grief | Bertram's Blog

What is Your Mission?

January 11, 2023 — Pat Bertram

Today’s blog prompt is “What is your mission?” For a long time, my mission was to simply to deal with my grief after Jeff’s death. Anyone who has dealt with grief knows that it is a massive mission — at first, getting through the days, then learning to live with a big hole in your life, then eventually becoming the person who can perhaps thrive despite the loss. Because the horrendous pain was an experience I’d never encountered before in books or movies or other people, my mission expanded to telling the truth about this sort of all-encompassing grief, to let other grievers know they weren’t alone, that grief was normal. When my grief became more manageable, my mission changed to telling those who were still grieving long after others think they should have “moved on,” that they are doing exactly the right thing, and that someday they will get to where they need to be.

My grief mission has come to an end. I no longer have an interest in resurrecting my pain to talk about it, to explain it, to lay myself bare. In fact, I’m to the point where I can’t handle any sort of grief, even the second-hand kind. Compassion overload apparently is a real thing.

A few days ago, I wrote about being — or not being — a contender (I Coulda Been a Contender). It seems the gist of the blog is that I am missing a sense of mission. Since I don’t really know what a mission is (though I do know when one thrusts itself upon me), I had to look up the word.

A mission is “the ultimate goal or purpose toward which one strives; one’s reason or motivation to continue existing, operating, or working.” At the moment I have no goal, no motivation to continue existing except the most basic — to survive the day as best as I can, to glean whatever good I can find and to try to gracefully glide past anything that’s not so good.

Now that I think of it, that’s not a bad mission!

What’s your mission?

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in blogging, grief, life. Tags: blogging about grief, compassion overload, grief, grief as a mission, having a mission, missing a sense of mission, mission. 5 Comments »

Interview: Talking about Grief and Being an Author

July 24, 2020 — Pat Bertram

What inspired you to write Grief: The Inside Story — A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One?

When Jeff, my life mate/soul mate died, I was completely unprepared for the depth and breadth of my grief. I had never felt such pain, pain that escalated by the minute. I never even knew such pain existed. How could I? I’d grieved the deaths of my mother and my younger brother, but what I felt after Jeff died in no way resembled those earlier bouts of grief.

I started writing about grief not only to make sense of my own feelings but also as a rebellion against a society that reveres happiness at all costs. There is something dreadfully wrong with a society that expects the bereft to hide their grief after a couple of months simply because it makes people uncomfortable to see outward shows of mourning. Seeing grief makes people realize how ephemeral their lives really are, and they can’t handle it (which leaves the bereft, who already feel isolated, totally alone with their sorrow.) It also cracks the façade of our relentlessly glass-half-full society.

People who are grieving often find comfort in the truth about grief and how long it takes because it matches what they feel and it makes them feel not so alone. And so, after years of dealing with my own grief and that of my widowed blog readers, I wrote the book “Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One” to help explain the grief process both to grievers and those who want to understand what their grieving friends are going through.

The earliest incidents you recall from your life where you first felt you had a writer in you?

I loved books from the moment I learned to read, and I often wrote stories and poems, so I always thought I would be a writer. When I quit a job in my early twenties to start my first book. . . [Click here: to read the entire interview]

Posted in life, writing. Tags: grief, Grief the Inside Story, interview. 2 Comments »

Being Clever

December 6, 2019 — Pat Bertram

When I first started participating in the online world twelve years ago, I was unimpressed by the trivia of it all — the posts about what someone had for lunch, what their dogs or cats did, all the day-to-day things that make up the social aspect of networking.

Since I was trying to establish myself as an author, I tried to take a more grande-dame-ish approach. I wanted to be respected, to be seen a someone with dignity and grace, someone who had something to say and had the power to say it.

To that end, I tried to keep my clever, craft-oriented side to myself.

The whole great lady idea went out the window after Jeff died. It’s hard to try to maintain the appearance of being a grande dame when one is screaming their pain into the blogosphere. Still, I did try to maintain a bit of dignity and grace through it all. Now that my grief has been subsumed into my new life as homeowner and no longer brings me close to the great mysteries of life, what I’m left with is . . . whatever is the opposite of grande dame. Unsophisticated, maybe. Inelegant, perhaps. No high-blown thoughts, for sure.

There’s certainly no reason to keep my cleverness under wraps, especially since it’s about all I’m left with to blog about.

