Love Notes To Grievers was first an Instagram page, which turned into a self-published book, then got picked up and turned into an expanded version and is now this newsletter. Please share with your people, like, comment, and subscribe. Oh, and please pick up a copy of LNTG for yourself and for the people in your life too.

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I had an entirely different essay written. I deleted it to see if I could name what is emerging.

I don’t know if the word is surrendered, grounded? acclimated? The loudness of grief in my body has quieted down to something tolerable. It started back in 2023 and slowly built around the choices I’ve made since.

Grief is no longer rearranging my life and those in it, but I needed it to do just that.

I got used to the low hum of loss.

I got used to the missing.

I got used to the new version of myself.

I was talking with my partner the other day, and he named something important for me as I was going through those consecutive losses.

He said,

“You had to grow up pretty quick.”

I was 34. Yes, I was grown, but not grown enough to go through the tragic loss of my friend, the death of my father and my beloved grandmother (during the pandemic) so close together.

When I went to a therapist back in 2020, I was worried that the anxious and exhausted feeling that was coursing through my veins was my new normal. I had two ECG’s, was underweight and had a ferritin level of 22. I think the optimal range is around 80-100 ng/mL.

It scared the crap out of me, more like, scared the ferritin out of me.

I felt like an exposed nerve. Broken sleep did not help. So much of what people said and did when I was in deep grief cut like a knife. My version of coping was shutting some people out who felt unsafe and writing the pain I was feeling on the internet, which probably looked fairly unhinged to some.

Grief layered with trauma. A brutal combination.

You shrink your world so you can survive it or at least I had to.

You decide instead of going mad, to write every ache of the pain until it feels tolerable and for the strangers who may see themselves in your words.

To feel less alone.

Now…

I’m carrying my losses without the extra weight of anger, feeling misunderstood, and needing to be heard. I think my writing at that time was a battle cry of how I wished the world to be, how I wished people would act.

That’s not where I am now.

I act how I wish the world to be.

I’m no longer on the fiery path to try to change the landscape of grief in our culture. I am here to live through what feels most aligned with my values, and write from the wound that is healing. I’m more in the joy of being alive, of having gotten through such dark years. My heart didn’t harden. It just got clearer about what it won’t hold anymore.

Maybe that is cynical, or maybe it’s my way of signalling to myself that I am ready to write from the other side of the mountain, where it is less loud. Less windy. Less chaotic. People are doing a good job of that anyway. I don’t need to be there in the way I once was with a specific page.

I will always be called to write about grief.

There are facilitators I respect: grief counsellors and therapists, grief retreats, grief groups. Grief has become a big industry. And like any growing industry, it comes with its fair share of grifter energy. I can critique a growing industry and see the importance of it at the same time.

What I’ve come to, on a personal note, is that I’m a writer who wrote a book about grief. I’m not a grief expert. I will continue to write and am currently writing… a novel. Or trying to? Is there a theme of grief and loss? Of course.

I think part of why some of my writing on grief was compelling to some is that I could name the pain without the shame of how it was perceived by those not living it or living it differently. I named the cultural allergy to people’s pain and suffering. It’s easy to name those things, and if I’m honest, a lot of those reflections came from a place of anger. It’s harder to honour those feelings and move on from them than to live in that space and continue to recycle the same thoughts and ideas around it, and that’s what I was doing online when I decided to leave back in October. It wasn’t healthy for me. I do not want to stay in my personal story, to tell it over and over again. I want to build stories because of them, and bring characters to life. I’m not a teacher or community leader. I know all this now.

Do I still grieve? Yes, but learning to carry your losses in a way that the body can breathe, settle into itself again, or for the first time. That is where I am now.

I have about thirty minutes to get my thoughts out to you today. I have to head out to massage two amazing humans. After that, I am off to a cabin with a few friends for the evening.

So quickly

Here’s what I know about loss

The body needs time to metabolize a loss that changes your entire living landscape. It’s a lot more than what people may think. I know that because I had to do trauma therapy, shout out EMDR. I was not acting in a clear-headed way a lot of the time, the grief fog will come for you in the night and stay there for as long as it takes.

I know that the deep ache, the feeling of homesickness for a person, is something so profound that it can swallow people whole and never come back. When this happens to people, and it does, this is what scares people away from being anywhere near grief. I understand why, but most of us find our way back to ourselves, to building a life that has a foundation more solid than before you knew grief. I think it’s the people who keep everything inside who break, like really break. And of course, it depends on the loss.

I know that not everyone deals with loss the way I do. That annoys me, but fine.

When people see your pain and support you through it, grief is easier to hold.

Our Western culture grief and relational blueprint fails so many people. Not many have the time to slow down. To feel. To be. To be together, in it.

Our grief needs a witness. It needs to be named. It needs space to be felt and people to gather around, and some people may say the opposite. What worked for me may not for others.

Thanks so much for reading,

Would love to hear from you; just hit reply to this email, and it goes straight to ME!

Ange

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I’ve never been a witchy gal, but I have some humans in my life who cast a few spells. I’ve also tried to understand my astrology, but I forget the details when someone explains it to me. Tarot? I’ve got a deck or two— collecting dust.

Aquarius moon, Aquarius sun, something about Capricorn in there. Placements—forget it. Some plan their yearly calendar around their birth chart. While I try to remember to eat breakfast.

A ritual/cultural anchor for me, one that I can make sense of and tend to most days, is my ancestral altar. Where framed pictures of my dead loved ones are displayed on top of a dark wood-stained, low to the ground table. My father’s photo is at the center, and both sets of grandparents and some of my great-grandparents are placed above him on a shelf, and my other loved ones who have passed are there too.

