How to React

I have a co-worker whose mother recently passed away from cancer. Even though I don't know her very well, I wanted to go up and hug her. I wanted to let her know that she could talk to me. I really wanted to tell her that I have been through it and eventually it doesn't hurt quite as badly. I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say or how to say it. I was sure that because I have been through this I would have some gems of wisdom and light, but I don't.

I thought about what people said to me when my dad died. I honestly didn't remember a thing. I'm sure that I felt better in the moment because of what some people did or said, but the first few weeks after my dad died are a complete blur. I really don't remember many of the details. There were a few things that stood out however of both what to do and what not to do if someone you know has a loved one die.

- My dad died right in the middle of midterms so I was gone during a lot of important exams. All of my professors were really great about helping me make up those exams. One professor just told me not to worry about that test and he would just make my other tests worth more. That helped a lot because I didn't feel so incredibly behind. What really bugged me however, was that with that same professor, anytime I asked him a question about an assignment or about deadlines, he would make exceptions for me "based on what happened earlier in the semester." Just because my dad died doesn't mean that I expect excuses made for me the entire semester. Yeah, something really unfortunate and painful happened in my life but that doesn't rend me completely useless and unable to function. I felt like I was being treated like a victim.
Do: be compassionate and help them catch up at work or school.
Don't: make that event the only reason for any kindness or leniency, emphasizing it over and over again.

- The moment we got home from the hospital we had people coming over non-stop, most of the time with food or flowers. It was nice to see the support but they just kept coming and coming. Dropping off things wasn't a problem, the frustrating part was when people demanded to see my mom, or stayed to talk for a while. We did not want to talk to anyone at all! We wanted to be with our family and prepare for the funeral. The food was appreciated because that allowed us to spend more time with each other and not worry about feeding everyone but the excessive visiting was too much.
Do: drop off food, cards, flowers, notes, well-wishes.
Don't: stay to visit or call to talk until after the funeral or after the family leaves, which ever is later.

- Because my dad was well-loved in the community, we had many people let us know of their desire to participate in the funeral service, especially with the music. As we started to plan the service, we thought of people who were special to my dad and to our family and asked them to participate. People kept calling and telling us that they wanted to do something in the funeral, thinking that they were helping us out or lightening the load. What happened is that the music spots got double and triple filled with people. Someone would call and say that they wanted to play the organ. My mom would sometimes answer the phone and she was in no state to tell someone no so she would just say sure. Or, someone else in the family would answer the phone and not knowing who had been asked, would say yes. It was my job to then call back these people and tell them that they couldn't do it because we already had someone else. It was like telling them that someone else was more important to us than they were. It sucked. And some of them took it hard.
Do: attend the funeral. If you want to participate, talk to the bishop presiding and see if they know of any spots instead of bothering the family with your requests. Offer your talents in a variety of areas.
Don't: assume that the family has no one else to do the job. Chances are, if it is important, they already have someone to do that. Don't insist on doing a specific task.

- This one didn't bother me a ton, but I still feel it deserves a mention. As a stay-at-home mom/wife, my mom wasn't earning her own money. With my dad also went the majority of her financial income. We had a ton of flowers show up and they were beautiful, but some of them were so expensive. She appreciated the thought, but she really could have used the money a whole lot more. Isn't this always the case with flowers? The flowers were nice and pretty but the money that she did receive helped her a whole lot more and funerals are expensive! Now, this is going to be vastly different for each case, and there is a tactful and a tacky way of giving money.
Do: consider the family's needs before going out to buy flowers. Maybe the money, or something else, would be more useful and appropriate. Be tactful.
Don't: be insensitive or impersonal if you are giving a gift.

Things to say:
This must be hard. I am so sorry for your loss.
We all really loved ____. He will be missed.
I remember ____ about him. He was a great person.
We love you and your family.
We are thinking about you and praying for you and your family.
Your father really loved you. That was such a nice service honoring him.
When things calm down a little, I would love to help you out. Can I call you in a few weeks?