The truth is, I’ve always enjoyed being clever when it comes to small things. I’d prefer, of course, to be brilliant, but cleverness will do. It’s also nice to have a reason to be clever. Considering all the activities I am involved with, such as supplying treats for programs or creating something interesting for potlucks, I have ample opportunities to be clever. Like this little giveaway I thought of:

A Christmas Eve teabag on one side, a Christmas morning teabag on the other.

See? Clever.

But not at all grande dame-ish.

***

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: being clever, grande dame, grande dame approach, grief, homeowner, owning a house, social networking. 10 Comments »

Grief: The Great Learning, Day 445

January 28, 2015 — Pat Bertram

I’ve saved the letters I wrote to my life mate/soul mate after he died, thinking that one day I would write a sequel to Grief: The Great Yearning, the story of my first year of grief. I’d planned to call the sequel Grief: The Great Learning, and detail the lessons gleaned from the second and third years of my grief. Because I no longer want to keep revisiting such angst, there will be no sequel, so I’m publishing the letters here on this blog as a way of safeguarding (and sharing) them.

Although this letter was written three and a half years ago, it reflects much of what I am thinking about now. My father recently died, and now I am facing what I could only think about back then — the vast open plain of the future before me.

I am packing to leave this house and go . . . I know not where. I’ll probably stay around here for a while. I have made new friends after those referred to in this letter disappeared out of my life, and it just occurred to me that I can speak about all of my concerns to at least one of those women. It’s nice and helps offset the loneliness that still hits me every evening.

And oh, yes. I still keep hoping for major changes — good changes.

###

Day 445, Hi, Jeff.

I’ve been going through an upsurge of grief, missing you so damn much. It stuns me, like a snake stunned by a rock thrown at it, to think I’ll never see you again. You’d think I’d have come to an accommodation with that, but such ”acceptance” of that fact does not bring acceptance of what it means — death for you, loneliness for me.

Life involves people, doesn’t it? I’m trying to “people” my life, but it’s not the same thing as being connected to one specific person. We were often lonely even when we were together, but this loneliness is incomprehensible. I’m considering staying here after my father dies because at least I know people here, but so many of the people I have met, especially those from my grief group, have already faded from my life. And if the rest disappear, then what?

It should be exciting to have the vast open plain of the future before me, but all I see is bleakness and aloneness. I have no one to talk to about my concerns. I don’t know how to cope with that. I keep hoping for major changes (good changes), but all that seems to be happening is a slow descent into inevitability.

I hope you’re not lonely. I couldn’t bear that.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in grief, life, relationships. Tags: building a new life, death of a soul mate, emptiness, grief, grief and survival, letter to the dead. 2 Comments »

Letter to Jeff, Day 435

January 23, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Day 435, Hi, Jeff.

Another Saturday. I’m tearing up again, though I’m not sure why. Loneliness, I guess. Feeling sorry for myself. I need to get on with my life, concentrate on myself. But how lonely is that? Perhaps it’s better to have no hope. Just try to take the days as they come. It sounds a lot easier than it is. The damn emotions get in the way.

Will this sorrow ever end? Will anything good ever happen to me? Do you miss me? Do you still exist? Will I ever love again? Will anyone ever love me? Is this all there is — this emptiness? I can fill the emptiness with doing things — reading, writing, walking, whatever comes my way — but as soon as I stop concentrating on the “fill,” the emptiness shows up again.

I need something to hold on to. I need something concrete to build my life on, but there isn’t anything but maybe survival. Survival — that’s what your life ended up being about. Is that all there is? Survival until there is no more survival?

How did you manage to survive as well as you did? Was it worth it living with such pain? I guess, in the end, there isn’t really a choice. You have to play out the hand you’re given. Damn. I wish I weren’t so lonely. I might be able to deal with your being gone if not for that. And I really should be able to deal with it. For cripes sake, I am not a child.

What a mess my life is, well, if emptiness can be called a mess. I wish I cared about something. I wish I could talk to you. I wish you weren’t dead. I wish you hadn’t been so sick for so long.

Maybe I’m being insensitive, whining about my life when you no longer have a life. But then, maybe you got the better end of the deal. I hope so.

I love you.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in grief, life, relationships. Tags: building a new life, death of a soul mate, emptiness, grief, grief and survival, letter to the dead. 1 Comment »

Life Happens

December 9, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I’m beginning to get a bit nervous about discussing my impending future because the uncertainty of my life bothers people — bothers them a lot — and I don’t like putting them in such a position. Oddly, the uncertainty doesn’t really bother me all that much. In fact, I am more fearful of settling into my solitariness and stagnating than I am of uncertainty, which keeps me dreaming of impossible adventures.

