Even though children are expected to be the ones to take care of their parents later in life, losing them is still a challenging phase to get through. In this episode, we get a daughter’s perspective on grief and loss as I sit down with my own daughter, Catherine Fornwald. Together, we look back on the day we lost my husband and her father, as well as how we dealt with the grieving process that followed. We also provide a unique glimpse into the different ways grief can manifest and the importance of open communication and support within a family. Prepare to be moved by their candid reflections and gain a deeper understanding of the long-lasting effects of grief.
I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.
Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today’s Suicide Prevention Hotlines & Resources.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Catherine Fornwald: A Daughter’s Perspective On Grief And Loss
Introduction
Catherine, welcome to the Widowhood.
Mother, thanks for having me here on the Widowhood.
This is great. This is my daughter Catherine, and we are wrapping up 2024 with a conversation with my daughter, raw as possible.
I asked for questions ahead of time. She gave my people nothing.
I told you, I don’t do questions. We are eating ice cream and having a conversation to make this as less awkward as possible.
Don’t let your mother have social media.
Reflections On Tina’s Social Media And Nonprofit Journey
There’s truth in that. What do you think about your mom having social media?
People have asked me before the podcast or the social media accounts, specifically the TikTok and everything. The answer bounces around and how I get there, but at the end, it is hilarious to see you have a social media account because you treat it like a business.
That’s fair.
You treat it like a business. There’s internal review for yourself, quarterly review. There’s, “How many followers did I have last time? Is this funny to put out for the next video? Am I allowed to make jokes, or should it all be serious and to the podcast?” I remember when you had somewhere between the 500 and the 1,000 followers, and it was very much like, “Should I quit?” You didn’t, obviously, we’re still here, and I don’t know what the number is now, but it’s definitely over 10,000, if not very close to 13.
What about social media platforms?
TikTok, I think, is doing the best out of all of them.
See, that’s interesting. I think it depends on what you judge best to be.
Followers and views.
It is hard to get followers on YouTube, but on Facebook, we have the private Facebook account. On Instagram, there’s a lot of messaging going on in the background in private. TikTok, there’s a lot of personal engagement.
It’s upfront, you can see that.
With the podcast, people email me on the back end.
The most public success, or the most public interaction, looks like TikTok.
It just depends on how you define it.
Everything else, that’s like Wizard of Oz behind the curtains.
I just look at measuring them differently because in the private Facebook group, and then we have the Discord. I would have never thought to actually have a Discord, but some people that I met on TikTok were talking about a Discord and how you’re able to bring all your community together. The Discord allows people on all social media platforms to come together in one space. There is a question of the week. People are sharing their parenting.
From my understanding, it’s supposed to be basically just like a public Zoom, whether you do it over chat or video. To answer your question about what it’s like having a parent who has social media, it’s funny watching you treat it like a business because it very much is to you. Every video is, “This is a 501c3. This is a non-profit.” It’s just like, “Mother, that doesn’t need to be at the end of the video.”
I don’t do it all the time anymore.
There’s definitely this thing where it’s like you treating it like a business and you wanting it to do well, obviously, and it’s just funny because I’m behind the scenes on the board and everything.
On the board of the followers.
Very much like the legal aspect of it, the personal aspect to it, so it’s just funny where you’re like, “My numbers aren’t high enough,” but then somebody else is like, “I got a brand deal and my numbers are great.”
Do you even look at all the content sometimes?
I do. I may not obviously tell you about it, but I check in, I repost, I go to it.
You do a lot of that on X.
X, Twitter, there’s like the jokes. There’s, “What, I got three retweets? Send in the money.” Like you said, how do you judge the fact that you’re doing well on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn has been good for connecting with other people to be guests on their podcasts or for me to be a guest on theirs. That’s why I say, “That would be amazing to do a TED Talk.” That’s a dream.
The ranking system for what quantifies being good at social media, getting the jokes to stand, getting three retweets on Twitter, like “money,” and then Instagram is like, “Cool.” Facebook, depending on what you’re using it for, very much is family-friendly, but then since we’re using it as another form of the business aspect of the social media, having five hearts is like, “People saw my stuff.” TikTok and everything, your views-to-ratio can definitely be off, but there are ways to do the math on it to see, “Am I at 100% or my 50%?”
There’s analytics at the bottom of TikTok.
It depends on the social media. It depends on what you put out. If it’s like a full video, if it’s a meme, if it’s anything that way, but engagement on the list. The short answer of what’s it like having a parent with social media, it’s comical, but it’s also nice to see the growth.
Who asked you? A friend or family member?
We just bring it up because people know you exist, and so they’re like, “How’s your mom?” Then they’ll talk about the non-profit or the social media aspects and everything, and then they’ll be like, “How’s that going?” I’ll be like, “It’s funny to watch a tax auditor have social media. The meme writes itself.”
That’s fair.
Next question.
Memories Of Dad And Family Traditions
When you think of your dad, what comes to mind?
About just the overall family unit, and then it’s like, if I’m forcing the thought, hunting, going fishing, and stuff like that. Just the overall family dynamic. Not one specific thing. Maybe like a collage, not a central point.
Do you remember going hunting and then Grandpa calling you and talking to him about where your hands were? Tell me your version of that, like what you and your dad were doing before that happened.
Trigger warning, squeamish topic if you don’t like blood. I don’t remember talking to Grandpa. I don’t remember all that, that would be like you telling me and then me going, “That’s probably likely.” As far as the event, I was there to feel that. We were hunting for deer. We’re all good to go, and so then my dad took my brother and me because it’s time to go hunting. It’s very normal for me to talk about hunting. If I leave aspects out, it’s because I’m just so used to something being commonplace.
Do you remember the first time you went hunting with Dad?
No. This one, I would have said that I was probably somewhere between 13 to 16. We had this one deer, so helpful to note that it was during winter in Pennsylvania and that it was cold, and so then very much snow on the ground. Think your favorite Hallmark movie with, “Is Stacy going to go back to corporate law, or is she going to stay in this small town?” Very snow-heavy. We get the deer, boom, the deer is dead.
