Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds - Two Great Women Gone in Just Two Days

 

I don't usually cry when celebrities die, but in these last few days I've cried a few times about people I don't know personally who are gone.  I think the last time I cried about a celebrity death before this was when Ginger Rogers died, many years ago.  I happened to be reading her autobiography at the time. 

 

My husband and I don't like many movies (find the comedies unfunny and many others just too boring), but the first Star Wars movie is one of our favorites.  We even had a very long discussion about various Star Wars movies and other sci-fi topics the night before Carrie Fisher died.

 

Carrie Fisher had a rough life.  I know it's hard enough just dealing with regular depression.  I certainly wouldn't want to live with bipolar disorder, as she did.  Having made the choice in recent years to get shock treatment to deal with her mental illness couldn't have been easy.  She mentioned on talk shows how it would take away her short-term memory.  She would lose about a month of recent memories, if I'm recalling correctly.  That sounds so frightening to me, but she did what she felt she had to do to feel better.

 

I admired Carrie Fisher for all that she had overcome in her life, while remaining so strong.  When I heard of her passing, I thought of both her daughter and her mother, Debbie Reynolds.  I thought of how hard it would be for them, similar to what my own mother and nephew have gone through because of losing my sister Kim, though Kim's son was much younger than Carrie's daughter.

 

 

Then one day after Carrie had passed, her mother Debbie Reynolds did, too.  Such a shock.  Again, my first thought was for Carrie's daughter (Debbie's granddaughter).  I hope that she has good, loving, and supportive people around her, because she is going to need that so very much.

 

Al Roker said today on The Today Show, "Debbie knew that her daughter needed her."  I disagree.  I know Todd Fisher said that his mother had expressed wanting to be with Carrie about 30 minutes before she died, but I think she would know that Carrie was fine, and that the people who really needed her are her son and her granddaughter. 

 

I just heard, in these last few days, that there is an upcoming HBO documentary about Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds called Bright Lights.  I will definitely want to buy it on DVD when it comes out.  I didn't know that they lived right next door to each other and were so very close, but I would really love to see that and hear all about their recent time together.  I know it will make me sad, as will seeing Carrie in any new or old Star Wars movies we watch.

 

I always, always loved Debbie Reynolds, too.  I saw most of her old movies, some of them multiple times, and she was great on Will and Grace, too, playing Grace's mother. 

 

I just hope that Debbie's son and Carrie's daughter and anyone else who loved them will all be able to comfort each other and find ways to make going forward an okay thing for all of them.  I know it will be difficult, but I wish them joy and peace.

 

 

 

Grief Advice from a Zen Buddhist Nun

 

My husband recently got me a book by the people who make Prevention magazine.  I think the title is Prevention Happiness Now because that's what the inside page says.  I think he got it at the grocery store.  It says on the front of it "Display until December 19, 2015," so as of this writing, it would probably still be available somewhere.  I tried to find it for sale online, to put up a link, but couldn't find any.

 

Anyway, it's a pretty good book overall.  I liked a lot of it.  It had one chapter in it that was about a woman who lost the love of her life 14 years ago and then became a Zen Buddhist nun.  Her name is Sister Dang Nghiem, M.D.

 

Some things she had to say in this chapter were pretty good.  She said:

 

Breathing heals; time doesn't.

 

"It's a myth to say that time can heal.  Time cannot heal.  Breathing and mindfulness can.  [Long after a traumatic event happens to you,] a sight, a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch can trigger the complete stress response as though it's happening all over again.  What saved me was the mindfulness of breathing.  Sometimes I would lie down to breathe and put my hands on my belly to slow it down and anchor my body.  Through breathing, you learn to slow the stress response, the fight-flight-or-freeze response.  If you can do that when going through a very intense experience, the next time you recall that trauma, you will do so with more peace, mindfulness, and clarity."

 

You can cultivate joy even when you're hurting.