(In case you’re new here, after the death of my life mate/soul mate, I came to my nonagenarian father’s house to look after him in his declining years, and now that he’s gone, this house will soon be sold, and I will have to start my life from scratch.)

I have suffered so many losses in the past few years that I feel lost myself, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I don’t want to remain the same forever, nor do I want to do the same things I’ve always done. It’s time for me to try on different lives to see what (if anything) will fit. It does feel strange, though, that my options are both limitless and limited (limitless because a world of possibilities awaits me, limited because of a lack of resources). Such extremes add to the uncertainty. How do you choose a path when thousands are open? How do you deal with the requirements of modern life when resources are few? And most especially, how do you sort through all the things you don’t want to do to find the things you do want to do?

I have no idea how to begin a life from scratch, but as one lovely woman told me today, “You do it one step at a time.” And she should know — although she’s still fairly young, she had a stroke one night and woke up blind. Talk about having to start from scratch! I’m lucky. I don’t have to start from so far down. I can start from where I am right now, with all my baggage, both welcome and unwelcome.

But even she has cautioned me to make immediate plans. To make a decision — today.

The truth is, life happens. It’s as simple as that. You take one step, then another, and all of a sudden you are somewhere you never imagined. I had no intention of ever looking after my father, no thought of taking dance classes, no dreams of dancing on stage, and yet, those things have all happened, one unwitting step at a time.

The first step toward my new life is now in progress. I’m sorting through all my possessions, weeding out the superfluous and packing the rest. I’m also sorting through my immaterial possessions, such as responsibilities I have undertaken and friendships that no longer bring joy, to see what if anything is worth taking with me into my new life and what needs to be discarded. My next step will be to wait to see what happens with my father’s house. It might take a while to sell, and if so, maybe the executors will allow me to stay here until it does. Either way — staying here a or leaving shortly — my third step would be to find a storage place and move all my stuff there. And then . . .

That’s as far as I’ve gotten. Seems a good enough plan for now. So don’t worry. I won’t starve. Won’t be on the streets. I’ll just be . . . wherever life has taken me.

***

Posted in being me, life. Tags: a world of possibilities, beginning from scratch, feeling lost, grief, life happens, limited resources, one step at a time. 7 Comments »

Too Many Losses

November 14, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I’m sitting here with tears running down my face, and I don’t really know why. Just too many recent losses, perhaps. Two losses — the death of my father two and a half weeks ago and before that the loss of a dear friend to what seem to be irreconcilable differences — aren’t many, it just seems like a lot because any loss renews my grief for my life mate/soul mate, who died four and a half years ago.

I tried to wait until the tears passed before writing tonight because I’ve wept way too often on this blog, and I just didn’t want to have to admit to more sorrow. But here I am . . .

I was fine all day until after dance class this afternoon when everyone went home to someone and I returned to a borrowed house. I don’t mind being alone — it’s rather peaceful not having to worry about other people’s ills and crotchets, not having to figure out what someone else wants or needs. But perhaps that’s my problem. After a lifetime of being needed — from a childhood spent taking care of younger brothers and sisters to a recent adulthood spent taking care of the sick and dying — all of a sudden, no one needs me.

It’s not that I want to be needed — I don’t. (It’s long past time for me to figure out what I need rather than what other people need.) It’s more that I’m not used to the emptiness not being needed has left behind, an emptiness I have yet to fill. Dancing helps, of course, but there are only so many classes I can take. I’m filling many of my weekend hours sorting through and packing my stuff for storage, but I can only do that for so long, too, because it’s sad dismantling what’s left of my shared life with my mate. Not only is each item I get rid of one more thing gone from that life, it’s a reminder that I won’t be going home to him. Not now, not ever. The odd thing is, I really had let him go several months ago with the realization that he is a person in and of himself and on his own journey that has nothing to do with me. But preparing for the coming upheaval in my life brings it all back.

Maybe I’m just feeling sorry for myself tonight. Instead of sitting here whining or trying to figure out why the tears, I think I’ll go for a walk. If nothing else, it will be good for me.

***

Posted in grief, life. Tags: death of a father, death of a soul mate, grief, loss of a friend, not being needed, too many losses. 29 Comments »

I am Truly Blessed

October 28, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I just came back from dance class to an empty house. It felt strange not to have to worry about my father, not to have to deal with our complicated relationship. (Though at the end, it was simple. He wanted to die, and I was there, helping him let go.)