Who shot it? You? Dad?
Dad, and so then it’s time to gut the deer. You can’t leave it full of entrails, you have to get it prepped for the butcher.
What else makes it lighter when you’re trying to carry it out of the woods?
Drag it. Whether or not the real reason is weight or preparation, we gutted the deer. I don’t remember what happened, but in the end, Daddy let me.
You slid it up?
Yeah. I think it was a mix of Daddy wanting it to be done correctly and then him also having the learning opportunity aspect. tI might have been a combination of, “Can I?” and then him being like, “Do it right,” or him doing the first initial slit and then me doing the rest. If you’ve ever gone fishing, find the bottom opening, and then you slit all the way up to right about where the gills are, three-fourths of the way to where the mouth would be. Similar concept for the deer, it’s at the end and then up into where you would probably reach about the chest cavity for the deer, and that was really it, point to point. You make sure it’s deep enough, and then you scoop everything out.
It’s cold, so if you know how cold it is sticking your hands in the refrigerator or the freezer to go grab something, have it be prolonged there, and then also have somebody tell you to stuff a turkey, that’s the dexterity that you need. It was cold, and the organs were out, and they clearly looked warm, and I needed to continue what I was doing, so I asked him, and I was like, “Daddy, can I stick my hands in the intestines?” and he’s like, “I guess. A bit much for survival, we can see civilization.” I needed to take care of business, and so I stuck my hands in the intestines. Nothing punctured, and it was just a warm-up real quick and then back to doing what I was doing.
If you’re thinking, “Why didn’t you just have gloves on?” dexterity. I didn’t have gloves on for the actual gutting process. Once that was done, then good to go. Carry it out of the woods and take it to the butcher. It’s fun. It’s a nice story because, obviously, my dad is there and everything. If you were to be an English teacher and be like, “Why did the author choose ‘bloom’?” the permission side where it was just like he’s always done that, where it was like, “Can I do this?” and he’s like, “Sure, as long as you stay safe.” He’s done that with pretty much everything, like driving.
Talk about learning how to drive with your dad, Black Friday.
To set the scene, I was still very new at driving.
Did you have a permit or a license?
Just a permit. I was very serious about driving. In every state, it’s different, but in Pennsylvania, you had to have so many hours, and I wrote down a book. I logged it all, everything. These are the opportunities, like this one, I can drive. It was a lot of driving practice, and it was Gray Thursday, and so then, back in ye olden times of around 2010, Black Friday was Black Friday. But then a lot of stores started to see that you could get more deals if you made it early, and then extended it to a cyber weekend through Monday, blah blah. It was Gray Thursday, and we were going to Walmart back when there were actually deals.
Let’s be clear, Daddy liked to go shopping. I did not, so Alexander and I were home online, and you and your dad went out.
Back when Qubits was still a thing?
Yeah, we were on Qubits.
Our grandmother, our mommy, she had set some money aside or whatever. She was going to get a TV for Alex, so then that’s why we went to get it for him.
I don’t remember what you were going to get.
I remember it being a TV, and so then, it’s heavy traffic, Gray Thursday, everything that way. I’m driving, and we’re safe, everything is fine, and I was very much in the middle of the lane for the word traffic. Could be opposite from each other in the parking lot, where it’s like some areas will clearly have it defined with arrows for which ways is opposite traffic.
This is the Walmart parking lot, right?
Yeah, we’re already in Walmart, we’re in the parking lot. We’re going in between the aisles to find a parking spot or to leave. Long story, I’m too in the center of the Walmart parking lot driving areas, and so then this lady is frustrated at my bad driving as a child. She screams at me, and she’s like, “Get over or learn how to drive.” As the car is still moving, it is like not enough to hurt an ant at 3:55, Daddy gets out of the car because he’s in the passenger seat, and I don’t know how he was out and in. I didn’t run his foot over or whatever. He’s like, “She is learning.” and then gets back in the car, and then looks at me and is like, “But you really do need to get over.”
You never told me that part.
I didn’t. I always include that in the story. He’s like, “You really do need to get over, though. You are causing an issue. I can be wrong, but she was more wrong.” My daddy defended me.
Soccer games and your dad.
Would fight someone, whether I was, once again, wrong or right.
Did you hear him louder than you heard the coaches?
Always. The question, whether he was just casually cheering me on. Obviously, he’s higher up than me as an aerial view, so he can see the fields, and I’m seeing it straight away. He’s like, “Pass the ball to so and so.” and I can hear him, find him in the crowd, look at him, and be like, “Be quiet.” Everyone knew that that was Daddy, and there’d be some people that were like, “She’s getting upset now.”
Your teammates would say that?
No, the people in the stands, the other parents or whatever. They would know, and they’d giggle. It’s like a very casual thing for people.
To say he went to every game.
There’d be times where he’d be like, in the car ride home, “I just saw that thirteen was open,” and I was like, “I couldn’t see that. I could not.” He wanted me to break physics to pass the ball.
I never knew that part either.
I think it was my game where he got kicked out of the game.
He was yelling so much.
He had the opposite team’s county shirt on because it was just one of his regular shirts. He had the opposite team’s county shirt on, so they wouldn’t have known. He was either yelling at the game too much or specifically yelling at the ref. He had said too many words at too high of a volume, where then the referee just gave him a warning. I think, legally per the game, they gave him a yellow card. Since he got carded, he had to leave. They told him to either leave the immediate game area or the fields, or that he had to leave the actual campus. Either way you slice it, he did not. He just went across the street, where he could still see what’s going on, and then talked to the security guard.
He was still yelling from across the street.
He was like, “As if I was going to leave.” He was probably my ride. He had to stay.
I remember being at that game and watching that. I was sitting there, I was like, “Mark, it’s a child soccer game.”
