their amazing story. I wish Sheila much love and strength and Peter everlasting peace.

The Night The Time Stood Still

Barbara: When Kathy wrote her beautiful post here about nature talking to us in times of stress, we shared a lot of interesting stories. I think I told you guys that one day I would share one of my favourite stories about my late father-in-law. I waited to share it because, well, yes because it’s so magical, but frankly, because it’s also a little too involved to summarize briefly. So here it goes:

Raymond

My father-in-law lived most of his professional life in France. He and Phil’s mom divorced early on and they made their lives on opposite sides of the big blue. Despite the challenges of being a child of divorce and not getting to see his beloved father an awful lot, Phil did enjoy a few nice perks, from the privilege of enjoying a Canadian life to the benefits of vacationing close to the Alps and getting to be a part-time ski bum.

But after we married and had children, Phil’s father realized that retirement wasn’t quite as sweet when you’re thousands of miles from your closest loved ones. He decided to move to Canada, and he chose a beautiful apartment not too far from our house. For nine months we enjoyed his company, his cooking, and his selfless babysitting. Stefanie was in her third year, Michele in her first. The relationship between our kids and their grandfather was very special. Stefanie and Raymond would spend hours together over tea and cake having sophisticated tea parties (Stefanie was always Chanel-going-on-25). Michele, too young to talk, would nonetheless spend long minutes staring deeply into his eyes. Raymond once looked up after one of these staring sessions and famously proclaimed that she was a genius (we tend to agree with him).

Raymond was only 67 when he died suddenly from an asthma attack. We’d been waiting for him to come over for dinner and he never showed. Phil found him in his apartment, no sign of a struggle or pain, just random, comfortable signs of activity—him in his favourite chair, TV on to the news, a sketch pad nearby, and, most tellingly, his asthma inhaler balanced in his open hand. It was a devastating loss that is its own story of grief and mourning and recovery. But the memories he gave us were bright and shining and positive.

A few people received “signs”—Phil’s brother, half a world away and tinkering, oblivious, on his motorcycle, was swarmed by Raymond’s favourite bird––but for Phil it was all sadly necessary “business”: emptying his father's apartment, closing his accounts, tidying up loose ends.

And then, a few months after his death, something happened that we still talk about in amazed wonder. It was the middle of the night and we were all sound asleep when suddenly we heard a terrible crash. Phil and I flew out of bed—we were three floors above the main floor and higher up than Stefanie who slept on the second floor (this was one of those super-narrow semi-detacheds that you find in crowded urban neighbourhoods)––so you can imagine the speed and caution that we channeled going down those stairs (a big stick may have been wielded).

When we got to the ground floor, everything was still and quiet. Completely normal.

Yes, THE clock

And then we found a clock that Raymond had left us after he died lying prone on the floor. This clock is a large, beautiful copy of a classic Maltese clock. But it is a treasure in its own right: ornately carved, hand-painted, beautifully detailed. Somehow that night, apropos of nothing we could find, it had leapt from its hook (which was still firmly in place), unlatched its battery door, dispelled its battery, re-closed and re-latched the door, landed on the floor (several feet down) without splintering or chipping its wood or paint, and lay in one perfect piece with its time frozen.

Phil looked at the clock, then looked at me, pale and shaken. “The time,” he said, “look at the time.” I did, but still didn’t understand. Then it hit me—this was the eve of Michele’s first birthday. And the time that was frozen on the clock? It was the exact moment she had been born the year before.

Deb: I have heard this story before, but not as beautifully fleshed out as this. Barb, what a moment in your family history. I remember when we were just getting to know Phil on our first family ski trip together, he told this story of his Dad with all the pain and warm memories spilling out. I remember thinking how profound our parents’ deaths are for the rest of our lives, and how precious the memories for Phil. I will always think of Phil’s dad as supplying us with our first window into Phil’s soul. May he rest in peace. 

Am I Getting Used To Death?

Deb: I remember when I was a kid and my Mom and Dad would go to a visitation or a funeral. It always seemed so incredible to me that they could function at all, let alone iron their funeral suits and go to a reception afterwards. I mean, isn’t this death? Aren’t they scared? Freaked out? And why aren’t they crying all the time? I would watch them come and go. And each time was different, accompanied by fluctuating levels of emotion. Their level of pain was on a sliding scale of sad depending on the deceased. 

We have, all of us, suffered losses in our lives. Some are devastating and stay with us till we die, others are quite painful, some are sad, a few “regretful”, and others are “a darned shame.” It occurs to me that as we get older we almost need to have that Sliding Scale of Grief to cope with all the death and dying we encounter. It sounds awful, but whether or not we admit it, we rate death. We have to deal with everything from the death of our nearest and dearest which shatters us, to the death of a person we barely knew for whom we are just paying respect to a life lived. 

I have come to accept that, but the thing I still struggle with is how accustomed and sometimes almost comfortable I am with the ritual of death. It has, at this time of life become a constant, a duty, a loving tribute, and even sometimes an obligation. We all know death is a part of life. And the irony is not lost on me that the appearance of death and my attendant juggling of schedules has become the most spontaneous part of my life. Sad but true. I go, I mourn. 

Now I wonder why it is that I can take time at a moment’s notice and switch everything for funerals, but I can’t do it for something fun. I wonder why I can’t just clear my schedule for the possibility of something wonderful. Sometimes I do, but mostly I don’t. I continue to schedule my life on a dime––and then someone dies and all my planning goes to pot. Then I dutifully pull out “my funeral suit” and I go and I pay my respects, human to human. It’s what life is. It’s death. But I’ve gotten used to it. 

Barbara: I’ve often wondered how you cope, Deb. Deb comes from a very large extended family and lives close to her relatives and all their close friends and family. She also has a huge range of friends and associates from years in one of the most socially-diverse jobs there is. I swear, not a month goes by where she doesn’t (sadly) have to attend another funeral. And I’ve seen how these funerals take their toll on her, both the near-and-dear ones and the dutiful-honouring ones. I never thought of it before, Deb, but I don’t doubt for a second that you must be getting “used to death” by now. 

I, on the other hand, have not had the same huge, ever-expanding circles of friends and family, and friends of friends and family, and parents of friends and family. There have been some funerals of this ilk, yes, but nothing like your experience. And too many of the funerals I have had to attend have been for people too young for their deaths to be mundane. 

But maybe there’s something strangely comforting in your words, Deb. It is our life-journey, right? so we shouldn’t be fundamentally undone by it. And these rituals that we have so wisely put in place around death really do help us make some kind of peace with it, don’t they? The visitations, the wakes, the eulogies, the sobbing, the drunken reminiscences, the human-to-human bonding. Who doesn’t go to a funeral and find themselves feeling a little cathartically better at some point? Even if it doesn’t last long, that catharsis makes it somewhat bearable. And it becomes our reminder that this is a normal part of life. Even one we can—or must––get used to.