My father died in exactly the same way Jeff (my life/mate soul mate) did — terminal restlessness and agitation treated with morphine and haloperidol for a while, and then finally nothing when they fell into a coma and slowly and peacefully faded out of this world. In both cases, I sat with the empty body until the mortuary came for the remains, though in both cases I had company, a nurse with Jeff and a brother with my father.

But then came the major differences. With Jeff, I was totally shattered, dealing with unbearable angst and agony at his separation from my very being. I did not have that sort of deeply connected relationship with my father. Besides, he was considerably older than Jeff. Where Jeff’s life had been cut short at a fairly young age, my father had used himself up. He had nothing left. Most of all, when Jeff died, I was alone. Completely. Had to deal with everything by myself. Had little support. (Which is why I swallowed my intense independence and went to a grief support group, and one of the reasons I wrote about my grief.)

But this time, I could feel the incredible outpouring of love and caring from both my online and offline friends. Many comments were left on my blog and Facebook — not the typical stranger-to-stranger condolences you get on such sites, but heartfelt expressions of concern from people who have gotten to know me from my chronicling the traumas of my life.

I went walking with my walking group last night and cried on a friend’s shoulder and got hugs from everyone else. And then I experienced the same thing at dance class today, hugs and tears. After class, I went to lunch with friends, got calls this afternoon making this empty house seem not so bleak, and I will be going to dinner with another friend tonight.

I am truly blessed. Thank you for your kindness, your caring, your love. You mean more to me than you will ever know.

Me, Jeff, Mom and Dad on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Strange to think I am the only one left alive.

***

Posted in grief, life, relationships. Tags: death of a father, grief, love, terminal restlessness, truly blessed. 14 Comments »

Life As A Matter Of Punctuated Equilibrium

August 26, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I’m still cleaning out my past — spent a few hours this afternoon going through boxes after dance class and lunch with friends.

It’s amazing that in the presence of another person (in this case my sister), it’s harder to justify keeping things that have lain unused for decades, so I got rid of more than I might have done if I were alone.

In my misspent youth, I managed a fabric store for a national chain, and I still had boxes of fabric left over from that time. Those are the boxes we went through today. Luckily, a friend agreed to take the fabric off my hands, so now even more of my past is gone. It feels good. Things are a responsibility and that responsibility weighs heavily on me. It will be nice to journey into my unknown future feeling so much lighter.

Odd about that future. I’ve been assuming it will be wonderful since I’ve been paying karmic debts or dues or some such with all the epic traumas I’ve dealt with the past four and a half years, yet someone made a comment today that makes me wonder if perhaps I’m being uncharacteristically optimistic.

He said, “There’s a dramatic tension in your journey, Pat. I’m not sure if the universe will eventually smile on you, and I have this nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, but we’re rooting for you to achieve a harmonic convergence. You may have a destiny as our guru and guide. You’re certainly paying a price for the upcoming payoff. Is it a bloody hammer of God or a bouquet?”

Eek.

Perhaps the courage to deal with traumas makes them possible. Perhaps ever-increasing traumas prepare the way for even greater traumas, and I am in for a “bloody hammer of God” sort of future. It seems impossible there could be more traumas waiting for me, but then, I couldn’t have imagined the soul-deep traumas I’ve had to deal with during the past few years, such as grieving the death of my life mate/soul mate, dealing with my dysfunctional brother, and taking care of my father during his final years. Nor could I have ever imagined my reaction to such traumas — the shocking and breath-stealing agony of my grief, the horrific journey taking my brother back to Colorado and the 1000 miles of tears afterward, the continued frustrations over my father’s struggle to maintain his parental authority while expecting me to baby him.

I suppose it’s just as well we can’t envision our futures. It would probably be terrifying to know what was in store for us. Even knowing that blazing joy rather than epic sorrow is waiting would be terrifying because it would be so alien. And even if we weren’t terrified of awesome bliss, there would be the fear of it never happening or if it did occur, that we wouldn’t believe we deserved it.

Besides, the person who has to deal with that future is not the person of today. Life is a matter of punctuated equilibrium. Nothing happens, and then everything happens. We change little by little, and then something big happens, and we change a lot, though sometimes — maybe most times — we don’t feel the changes. But they are there. (I doubt the subjects of evolution feel the changes, either. Species go about their daily business until the equilibrium of their lives and ecosystems are punctuated by change, and then you find alterations in the fossil record showing what seems to be the truth.) It’s that changed person (as well as the changed species) who has deal with what will come.