It’s the Olympics. It was like life or death.
Ping Pong. Christmas Eve.
Back when we had that little town, the timeshare?
That one, I was thinking of Cornwall family Christmas and your dad’s ping pong table.
At the end of both stories, he wins. It’s really just how much you want to dissect that. If you’re talking about the one where we were at the little lodge.
The timeshare before I went to Iraq. That was the Christmas before I went to Iraq.
I just remember it was Christmas. I don’t remember all the particulars, just that either Daddy and Alex had hustled people out of the game, or that Daddy just won so many times Alex got mad. Either way you slice it, all roads lead here, Daddy won.
When you think of your dad and me, what do you think of?
Part of the legal aspect more than anything.
The what?
Legal aspect.
What does that mean?
Loving v. Virginia?
What is that?
The right to marry interracial.
Why did that come to my first?
Maybe since when I learned about it. I learned about it in the dramatization.
What made that important to you once you found out about it?
I don’t know when I officially knew about Loving v. Virginia, but when I knew about it, I think I told you every year, “You got to post something, it’s Loving v. Virginia.”
What is Loving?
It’s the Supreme Court case where it enshrined or constituted the legal right to marry interracially because Virginia had it banned at the time.
That’s Loving versus Virginia?
Yeah, V is versus.
I just want to make sure someone listening may not know exactly what those terms stand for.
Just the legal aspect. I know I’m talking about it plainly, but it’s a fact and a truth. There’s not much to do if you want to get to the emotional side of it. South Africa, there are plenty of people that were born a crime or born illegally, and that aspect. You guys got married in 1988. That’s twenty-ish years after it was legal. Somebody was born in that time. Somebody was twenty, just about almost twenty years. The other thing that I think about is not just the year but your guys’s birthdays. You guys were born within the ten years that it just became legal. If it didn’t happen, that timeline was possibly never even legally to occur.
The thing about just being in the living room and just like being together and just the Hallmark picture-perfect of it all. Just the fact that he was just, I don’t know, I would say that it was peaceful and good and just like a regular family life. Many people have told me that I over-romanticize your guys’s relationship to the point where they were like, “Parents argue. There’s probably times where they fought,” and I was like, “Yeah, and then they were fine.”
Do you ever remember your dad and I fighting?
I do.
Which one?
I just remember getting loud, there being a way to get your anger out and then recoup. I remember either you said it directly to Alex and I, or you said it to Daddy, where you were just like, “It’s important to know that married people may not always get along, but there’s a difference between arguing and disrespecting somebody and talking outside your name.” That is healthy to see that and not think that, “My parents never argued growing up, everything was fine.”
Even if it wasn’t a direct teaching of like, “This is how you argue with a spouse, and then this is how they’re wrong, and then you move forward,” you at least see that it’s possible. It didn’t feel like Daddy was right about the fact that it’s blue outside, and you were wrong because you said that it was cerulean, and then you just have to hate each other forever. You can acknowledge and then move forward, like the septic tank. First of all, tree roots were at play. We got beef with Arbor.
The blame, we know. Thinking you stuffed up the toilet downstairs.
I used the toilet paper, but either way you slice it. In the end, to not be long-winded about it, you don’t have to apologize, but Daddy would. We’re coming back home from somewhere, and Daddy was like, “Mommy was right. It does need to be drained.” He looked at something wrong, or he didn’t know. I don’t know if you ever got an apology, like if he ever told you directly, “It needed to be drained.”
No.
He told us, and so no one ever has to apologize, but to hear it is nice. To see your parents be autonomous human beings but still be the collective of your parental unit, to see them. Everyone, especially now, at least with my generation, and people talking about going to therapy or talking about others that have gone to therapy and dismantling this idea of generational trauma, or the other phrase that I can’t think of where it’s basically like generational trauma but sins of the father, sins of the mother. Where it’s like you don’t have to keep doing the same thing that your parents did, and so then every generation getting better after that.
Being honest, like actually giving a real apology, understanding what went wrong. If you guys didn’t know that you were doing that, it has a term now where it’s like, you can be honest and being sincere and being vulnerable doesn’t mean that you’re weak. You can acknowledge that you were wrong, and that’s okay.
There wasn’t a term for. I just wanted to do different, and I wanted to do on honesty. I wanted to do communication. I wanted to have a sincere representation of what marriage and family looked like for our children. They didn’t have this illusion that everything was perfect. Sometimes it’s hard, but you still learn how to get through it. What did you think about when your dad took the job in Virginia and I stayed in Pennsylvania?
I don’t really have any thoughts about it. Asking now would feel like making up thoughts.
No reason.
You guys would be away from each other, and when you went to Iraq, that was really about it.
I was about to say, so what was it like Dad being in charge and I was gone? What do you remember of that? I remember him making cheese steak in the blender or something he was telling me about?
No, that was when my teeth were bad. That was a survival tactic, not a he doesn’t know how to cook tactic. He knows how to cook.
He makes some good chili.
That, so good. Daddy knew how to cook. He knew how to cook. He knew how to make food. He knew how to read. If you can read, you can cook. Whether or not it turns out right was debatable. It’s not like we were starving, but what I remember was people kept giving us food as though they thought that he could not.
I went to Iraq, and people from church or different people were bringing food to the house. He took it.
Unless I don’t remember correctly. I remember people bringing us the casseroles or something, like people kept bringing us food. He would make food, and it would be like, “What French restaurant did you steal their recipe card from?” Because it would be something that we never even thought that he knew what it was. It’s like when your friend uses a big word, and it’s like, “Somebody got a thesaurus app, didn’t they?” The meal that I remember was lamb. He just pulled out of the memory banks, “We’ll have lamb with a fancy Florentine potato or something or fingerling potatoes.” It’s like, “We’ll have lamb with fingerling potatoes and sautéed,” it was just super fancy. It was like hot dogs one day, and then it was lamb.
Hot dogs and pork and beans.