 

"It's been 14 years since John died.  I still miss him every day, but I have learned to cultivate joy and peace in each breath, even though I feel that pain.  You have to do them both at the same time.  It's like a garden:  You have to take care of the weeds, but you also have to plant flowers.  If you only weed, you'll be exhausted and lose hope.  And if you plant enough flowers, eventually there will be less room for all the weeds."

 

You can keep the dead alive.

 

"When a person dies and you lose all your joy, then it is like you are making sure that person is as dead as possible.  But you can learn to call on the spirit of that person for help and learn to see him or her around you.  When I see a purple flower, I remember that John loved purple flowers, and I smile.  That flower, in that moment, becomes him."

 

Her words helped me a lot.  I know that I've been guilty of losing most of my joy, since my sister died and we lost other very important people.  But I also have felt that presence of the loved ones and have even asked them for help.  I remember when my husband was having his heart surgery and I was so frightened and I prayed to all of our dear departed loved ones and told them that if they see Dean coming toward them (coming toward the light) to please tell him to go back, come back and fight to stay alive, come back to me because I need him so much.  I don't think he experienced any of that during his surgery, but I had to say it to them, just in case - make him come back to me.

 

I also have felt the presence of loved ones in ways I've mentioned before - in signs, in inspiration, etc.  I guess I have to work on feeling that even more, and also cultivating more joy in general.  I have been trying, but many days it's very hard, as some of you might really, really understand if you've experienced a major loss (or several, like we have).

 

I just hope these words (from the book) help you as they are helping me right now.

 

May love and peace be with you,

Christine

Sometimes Grief is Never-Ending

This is an appropriate picture of our late sister Kim, because that is how I think of her - happy, bubbly, enjoying life.  I wish I could be like that.  I hope to be able to be that way someday again.  I used to be more like that, at times, before we had to deal with so much of this grieving.

It's also fitting that there is an angel in this photo (on Juli and Kevin's Christmas tree), because I think of Kim as being an angel now.  Many people who loved her thought of her as an angel even when she was here and alive.  She had so many friends and was so outgoing and fun and friendly.

I've probably said this before, but don't ever let anyone tell you that you are grieving wrong.  Everyone is different.  Some people may distract themselves or seem to move on quickly, or possibly even wish that you were doing the same.  Other people might want to think or talk about the person, or talk about feelings.  Whatever way you grieve is whatever is best for you at the time.

I worry so much about Kim's son Ethan.  Some of us adults are not coping well with this loss, more than two years after her passing, so how can a child understand and cope with it?  We talk about his mom when he wants to, and bring her up when memories occur, and we look at the beautiful book that my sister Juli made with photos and memories of Kim.  Most of the time, Ethan is trying to distract himself with video games and things, probably trying to not feel most of his pain.  I do the same things, too.

In my younger days, I experienced some losses that didn't feel very difficult, like the loss of grandparents I wasn't very close to, or other people I didn't have a strong connection to.  In recent years, though, there have been important and serious losses, like my sister very quickly passing away from cancer.  Other big losses have been my in-laws, and my husband's aunt, all of whom felt like real parents to me.  Plus, we all lived in the same house.  I feel that the grief over these recent, big losses will never really go away.  It seems to stay and stay, and continue to cause a lot of pain for my husband and for me (as Kim's loss also does for Mom and Ethan and Juli and others).

Grief isn't limited to just people, either.  My husband and I still feel grief over some of the most special cats we've had, too.  As anyone who has truly loved a pet knows, they are like little, furry people.  We love them and care for them and miss them a lot when they are gone.

I guess this is what getting older is like - dealing with loss after loss, if you are lucky enough to be someone who remains alive yourself.  It's a very hard thing.  Like I said in my previous post, I keep calling this compound grief.  It's as if each loss opens the previous wounds again, or as if the crack in your broken heart gets bigger each time.  Then you try to heal a bit, and experience another loss and it rips back open.  Each loss seems to remind us more and more of all of the others who are gone, and we aren't coping too well with it, at times.