Maybe don't say these things: (people really said these things to me)
In time, you'll get over it.
In a year, you'll look back on this and smile.
It's a good thing he died healthy. (seriously......I wanted to kick this person)
Aren't you glad he was there for your wedding? (yeah, but I would have liked him there for my first baby too)
Are you crying a lot? (there is no right way to answer this question)
Congratulations on your wedding!! Too bad about your dad.
Makes you think, eh?
So how did he die again? (this was in the viewing, really)
If you ever need anything, let me know. (this is too vague and never seems sincere)
I guess you're an orphan now. (actually my mom is still alive and my dad didn't orphan me by dying...this one made me the most upset)

Again, as pet peeves differ from person to person, these preferences might also. Just be sensitive, supportive and thoughtful.

Feeling Left Behind

Easily, the hardest part about my dad dying was leaving my mom to go back home. Knowing that she was alone absolutely killed me inside. It continues to be painful when I talk to my mom on the phone and want so much to be there to hug her. My dad was always there for her and now he's not. None of my siblings live very close so she doesn't have a hug every day. That hurts.

My relationship with my mom has changed so much since then. We have become so much closer and it has evolved from a mother-daughter relationship to close friends. When I talk to her on the phone I listen a whole lot more. We laugh and cry more. Because my dad isn't there for her to lean on, sometimes she just needs to be reassured that things aren't always as bad as it seems. We all need that sometimes.

I try to call her once every couple of days. I make sure to let her know that I still need her. Her focus was taking care of my dad and our family and now that everyone moved out and my dad is gone it is very easy for her to think that she is not needed anymore. That is completely not true and it is my job to make sure that she knows that!

It can't be easy to be left behind by a spouse. I would never wish it on anyone, from what I have seen in my family. I'll probably have to experience it someday because women tend to live longer than men. I try not to think about that too much because it makes me so sad. I focus on my husband and our life, and my mom and how much I love her.

Father's Day Frowns

Father's Day is coming up this weekend. It's hard not to think about it sometimes, especially when I see everything around me being marketed as great Father's Day gifts. I will see things from time to time and think to myself how much my dad would love it, then remember that I can't exactly give it to him.

I've concocted my own way of dealing with this and other holidays such as his birthday and Christmas. Instead of buying or making something that I would give my dad, I have decided to do or change something in my life in a positive way. I want to improve my life to make my dad proud. I firmly believe that he is allowed to watch me and my family and so he will notice my gift to him.

Here are some ideas:
- doing something really special for my mom, something my dad would have done
- devoting myself more to things that were important to my dad like church or music
- building a classical music collection like he always tried to help me to appreciate
- perfecting chess, a game he enjoyed and always tried to teach me
- using the piano he helped me get to bring music and hymns in the home by playing hymns every Sunday
- connecting with some relatives on his side of the family, keeping important relationships with them that he worked hard to establish
- continue his extensive genealogy work
- donate money/time to the local symphony

Again, these are just ideas that I had which are very specific to my dad. I would suggest that you sit down and outline the main things that were important in your loved one's life and do something to honor or support that work. Holidays are not going to be easy, but knowing that I am doing something for my dad even though he isn't here will hopefully make them easier.

Cars and Traffic

Because my dad died from a car accident, I have developed a fear of traffic.

In January my husband and I were in a very scary car accident. If we had not been buckled up or my husband had not turned the car a little to avoid the accident, we might both be dead. The car was totaled and I had bumps and bruises but other than that we were ok. We were going about 60mph going through a light that had just turned yellow. A Bronco decided to turn left in front of us. We hit the Bronco in the middle of the intersection.

Not only was this my first car accident but my dad had just died three months previous from a car accident. I was a wreck. Honestly I have not driven the car very much since then. When my husband drives I am so jumpy and nearly scream at yellow lights. I get so unnerved in cars.