You can make hot dogs and pork and beans taste real nice.
That was one of his favorites.
It was good. You had some fries with that, and it’s all right.
We have Widowhood Real Talk with Tina because your dad is not here anymore.
Because you are a business person, and you dismissed.
What do you remember about when the family friend was driving you to where we were?
Just that there was a lot of uncertainty.
Did I even talk to you and tell you why?
I don’t remember much of that. I remember getting picked up from work, needing to go to Delaware really quickly, and then being on the phone back and forth with you. You were clearly in a state of distress, and somebody that knows the appropriate terms for fashion items should talk to the tailor. I felt like I knew more appropriate terms for medical conversation, and that you did not. If you did, your brain wasn’t switching over to knowing said medical terms so that you could have the conversation with the doctor. I was like, “Hand the phone to the doctor,” because talking to you was fine, but playing telephone was not. I pulled out terms whether I knew them actually or whether I was just like, “Did you try?”
I remember being frustrated at the doctor for feeling like they weren’t trying enough, but then them telling me that at the end, he wasn’t safe for transport. Even if they had wanted to, they could not. It still didn’t feel like it was enough, and that’s how I felt. It doesn’t matter if it was right or wrong or clearly, I have no medical training. It didn’t feel like they did enough.
It would have never felt like it was enough.
Maybe. I don’t know. Time machine, build a time machine and transport, and build a portal, or get me some medical intervention from the year 4,000 where they just press a button. That’s what it felt like. I don’t remember feeling, not that I wasn’t sad, but I felt more like damage control. I didn’t break down until later that evening.
When you entered the hospital.
By then it was already.
Did you know when you came into the hospital, did you know that?
Grieving Processes And Family Support
I think you had told me. I think while we were on the phone, at a certain point, the doctors were basically like, it’s done. It was all collective between the doctor, you, and me. The information was passed because then I started calling everyone else. I started calling godparents and then close family friends and letting them know that there’s nothing more that anyone can do. And so what I’d already knew.
He hadn’t passed yet.
He had. By that time, it was already done.
I didn’t think you knew until you got into the hospital. I don’t remember the conversation.
I started calling everyone, telling them that he’s dead, that there’s nothing else that can be done. I remember Auntie, I remember Godmother’s.
Auntie Kim?
Yeah, I remember Auntie Kim’s scream, and then having to call another set of family friends. I don’t remember exactly the names, but I called the list. I called the list of the normal people I would have called for something like this. By the time we got to the hospital, that was it. You were already there and clearly in a state of distress and crying. I remember you talking to the nurse and you telling the nurse the order of things that need to happen next, and then the nurse trying to be like, “Ma’am, you can do this later.” I remember pulling the nurse to the side and telling him that, “Obviously, you don’t know us. Obviously, you don’t know my mom. She needs control right now. You just have to give that to her. It doesn’t matter if it seems normal. It probably doesn’t. It’s probably not the typical way that somebody would process being super sad and grieving right now, but she needs this element of control.”
I never knew you had a conversation with the nurse. I think I was trying to make a decision where your dad’s body was going to go, the funeral home, and just the things that needed to happen next.
Most people just stay crying, probably because they’re in the state that they would have already had to deal with everything and those complicated things. I do remember you saying, “We are not from here. His body needs to be transported.”
That was important to me.
Fact, important to you. Fact, his body cannot stay there. Most people are just still sad, and so then instead of you showing the typical or normal screaming, crying, trying-to-rip-the-paint-off-the-wall sad.
I did that before you got there.
You went into most, I don’t know how to phrase it to you, people would have done that longer, and so then you did not. That nurse is used to seeing people die. That nurse is used to seeing family members see their family members die. Seeing the time for which to ask legal transfer questions, probably being the next day.
Let me explain this. I was there when your dad died. I was in the waiting room, and then I asked to see him immediately. They said, “We need to clean him up,” and that took way too long. They finally bring me into the room where your dad is. I lost my whole damn mind. I was on the table, laying next to your dad, rubbing his nose. Because I remember them having a band-aid on it because that’s where he fell. I was on the floor, beating the floor. I was screaming and doing all of that. I remember the nurse coming in and saying, “Your daughter has just entered the hospital.” That’s what they told me when you came in. I started trying to get my composure together, even though you would see me crying.
How long was all that?
Probably an hour or so. I have no concept of time, but I know I was beating that floor, and then when you came up, I was like, “Okay.”
I remember you standing in the hallway.
I need to get myself together so my daughter doesn’t have to worry about me and she can feel how she feels.
Everything that you’re saying still confirms the fact that, like I said.
I was intentional.
Right, but like I said, that’s why I had to talk to the nurse because you flipped a switch. All the stuff that you’re saying is true. It does not change the fact that you flipped a switch. You went from being yourself in a very appropriate, “This is how I’m super sad right now,” then you went, “That’s crazy, my daughter’s going to be here.” Flipped that switch to then have your composure to talk to me, then flipped another switch when you needed to have your composure to talk to the nurse. Most people wait until the next day, but instead, you’re not going to probably hear it the way that I mean it, you rushed the timeline. You rushed the timeline because you probably don’t want to be in that state anymore.
Hold on, when you say state, I didn’t want to be in the state of Delaware. Correct. Not state of mind.
This happened. That’s crazy. I need to leave the state of Delaware, and so then you flipped another switch. Leave state of Delaware. Go back to Pennsylvania. Talk to humans. Checklists occurred.
In my mind, it was like, I don’t want to come back here tomorrow. I don’t want to be talking to you all.
A lot of people would have. If you would have a poll like, “If your spouse died in a different state, would you have tried to take care of everything that evening or come back tomorrow?” Honestly, I wonder what the poll answer would have been for 100 people, and you and the other twelve would have been, “Take care of it right then and there.” That’s probably why that nurse was like, “Ma’am, you can deal with this later,” because he saw everybody else come back the next day.