Whatever happens in the future — a bloody hammer of God or bouquets — I had a good day today. No one can ask for more than that.

Can you tell I’m smiling as I write this? It really was good day, but then, any day that includes dancing and friends is good.

***

Posted in being me, life. Tags: bliss, epic traumas, feeling the changes, grief, joy, knowing the future, punctuated equilibrium. Leave a Comment »

Spending Too Much Time in Shuttered Rooms

April 9, 2014 — Pat Bertram

After my life mate/soul mate died, it was all I could do to get through the day. I couldn’t imagine a future without him in the world. Didn’t want to imagine it. When my grief started to wane and I could again contemplate the future, I would wonder where I should go to settle down, but my mind always rebelled at the thought. Settle down? Alone? How? He was my home. Without him, there was no home, just a place, and one place seemed the same as another.

Although I am gradually coming to terms with both my loneliness and my aloneness, I still rebel at the thought of finding somewhere to settle when I leave here. (I am currently staying with and looking out for my 97-year-old father.) For a person with hermit tendencies, such as I, settling down alone sounds like stagnation. At the beginning, I would do things, of course, but then as time passed, I would become entrenched in my habits, would get tired of the same sights, the same errands, the same . . . everything. And my world would shrink and continue shrinking until I became the crazy cat lady sans cats.

Most people have not been able to identify with this scenario. They see me now, embracing new ways of living, and say that it will always be so. Perhaps they are right, but still I do fear the stagnation that would come from being too long entrenched in one place alone.

The truth is, whether we are aware of it or not, some form of stagnation happens to all of us. In “It’s a Nomad, Nomad World,” Bruce Chatwin spoke of our heritage as nomads and explained the necessity for keeping on the move, especially by foot. Chatwin wrote:

Some American brain specialists took encephalogram readings of travellers. They found that changes of scenery and awareness of the passage of seasons through the year stimulated the rhythms of the brain, contributing to a sense of well being and an active purpose in life. Monotonous surroundings and tedious regular activities wove patterns which produce fatigue, nervous disorders, apathy, self disgust and violent reactions. Hardly surprising, then, than a generation cushioned from the cold by central heating, from the heat by air conditioning, carted in aseptic transports from one identical house or hotel to the another, should feel the need for journeys of mind and body, for pep pills or tranquillisers, or for the cathartic journeys of sex, music and dance. We spend far too much time in shuttered rooms. . . .

The best thing is to walk. We should follow the chinese poet Li Po in “the hardships of travel and the many branchings of the way”. For life is a journey trough wilderness. This concept, universal to the point of banality, could not have survived unless it was biologically true. None of our revolutionary heroes is worth a thing until he has been on a good walk. Che Guevara spoke of the “nomadic phase” of the Cuban Revolution. Look what the Long March did for Mao Tse Tung, or Exodus for Moses.

I have no interest in being a revolutionary hero or even a spiritual leader who wanders in the wilderness until fate thrusts me into a new role. But somehow, I instinctively knew the truth — that settling down means mental stagnation. When you live with someone, you don’t stagnate quite as much because there is someone to help disrupt the rhythms of your life. But who disrupts the rhythms of your life when you are alone? (Cats, I suppose, which could be why so many old women alone end up tending a houseful of cats, but that’s not for me.)

I do not know if I am physically capable of a life on foot — I’ve never been athletic. Even if my capabilities weren’t an issue, the problem of getting enough water seems insurmounatble. The sheer volume of water a person needs is staggering. Some areas in the west, you can go up to hundred miles between towns, and in the wilderness sometimes it’s almost as far between watering holes. Considering that a gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds (just the water, not the container), and considering that a someone on foot needs to drink almost that much a day, and considering that at the most I could walk 10 miles a day (and that is being optimistic), I’d need to drag along almost 84 pounds of water. (I read about a college student who dragged that much water with him on a cross-country trip. Actually, he didn’t drag it, he pushed it. Used some sort of cart.)

I don’t know what the answer to my conundrum is, but I have a hunch it will take care of itself. I’d probably start out in my ancient vehicle, and if it broke down or fell apart . . . well, then I’d have to finish the trip on foot.

It’s also possible that I end up doing what everyone does in the end — spend my life in shuttered rooms.

As a matter of fact, right at this moment, I am in a shuttered room. It’s not so bad.

***