I hate walking across the street, even in crosswalks at traffic lights. I feel like I am going to get hit by a driver who isn't paying attention. Every time I cross the street I imagine myself getting hit and flying through the air, landing 10 feet away. I can't help it but to have these images fly through my mind. I even imagine the pain that I would feel if I were hit. It's a little disturbing. I know this sounds weird.

And of course, there are the commercials and movie scenes with car accidents that just about leave me in tears.

I don't know if any of you have experienced something like this, maybe related to the death of someone close to you. I may be alone in this, but I doubt it.

Other websites

I found a few links to sites that offer advice, much more professional.

The first is a blog but is written by a grief educator.

This one is written by an AOL member and offers ideas for dealing with the death of anyone close.

Another website that offers another approach to the death of a parent.

I'll add more as I find them, but I think these three are pretty good.

Keeping the Traditions Rolling

We have a spread out extended family so in an attempt to keep everyone connected somewhat, my dad would put together a family calendar each year and mail it out to everyone. He would collect all the photos and double-check all important dates (birthdays, anniversaries). It was something that we all looked forward to each December. This year, my dad had started on the calendar but hadn't gotten very far yet. Our family came together to finish it. My brother collected to photos, I designed the calendar and my mom printed it and sent it out. It didn't get out until April (mostly my fault) but it still got out. We felt like we were living up to what my dad would have done. It was a nice feeling.

If your deceased loved one had any type of tradition at all, I would recommend doing something to honor that each year. Instead of focusing on the passing, it focuses on the great things in his/her life.

Another example is that after a specific church meeting each year my dad would take my mom and me out to ice cream. My mom happened to be visiting my husband and me this year at that time and so we all went out to ice cream.

My dad loved to play cards on Sundays, however he wouldn't play with traditional playing cards but used Rook cards instead. His absolute favorite game was Hearts (then Phase 10). Playing these games with my siblings when we get together provides a great opportunity to talk and reminisce about my dad in a fun way, remembering him and his eccentricities without getting sad. We haven't done this yet, but I plan on doing it when we do get together in a few months. Even when I play these games with people outside of my family, it gives me a chance to think about how much fun I had with my dad learning new card games and mastering the favorites.

My Story Contd.

Ok, so I here's a little more about my story.

After up and down reports on my dad's condition, I decided to fly up and got a ticket for Wednesday morning returning the next Tuesday. My husband stayed behind and would come up if things got worse. Two of my brothers were there when I arrived and one had come and gone already. At least my mom wasn't alone. We camped out in the waiting room for the ICU and took turns in my dad's room holding his hand during visiting hours. We didn't want to leave my dad alone. I don't know why, he wasn't going to open his eyes, he wasn't going to spontaneously crash, we just didn't want him to be alone.

Our hopes grew when the orthopedic surgeon came in to see my dad and scheduled a time for surgery on the rest of his body. In the accident not only his skull was crushed, but also his left hip and elbow were crushed too. We knew that he wouldn't go into surgery unless they were confident that his brain pressure would stay normal under the situations. He was kept under the entire time to allow his body to focus on healing instead of being awake. He couldn't move voluntarily anyways, but was in so much pain that his body would involuntarily shudder. Once every few hours they would bring him out of anesthesia and rub his sternum very hard to try to see what would move. Sometimes his toes would move and we would get very excited because they were voluntary moves. We never really knew his condition because it would change so much. We didn't know what constituted progress and what constituted set-backs.

The worst moment of my life happened Friday evening when we met with the director of the ICU. He told us that there was no chance of my father ever improving. If he continued to live, he would continue as he was in ICU. There was no chance for recovery. My dad had a living will. If this situation were to happen, that there would be no chance for recovery, that we were to let him return to God. We knew this is what we had to do.

The brother who wasn't there caught the first flight he could. We spent a few hours crammed in that little room crying and laughing, talking about dad and his life. After we prayed and sang a hymn, the ICU nurse turned off the machines.