It was a male nurse too.
That’s why I had to take him to the side and be like, “You don’t know us. Please allow her to have control so that she may be all right.” Everything that I said was true. Everything that you said in your words to confirm what I said. I still said the same thing.
You did. They were like, “You can take care of this later.” I’m like, “When is later?” Because in my mind, I want it over. I wasn’t trying to make a phone call. I wasn’t going to leave that state and know my husband’s body was not taken care of.
Checklist. You say all the fancy teleformal terms you want. That’s what it was.
You win.
There’s no winning.
You’re right.
That is an accurate portrayal of events. That’s what I remember about the drive. I remember probably not being as sad as I could have wanted to be in expression until later that evening when I was just able to go to bed. In the drive down, it was more just coming to terms and then taking care of you, whether you were subsiding your emotions or not. Taking care of you, and then you taking care of me to take care of you to take care of us, and then going to the hotel to sleep and then having breakfast in the morning.
At the same place where your dad had eaten.
Everyone just on the road again, going back to Pennsylvania. That’s what I remember.
What do you remember about returning to Pennsylvania?
It was a long drive. I remember having to go to the bathroom really bad, but it wasn’t anything special about the drive back.
What about when we got back home and your brother came and people were in the house?
There’s that weird thing where it’s a common phrase with Americans where it’s like, “We only get together when someone dies.”
We had bonfires.
You can definitely judge the American grieving process, and I judge it too. I think for the items that we’ve instilled or incorporated into the American grieving process, when you have the opportunity to have family around you, I think you did a good job there. I think we have our people. I didn’t want people to leave. When they were there for so long, I was like, “This is all your homes. You all get to stay now. This is it. We’re a commune. Someone go pick the cherries. Albert, you’re behind on planting this year’s apples.” That’s how it felt.
I didn’t want anyone to leave. I wanted that feeling of being taken care of, both physically and emotionally, to stay because if we’re going to lose one of our members, then that means that we have to stay. Everybody’s super close. That’s how I felt. I felt the love. I felt the camaraderie, it’s just another way of love, but again love and friendship. That’s all, and then don’t leave me.
It is hard when everybody else has to go back to their own life and you are stuck in that space. People look at me now and feel like, “You must handle grieving perfectly. You look perfectly fine.” What would you want to tell them about your grieving mother’s mental state?
I think that’s private. I think that your sad is your sad.
How did it manifest in different things? Trying to talk to me. Being in the car with me.
I wouldn’t have said that that was your grieving mental state. I didn’t know that that’s what it was, so I can’t.
You were afraid to be in the car with me. You were afraid. I wasn’t moving. I was missing exits.
It upped it. Peace. Fear. Fear. Increased fear. Nothing changed. You were sad. You’re sad. A little bit more short. You wanted things like this. Even with planning the funeral. I guess a person could have taken more time to plan. I felt we did that very quickly. I remember you telling me, “Go design the urn,” and then you getting upset with me that I had asked you another question, either related or unrelated to designing the urn.
We went to the funeral home first. Uncle Jesse went there with us. Family friend. Your brother and I, and made decisions there.
Do you remember that? I do not. What does that have to do with the urn?
We decided on the urn afterwards, and then you did that when we got home, I thought.
I guess we’re going to have two different memories on the process, but either way I remember something related to the urn. Me asking you a question about the urn or something else, and then you just getting mad at me all within that time limit when you asked me to go design the urn. I remember being very upset and going to my room to go design an urn.
I was short and punchy?
Yeah, in the before times, you seemed to have entertained my questions more.
That’s fair. That’s something to consider. Do you think how you grieve your dad’s loss, how your brother did, and myself are different or the same?
Different. There’d be no way it would be the same.
How do you manage the difference of that when we’re all grieving the same person?
Processing Grief And Different Perspectives
Same person, different title. That to you is your husband. You guys knew each other longer together than without. For both Alex and I, we’ve known him all our lives. Him knowing us all of our lives. Alex knowing him for a shorter amount of time than me. Me having more time just because I was older, but as far as the consistent amount of time, you’d have to break that down into minutes because Daddy worked on the road.
The amount Dad was traveling in time you had with him versus your brother.
I’m the eldest, and obviously, I’m going to have more pictures in terms of a timeline aspect, but I also stole my dad’s pictures.
What?
Daddy didn’t like pictures, so I would just come up to him and take forced photos. Daughter privilege. Same person, different title. You’re going to grieve differently. You know a person differently in that aspect.
I ask that question because sometimes families struggle with how everybody grieves differently. People get frustrated or argue with people because their grief manifests differently than somebody else’s.
If you’re saying like, because to me that translates to the stereotypical like, “Joe is crying all the time and can’t do Christmas anymore because he’s always sad about Sally, but Kevin laughs,” and so then, but Kevin laughs to remember Sally because Sally was funny. If you’re talking about that difference of how the outward expression of the grief is, we all grieve differently. You started a non-profit to help others grieve and grieve differently and to show that they weren’t alone. Me, I helped facilitate you and said non-profit. Whether or not that is a form of my grief. I don’t know. A therapist will have fun dissecting that.
Do you see a therapist?
Not for this, and that’s private.
This is what happens when you have a conversation with your daughter.
You asked me. I’m not over here judging either one of us and being like, “I dare you.” I think you having the non-profit is very on brand. If you didn’t have the non-profit, I don’t know. I guess I’d just be waiting until you did have it. None of this is surprising. This is not surprising in how you’re grieving. I think Alex is grieving stereotypically XY. It’s, once again, it’s on brand. It would probably be beneficial for him, in my own older sister judgment, for him to process differently, but then also, in my own judgments, probably be better for me to process differently. I don’t know. I don’t sit back and go like, “You’re not sad because you ate mac and cheese today. That was Daddy’s favorite. How dare you and not cry over it.” I think we all have our different ways over it.
Have you ever thought about how it would look different if I passed versus your dad?