We keep trying.  We keep setting goals, making plans, trying to live our lives, but as any grieving person knows, there are constant reminders that make you think of the people over and over.  Sometimes we have funny or happy thoughts or memories, but other times it's just painful.

It's not like I'm enjoying this continued blogging about grief, but I have these thoughts and they need to get out.  Writing these things makes me cry and it feels very hard, but maybe someone can relate to something that I say, and it might make them feel less alone, less odd.

Please be kind and gentle with yourself if you are experiencing grief.  Take care of yourself and give yourself credit for just getting through each day and doing the best you can.  It's such a difficult thing, especially for extremely sensitive and caring people.  Loving and caring about people brings us much happiness, but also pain.

I wish you peace and comfort and joy in the future.

Compound Grief

 

I know that I keep using too many of the same photos.  I just don't have the time or energy to search around for other ones right now.

 

These two people are the ones we lost most recently - my sister Kim and my husband's Aunt Dee Dee.  I never know whether I'm supposed to say my Aunt Dee Dee or just call her his aunt.  I tried Googling it once, and came up with the wrong results to answer my question.

 

One thing I've noticed in all of these recent years, with several more of the important people we love being gone is that each loss seems to make the previous ones hurt even more.  I've been calling it compound grief when talking with my husband about it.  I don't even know if that's a term that anyone uses, but it's just what I've been saying.

 

I guess how I'm feeling is that with each loss, there is one less person who loves and cares about us, and who cares about the same people that we miss.  It seems to keep dwindling down to a few of us who are really sad about all of those who are gone.

 

I don't even feel like I'm explaining this correctly.  Perhaps a lot of my pain and my husband's is because four of the losses we've experienced have been very important people, and three of those were people who lived in this house.  We all had our separate areas to live in, but could all visit and talk and care about each other, which was wonderful.

 

I know it's strange to many people, in this day and age, to stay at home with the older folks and live together.  The fact is, we never could afford to leave, but also we didn't want to.  We loved these people.  Dean's mom never wanted us to leave - ever - she told us that.  She wanted us all to stay together, and we all felt the same way.  Sure, we all could've used more room, but being together meant more to us.  So, even if we would've had the money to move ourselves, my husband and I always said that we wouldn't move unless we had enough money to move all of us to a larger place (or attached condos or something).

 

Getting back to the compound grief concept - each loss we experienced was terrible, but there were still people who we did things with and took care of, in this house.  When Dean's dad, Ray, passed away, we focused on doing things with and for his wife Milly (lots of gifts and cards, cooking and baking for her, going out to dinner, etc.).  We had something to do - care for her, and knew she was here caring about us and our pain, too.

 

When Milly passed away, we focused more attention on her sister Dee Dee and doing things for her.  When my sister Kim passed away, Dee Dee was here to comfort and console us.  We were still together, some of us.

 

Of course, the most important person in my life (my husband) is still here, and I am supremely grateful for that.  I still have my mom and my sister Juli and other loved ones, which I am also very grateful for. 

 

When my husband had his heart attack and heart surgery and I had some time at home (when I wasn't at the hospital), no one was here for me at home, other than the cats.  Mom and Juli and people on Dean's side of the family were supportive, but no one was here in this house with me, talking with me and comforting me, so it was hard.

 

I guess, in a way, that I will be glad to leave this house someday, when we can afford to go someplace else.  Too many memories are here.  People's things are all over, because we don't have the emotional or physical strength to clean them out.  We are in Dee Dee's old place, and almost all of her things are still here.  It all feels so strange, all of them being gone.  We just feel constant, daily emotional pain - not that I think it will lessen much when we move anyway.

 

I know this might be sounding too personal, too much like a journal entry and not a blog, but I'm still hoping that it will help others who are grieving, and make some difference to anyone who can relate to any of these posts.  I know I could just be writing all of this in a simple journal and keep it all to myself, but if it helps even one person, then it's worth putting it out here.  I know that sounds like such a cliché, but that's how I feel.

 

If you yourself are experiencing any type of grief, I wish you comfort and peace.