The next hour was awful. My dad wasn't dead; he just couldn't survive without the machines. We didn't know how long it would take for him to pass after the machines were removed. This is the hardest part for me to remember. My dad labored for breath for just over an hour. His chest moved up and down. Each breath was a little shallower than the last. I knew that he wasn't really there, but it was so hard to hear him breathe like that and have us wait for him to die. Why couldn't we do something? I didn't want to hear it anymore so I curled up on my chair and tried to sleep instead of waiting. I was dozing when my brother woke me and said that it had happened. We prayed and sang again and then left. It was about 3:00 am.

My mom's bishop and his wife came up to drive us all to my parent's house. Food and well-wishers rolled in. The funeral was held on Wednesday. I gave the eulogy and my half-sister played a beautiful violin piece. Two of my dad's former students played a song that my dad composed. The place was packed.

My husband and I drove home on Thursday. Life went back to normal day-to-day for me, I just felt empty and sad.

The No-Granddad Phenomenon

One of the most difficult parts about my father's death for me is knowing that my kids won't know their grandfather. I don't have any children right now, nor am I expecting, but I keep thinking about significant events in my children's lives (birth, baby blessing in church, baptism, etc.) and not having a grandfather there.

I don't understand the whole grandparent thing. My grandpas died before I was born, my paternal grandmother passed when I was 3 and my maternal grandmother passed when I was 16, but she had been sick and in a nursing home my entire life. She didn't have enough energy to be the traditional grandmother figure. I am the youngest of my family (by 17 years) and my mother was born later in her parent's life. Consequently, everyone in my family is older in comparison to the parents and grandparents of my friends.

Additionally, my husband's father passed away seven years ago. My husband is also the youngest of his family (by 16 years). He never knew his grandparents either. I'm confident that our mothers will be around for a while but the question is if their health will permit developing strong relationships with our children.

Some ideas I have come up with to deal with this situation when it comes are:
1. Make good friends and keep them close. They will serve as extended family for kids if there is no one else around. It's more than ok to have kids call their parent's close friends "Aunt" and "Uncle."
2. Adopt an elderly person into your family. They may not have children around and you may not have grandparents around. This will take a bit of effort to develop a relationship with them but if you get close it would be great for both parties.
3. Keep sibling relationships close and long-term. Make family vacations with the cousins, venture to visit each other and have everyone talk on the phone often.

None of these things will substitute for the real thing, but it may help you and your children deal with that void further on in life.

Memory Books

My sister-in-law, Nichole, is an amazing digital scrap booker. She is able to take a moment in time and recreate it through pictures, phrases and graphics. She has decided to take pictures from dad's life and make a memory book of just him. The picture is a page that she did two weeks after my dad's death to honor him. The pictures are from his birthday the month previous.

She designs the pages using free templates and graphics from the web and then changes it to fit whatever it is that she wants to create. I believe that she uses Adobe Photoshop to do the designs. I am not nearly as talented as she is but I have come up with my own ideas of memory books to honor those who have passed.

There are several websites that offer different services. The first is iMemoryBook. This is a site that creates a memory book for you based on several people's input. The way it works is that you create this book and have it online for a certain period of days. You then invite people to go to the site and contribute their pictures, stories and messages. I have not personally used it but the interface seems simple enough. The service costs from $49.95 to $199.95 and then the cost of the books (which decreases significantly with quantity). To make the cost worth it, you would need to have a large group of people, too large to collect the memories by yourself. This would be great for large families that are spread out geographically. There is no limit to the number of people you can invite. After everyone has put in what they want, you can edit it to make it look nice and then order books.

The off-line take to this collective memory book idea is something I plan on doing at our next family get together. I bought an album/journal with nice acid-free pages (important if you want to keep it for a long time) and an acid-free pen. I used acid-free glue (ok you get the acid-free point) to glue my favorite picture of my father on the front page. For each page after that I am going to have each member of my family spend time writing their favorite memories about dad. This one is more for me because it's a lot more difficult to mass distribute hand-written things. I suppose I might type them up for everyone in the family and email it to them. I haven't figured it all out yet, but I want to do this because sometimes it is just nice to have things handwritten. I'm a hopeless romantic sometimes.