Yeah, the crosses, one’s mine.
What does that look like to you?
I feel like I don’t think I would have left Pennsylvania as quickly. You told me I was forbidden to stay, so that probably helped.
In the hospital. Let’s back up to that. We are standing there next year.
I think it’s the first thing you said to me. Not, “Hi, how are you? I love you. Okay, cool, you’re safe.” I think you were holding me to some capacity, whether shoulders or face. You were like, “You’re still going. You’re still leaving in May.” I was like, “Yes.”
This is to go into the United States Navy. It wasn’t like you were going on vacation.
Snobby.
Do you know why that was?
You don’t have to get into it. I can imagine feelings of, so, like I said, so that I don’t get stuck or so I don’t stay. The Navy timeline, that’s a different conversation.
It was the idea of, your dad and I have lived our lives. I didn’t want you to stop your future to start doing something to take care of me and then be in this place. But you feel like if it was your dad, you would have. Why?
Stereotypical stuff. I don’t know. When you left to go to Iraq, you guys had to figure out who’s going to do all the finances differently, and you being here, you know your job. I don’t need to talk to the person whose job it is on how to settle estates. We would have had to find the paperwork to settle the estates with Daddy. I don’t think he knew. Even if they were clearly color-coded, we would have still had to find it.
Everything was downstairs in the filing cabinet in the basement.
Still would have had to find it, and so then, organized but still not. I don’t know. It’s not like you left a treasure map as soon as its expiration hits. That’s just maybe because we didn’t talk about it. Obviously, we talk about death more. We have regular check-ins with that.
Talking about death.
I have a legal aspect, not so much the emotional side.
I often tell people that your dad talked about leaving this world.
Maybe you two talked about it. It’s not like you told us, “If you two become orphans, this is where the paperwork is.”
Did you hear conversations about your dad talking about not being in this world?
It was mostly that you were supposed to have artifacts of his body, so there’s that.
Diamond earrings. The man asked for his ashes to be turned into diamond earrings. I asked about that at the funeral home. I was all of a sudden afraid that I needed to have answers for this. He asked for ashes. Did you hear your dad talk about how he didn’t think he would live long and what he wanted for me in life?
I don’t remember it as clearly.
Are you cold? Would you like some of my house cold?
I don’t remember it as clearly as that. I think I remember it more in a passive state, where it’s like we all talked about it. It’s a collective hive mind memory, not so much that it’s organic on my own. It’s not unfamiliar to me that you’re mentioning that. I just remember more of him saying the whole carbon diamond thing for what he wanted for his ashes. I remember him saying something along the lines of, he didn’t want bugs crawling on him when he was dead.
He wanted to use the ashes to speed up the process for however they make diamonds for the carbon stuff. I remember him making a joke saying, “That way I can be earrings, and I’ll be on Mom’s ear and whisper from the beyond and be like, ‘That’s a good one, you should pick him.’” I have contingency plans, I guess. You guys may not have agreed on how to spend your free time, but you like to plan, and apparently, he did too, in weird ways. Find the love.
What do you remember about your dad’s funeral? Standing in line and people coming. Whichever one of those you want to share about.
Daddy’s funeral as a whole is beautiful. I don’t know if we recorded it or if it got recorded from start to finish, but it was something that you could walk back over again. To be sad and to grieve and to also feel the love, because for us and how we believe, it was called the homegoing service and very much felt like that. It was somber in the fact that the event occurred, but nice that we have those systems in place to facilitate the occurrence. As far as the standing in line, it just felt appropriate. It felt like the normal thing that I’ve seen be done.
I did not want to do that.
Really didn’t.
I did not want to stand in line and hear all these people talk, but I could not let my children stand there and do it without me.
It was, I don’t know, it’s just normal. It was one of those things where it’s like you maybe not want to, but it’s what you do, and so then it worked for us. I don’t know, I look back on it. I remember standing next to you and Alex. I remember at one time we had let out a small laugh. Just because it was just something that was still funny.
It was the people that came in the suit that we did.
We don’t talk about that.
There was something funny there.
Just the three of us being there, like I think it was appropriate. It was necessary. It was appropriate. People that came up to us. It was all people that we knew. It was the time for them to be sorry if they felt sorry, and if not, sorry for us. If you take that away from others, then, not that you circumvent the whole grieving process, but if you have people that genuinely care about you, then you usually let them care about you.
That’s fair. When people genuinely care about you, let them care about you. We have your dad’s service. What did communication look like from me after that?
If it was poor. I don’t remember it in a way that lingers with me now.
It seemed I felt I was AWOL and I had to apologize to you and your brother.
You did apologize.
You didn’t feel like it was unnecessary.
I accepted it because it was a fact, but not that it was something that I was harboring where I was like, “I cannot wait till she reads the pamphlet of how she’s sorry.” I wasn’t hellbent.
We’ve been watching Bridgerton.
I say this all the time. I wasn’t hellbent on needing an apology when you gave it.
You noticed the absence in there?
Yeah, you were different. You were sad.
I think I’m forever different. Your dad said, “I want to be on her ear and let her know if that’s a good guy or a bad guy.” I did date after your dad passed. What do you think of that?
That it was going to happen.
Really?
I don’t think we discussed you doing so, but I don’t really have a way to answer this question.
You thought it was inevitable to be something that would happen?
I didn’t think that you would be alone forever. I am not surprised at the fact that you had dated. It was just that you were safe in doing so.
It wasn’t the fact that I was dating, was I going to be safe in dating?
Yeah, did you think that I was upset this whole time?
No, this is a conversation.
I have no thoughts about it that are profound because it wasn’t something that was peculiar to me.
It was something you were already forced. If you met somebody, another girl, and she’s talking about her mom was dating and she’s mad because I thought she loved my dad and now she’s dating again, from your lived experience, what would you say?
It would matter the age of the person so that if they’re exactly my age, if they’re mad, they’re mad. I think they need to acknowledge more of why they’re mad. If it’s the scenario that you set up where it’s like, they wouldn’t do this if they loved my dad. I think they’re angry at the wrong thing, and if they truly think that’s because their mother doesn’t love their dad, if they’re going to come up to me and say that, I would hope they know me enough to respect my honest answer. If it’s just some random person who’s having a really bad day.
I want the honest answer of the person you know.
I think that they’re angry at the wrong thing, and I know because I’ve had a similar interaction with a child. For anonymity, I think that’s the right word for privacy. There’s a child, I’ve known them since they were a fetus. They had saw me with my partner at the time, and we weren’t doing anything crazy, just on the swings. They came up to us, and the child asks me, “Are you two dating?” I answer the child and I say yes. The child walks away so angry, like very angry, and so then, like I said, I’ve known this child since they were a fetus. I go up to them, and I value being eye level with small humans. I was just like, “What is wrong?” Because the way that you just had your emotions, that’s fine. I don’t think you’re actually angry with me.
They were like, “My mom is dating somebody, and I don’t like it when they kiss.” I was like, “That is fair.” Through talking with the small child about why they didn’t like the fact that their mom was kissing the person that they were dating, they had, in their perception, in their mind, had translated that the kiss meant love. If you are going to take this small child and assign them emotions, but be like possessive possibly over their parents’ love and their primary parents’ love, they may think that then there’s not enough love to go to them. Obviously, we know that. At the time, I was an adult. I knew that obviously the mother, having a boyfriend or whatever and kissing them, didn’t mean that she no longer loved her child, but that’s how the child interpreted it. I was glad that the child obviously doesn’t have all these complex ways to phrase emotions.
They had the very rudimentary, raw way that it made them feel. If it was another person who was my age and they were experiencing the same thing where it was just like, “My mom’s dating. That means she doesn’t love my father,” I don’t think you’re actually upset with that. I think you’re upset at something deeper. That’s how I would take it. We would have to have the conversation and dive deeper into that to find out what they’re really upset about.
The idea that somebody would get married or date again seemed logical to you.
I’m not surprised.
What do you think about me being married now?
As long as you’re happy.
Do you remember asking me what I was looking for in dating compared to what did I tell you for that answer?
I do not remember the fine details of what your criteria was. Probably just more the fact that same thing. You wanted to feel safe and loved. You probably obviously remember that conversation more because it directly involved your future decisions, but I don’t remember much like the fine details about it. Just safe and happy.
You expect me to have a non-profit, or you expect me to be doing something with grieving?
Both.
Really, why?
Non-profit is probably a bit more legal and exact. As far as you just don’t sit still. There is literally a competition where it’s called the blank stare or the do-nothing competition. The participants literally just stare off into emptiness. You would lose. You would lose so bad. They would think that you sat down accidentally and then got up. There are those memes on Facebook where it’s like, you get $5 million if you tell one of your friends or family members to be at this restaurant at this time, but they’re going to be late. Who are you going to call to tell them to be at the restaurant so that you get $5 million? If there’s the equivalent where it’s like, you need somebody who can’t sit still to write a dissertation, I’m calling you.
You don’t sit still with normal things like grief. Instead of thinking only about your own grief, you then thought about the world’s grief. We’re like, how can we all process this better? Creates a non-profit to let people know that they’re not alone and that they can process grief better. I don’t say that jokingly, like I say that as a fact but with some humor applied because know thyself. Know thy mother. Are you surprised? Because I’m not surprised.
I could have had a non-profit helping people in the military, veterans. I could have had a non-profit helping people, breast cancer survivors. What made you think this was going to be the non-profit?
Who says you’re not done with those two? You have time. This is just the first one. You toe in water. If you do those other two, once again, not surprised. It’s more used in like a bad term where it’s like, I’m disappointed but not surprised. This is just like, I’m underwhelmed and not surprised.
You were sitting here waiting for something.
I just not surprised. It’s if you lived close to me. We live close to each other. We were like, we’re going to go mini golfing. An hour before we have to go mini golfing, I call and tell you, I’m running late, and then you go, “That’s why I haven’t got ready yet,” and then I call you 30 minutes before we’re supposed to be there. I tell you, I have an upset stomach, and then you’re going to go like, “I’m getting ready in fifteen minutes. I’ll see you there.” As much as you told me what time to be there, you probably had little faith for me to be on time.
Your words, not mine.
That’s fine. Another way of that would be like, I told you that you took me a time to be somewhere. I was just like, cool. I got there 30 minutes late from that time, and you told me our reservation wasn’t actually until 45 minutes. Which is fine because I tell people to lie to me when I need to be somewhere on time. Once again, not surprised, expected. You have expected and not surprised, and then you have on brand and not surprised. That’s what yours would have been. Long story. On brand and not surprised for you. You’re original, you’re fine. You’re on brand and not surprised.
Do you think I process your dad’s absence in my own grief?
Yeah, I think that you’re always grieving.
What does that mean? Because somebody would think, she’s got remarried. She’s happy. Everything is perfect.
Both can be true.
What does that mean?
I use both can be true in everything. For this, I would hope you are happy by yourself and through being with a partner and through being married. You are grieving for the deaths that have occurred to you, for the people that you have known. Basically, asking me, can one be grieving and happy? I think both can be true.
You can be happy and grieving at the same time. Both can be true. Share on XFor somebody asks you, you said, I’m always grieving.
I think anyone who’s lost somebody is always grieving.
Some people would think, she’s remarried. She’s got this nonprofit. She’s happy. Everything is fine now. What would you say to that?
Are you currently grieving? Congratulations that you would not. That doesn’t mean that somebody else is not. I don’t know what that means.
Some people think that she’s fine now. It’s over and she’s not grieving anymore.
They don’t know you well enough to assume if they can’t ask you.
I think that’s an assumption to know for anybody that’s grieving that this is not something that’s just over.