Another option is using picture book services to create a book. This one can be fairly inexpensive, there are plenty of websites offering this so you can pick and choose, and it's simple to put together. The downside is that there is limited space for words, it is not extremely customizable, and the price can sky-rocket if you try adding a lot of pages. Here are some websites that I know of that do this type of thing. MyPublisher, Shutterfly, and Snapfish are all pretty similar and allow you to upload photos and create albums from there. Price them out depending on what you want to do. iPhoto is a program on Macs that lets you do a lot offline then send it in online. Check out the iPhoto website for more details. Generally, it will cost around $40-50 for the book. I think some of these offer quantity discounts too.

The way that my sister-in-law publishes her digital scrap booking is by creating her designs full-page and then using some of the above services. She uploads her designs as photos and they print out with a full page bleed (right to the edges). It takes a little bit of experimenting and time to figure out what will work best.

Of course there is good old fashioned scrap booking. This takes quite a bit of talent and know-how around serrated scissors. Also, it is difficult to make copies for other members of the family unless you do color photocopies which don't turn out nearly as well as the actual page.

The best way to remember people is by talking about it. These projects may help you remember to great times you had with your parent and share them with people who may not have known them. Good luck!

My Story

So how did I become qualified to write a blog about the death of parents? I wouldn't say that I am necessarily qualified. My father passed away recently (it feels like yesterday) and so I have experienced the death of a parent. Since then, I have bonded with people particularly because we have experienced the death of a parent. We had similar life stories. But everyone's story is different. Here is mine:

The last time I saw my dad alive and well I was walking out of my wedding reception with my new husband, leaving on our honeymoon. I don't remember if I even hugged or kissed him before I left. That day, August 25, 2005, will be so precious in my memory for so much more than it was that day I got married.

My dad was a piano technician. This means he went around to businesses/houses/churches in our community fixing them up to play well and in tune. He had been doing that for over 35 years and he was really good (I am a little biased). On October 17, 2005 he was just on the outskirts of town regulating the action on a family's piano. He had been working on it all day and the previous day as well. I think he had one or two days left on that job. This is where the mystery sets in. My father was driving home from that job on a one lane each way undivided highway. He had been driving these roads for decades but for some reason something changed. The police report says that my father's car (1990 white Honda Civic) drifted into the oncoming lane. The 18-wheeler truck tried to move over but my dad's car just kept coming over the center line. The driver's side of the car was run over by the 4 wheels on the last trailer of the oncoming truck, crushing my father.

This is the part that gets me. How could my dad drift? He was old, but not that old, only 63. If we have road trips, he always drives because he's the best driver. It was only 5:45 pm so he couldn't have been that drowsy. He uses the cell phone for his work but he has a headset always attached to his ear (to the point of annoyance) and he makes a point to pull over every time he used it. Maybe he had a seizure, maybe he dropped something, maybe he was thinking about something. We'll never know because we can't ask him. I just don't understand how it could happen.

I was at home waiting for a study partner for an exam the next day when my sister-in-law internet messaged me. "Your dad has been in a serious car accident. Call Greg." I stared at the screen in shock. My phone started to ring. It was my brother, Greg. He didn't know his wife had messaged me so he was pretending like everything was ok and asking me about my day. He has this tendency to have a positive attitude about everything and it makes me furious sometimes. He heard me crying and got mad at his wife for telling me over instant messenger. Then he told me the full story. Dad was in the ER in Lethbridge (my hometown) and was in trouble. They were going to life-flight him to the nearest neurosurgeon (Calgary, the biggest city in the province) and try to remove the pieces of his skull that had been contaminated. This would also hopefully allow the brain to swell enough outside of the skull to relieve the pressure against his brain. The pressure is what causes the most brain damage. I cried and I prayed and sobbed some more, but my dad was having surgery so there was hope.

My study partner arrived and we carried on as normal.

I'll write more about the ensuing days a little later. I can only think about it in chunks.