If person A said they lost a child twelve years ago, if person B said that they lost a family member eighteen years ago, and if person C said that they lost their spouse 85 years ago, they were only married for three days, then they did. Whether they know it or not, they’re probably still grieving. They’re probably commit actions that are different and would not have occurred if the death did not happen.
How has your dad’s death impact you living?
I talk about death more in terms of it’s going to happen, and I’m lazy on it, but I still make strides towards protecting my legal areas of death, whether that be how accounts have to be settled upon death of a person, so making sure that those are taken care of, that my beneficiaries are established, that I just talk about it. I don’t know if it’s affected me in some grand way, but just that I don’t shy away from the conversation of death, especially in the financial and legal aspect, and it’s something to be talked about.
What does your grief look like when it manifests really heavily?
Cry. If I’m experiencing an episode where it’s outward and stereotypical, cry, write poetry, write songs. If I’m just existing and the grief is constant and it’s existing in my world, the legal and financial aspect, where I make sure that I’m doing what I can to be set up.
Are there any dates or timelines that are more difficult for you?
My body knows, my mind not so much in terms of the words like where it’s July 3rd, time to be sad. It’s more just like, am I feeling sad at this time? I recognize what time it is and it’s probably because of the grief.
Is it your dad’s birthday?
You want the exact time?
Yeah, what are the triggering times?
Holidays and birthdays.
His birthday and then Christmas?
Yeah.
The body knows. It’s not like you’re actively thinking about it?
Yeah, once I recognize that I am overly sad, I then see what day of the month and year it is, and then I go, that’s expected.
That’s important for people to know that the body will just start letting you know, even subconsciously, I’m not going to be sad about this.
It’ll happen. It’s the ball in the box effect.
I’m going to push on. Any questions of me?
Not this time. My people will get back to you on questions.
Was this as hard as you thought it was going to be?
Super painful. I’m going to have to decompress later. I’m going to have to watch so much TV and less hard than I thought. I thought I was going to cry more. Maybe I’ll cry later. Scheduled quarterly cry but I hope it helps someone. You can be sad and have a conversation at the same time.
Some people see me on social media and that’s all that they think it is, and I’m doing TikToks.
Do they really?
I’m just doing videos. What are some things that people really should know about what I’m doing?
She bullies us in emails.
Who is us?
The board. We have emails we have to tend to. We have emails, we have meetings, we have non-profit organization, like events that we’re filtering and having to say yay or nay to, like we’re in Rome and have to items and criteria to decide on. I don’t really think anyone knows that’s why you put so much intention into saying that it’s a non-profit and so that they know in the videos. I don’t think it’s an aspect people actually care about. All the words that I’m thinking of are usually deal with business, but there are organizations that deal with the grief of a person.
Mental health, mental wellness becomes a big thing.
You’re going way off on what I mean. There are cancer organizations because people have lost their family to cancer. There’s scholarships set up because so-and-so, like person who died was really into the cello. Their family started a music organization. Mental health is an aspect of it, but why you did this, you were sad, you knew others were sad, you make groups so that others know that it’s okay to be sad. That’s the rudimentary, raw way to talk about it. You created it into something that is legal and official, but the core of why you did so is so that others know that it’s okay to be sad. At least that’s what I got from it.
I think the idea that it’s a real board, there’s meetings, there’s events.
The way that you’re asking the question is though people would care. Probably people don’t care because they don’t know.
How could I make them care more?
You can’t. The way that you’re asking the question, maybe I’m not the right person to answer, but you’re like, what would you say to people that think that it’s just me on social media? People don’t know that. They probably are like on a lot of pages where it’s like somebody who lost a spouse and they just make dark humor content. It’s like you have the podcasts when people see those, you have the humorous ones, you have your videos range. Unless I see a video or a quote where somebody’s like, “You do a really good job at this all by yourself. This is so cool,” then you can make a response video to that and be like, actually, there’s a board. This is legal. We are a 501c3. Once again, you’re thinking about it too real than somebody else who’s just walked in a TikTok video. They’re going to go, Grieving with Tina. That was dark humor and that was humorous. Next video.
They’re probably not thinking like, I wonder what board she has. Your question though, she’s such a child, she’s just a baby. Though innocent and very sincere for what you know that you’re doing. I don’t think the average person and I mean that with confidence of everyone’s intelligence. If you did a poll out of a hundred people and you showed them one TikTok video that didn’t mention that you had a 501c3 and you ask them, when people, so this is really dark. No one’s allowed to get offended. There’s this thing where people will be like, is this a Bible quote or is this a Game of Thrones quote, and then they have to choose, so then if you showed a bunch of people your videos and was like, do you think this person has a 501c3 or is this just a video for a dark humor page? You’re going to get the answer that you get. I don’t know if that answers your question but I don’t think people are thinking about what does the board do.
It does, that’s fair.
We do rabbit holes around here. Don’t ask me a simple question.
You held up pretty good. I feel like this is a good conversation. I think we covered everything I wanted to. You want to close out the conversation?
With what?
Whatever you want to say.
I don’t like pertaining to grief.
Anything, you, whatever.
Final Reflections On Grief And Moving Forward
Me? It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to have your grief be tangible and physical are the words that came to mind, but I mean that in terms of creation. It’s okay to have your grief create something, even if it’s poor in terms of quality. I write poetry and music. I can’t sing or at least when I do, it’s off key, but that doesn’t stop me from opening up my voice notes app and making a very poor song. Lyrically, this is the best grief there is in that song, but I can’t play that back for people.
It’s cathartic. It’s okay to have the catharsis, and it doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be honest, and you don’t have to shy away from the authenticity of that. That’s what I would say. It’s okay to be sad. It’s going to happen. Process it. Be as healthy as you can about it, and what you’re currently doing, you know is unhealthy, ask for the best help that you can ask for.
Thank you, Catherine.
You’re welcome, mother.
Thank you, Widowhood.
Bye, Widowhood.
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