There’s a rosary I bought at the Carthusian Monastery in Serra San Bruno, Italy, where my grandfather Ralph’s parents are from. He was born in Connecticut shortly after they immigrated to the United States, before they made the trek to Northern Ontario, Canada, to settle. It hangs on the left side of a framed picture of my grandmother, Violet. I got the rosary on the trip my mom, brother, and I took back in 2023. My dad had been dead for four years at that point, and my grandmother for three.

Sometimes I have fresh flowers in a vase, and scattered throughout are different candles—tea lights, tapered beeswax and a few devotional candles. The practice of providing fiammelle (tiny lights) is a way to welcome the spirits and to show them they are not forgotten. It’s the bridge between two worlds, the one we are part of here and the spiritual one.

There is also my grandfather, Ralph’s (Raffaele), ring and his watch. Common to have items of deceased loved ones be part of the altar space. I finally got a frame at the thrift store for the picture of him and my gran on their anniversary that my mom gave me when I was visiting back in February.

There’s a change purse of my great-aunt Julie’s on my dad’s side, who I was close with and cared for her alongside my family when she got dementia in her later years. My mom and I had the honour of sitting vigil and holding her hand as she took her final breaths.

There are pictures scattered on the table—a place to remember, not stuffed in a box only to be pulled out every few years or at all.

They were here. They matter. They are still here in memory and part of me and my daily life.

The cool dude on the bottom center, shirtless with a mullet, is my pops looking rad as hell, per usual.

If you are following my writing here, chances are that you are grieving. I think a great starting point can be an individual altar for your loved one, if an ancestral one feels overwhelming and because some of you have fractured lines of descent and painful familial relations, and I so honour that.

I tend to this altar almost daily or at the very least say hi as I walk into the room. Talking to the dead can feel a bit silly at first if you aren’t used to it. Yet, I have come to love building connections with the people I didn’t get to meet. Picturing their life in Italy, the food they ate, the struggles they had and the early days heading to North America, the nerves they must have felt going to a foreign place where you don’t speak the language, boarding a massive ship to take you there, and eventually settling in Canada. And the ones I did have a deep connection to, that’s a little harder to hold at times.

Having an altar in the home for the dead is common across many cultures. It is part of my Italian heritage on my mother’s side. I grew up with pictures of our dead loved ones in my parents’ room and throughout the house. My mom has a small altar for my dad in the house she moved into shortly after he died. As is having statues of the family’s patron saints: Saint Joseph, Saint Anthony of Padua, St Francis, the one my gran constantly talked about, the patron saint of lost things, St. Anthony (probably because I was always losing things).

“Pray to St. Anthony, and he will help you find it,” she’d say

Having an altar space is a way to pay respect to our deceased family members. To be with the grief and the love. I’m still figuring out the specific traditions of the region my family comes from, Campania and Calabria. I take great pride in the ways I try to implement them into my life.

As you have gathered, I am not all in on one thing. I’m not religious, but many in my family were, so I try to reflect that in the altar space as a sign of respect.

Below are a few tips for setting up your altar. Keep in mind, I am not an expert on this, but it’s become an important aspect of my life. This is to get you started. Feel free to reach out or share your experience if this is new to you.

Placement:

Mary-Grace, the author of Italian Folk Magic, recommends picking a central place for your ancestral altar, one that has a lot of activity. Family room, entranceway. Pick a place that they can be part of your daily life, or one that feels good to you. Other cultures may suggest a quiet and peaceful place. Creating an altar of this kind is deeply personal, and I am writing vaguely about it for a reason.

Surface:

Depends on where you live and what kind of altar you would like to have. Some people have a photo wall, and arrangements can be done in many ways. Some like to put the oldest ancestors at the top and the more recent passings at the bottom.

The way I prefer is to have ancestor photos and personal items on a dedicated shelf or altar table. Placing a runner or altar cloth is common.

You can also have objects or pictures of the area or region your ancestors are from. I could print off some of the pictures I took while in Naples and Serra San Bruno. If you don’t know where your people are from, it’s a great time to call someone in the family to ask or do some research yourself.

I may split up my altars at some point to have one just for my dad, but for now, everyone is all together.

For some, finding and reclaiming your cultural background, how they lived, what they ate, how they mourned, creating altars, honouring the dead, is a beautiful way of being with the grief you’re carrying. This won’t be for everyone, but it may be for some.

It’s great to be back in connection with you here,

Ange

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If you liked this, you may also like:

My book, Love Notes to Grievers, is an intimate exploration of the emotional landscape that follows the loss of a loved one. It isn’t a traditional grief guide. You don’t need to read it from front to back. Instead, you can dip in and out, following the table of contents, reading the sections that speak to you most. It’s a gentle read that serves as a tender companion, a soft landing for those navigating the difficult and often isolating path of loss. It encourages resistance against dominant cultural attitudes toward grief, allowing you to carve out your own way.

Whether you’re newly bereaved, supporting someone who is, or seeking understanding of grief’s ongoing presence in your life, Love Notes to Grievers offers solace, validation, and a space to feel seen, much like what I aim to do here through this newsletter.

Currently, the book is on sale on Amazon.com for just $6.71, down from its original price of $24.95. If you’ve been thinking about picking up copies for yourself or gifting LNTG to friends or family navigating grief. It’s the perfect moment to grab more than a few copies to keep on hand for those in your life who may need support now or in the future.

You can find the book here.

Please share with your people, like, comment, and subscribe.

If my work resonates with you, you may also want to become a paid subscriber. I will be rolling out some offerings soon, but for now, thank you for reading and being here.

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Love Note To Grievers:

Trying to make space for grief in a society that makes you feel broken and too much for loving your people so profoundly when they have died is why we have souls screaming from their insides.

People live with relentless grief, which is, by design, to keep the status quo as is. The dominant culture is rooted in suppressing emotions. Sit with that. The dominant culture is rooted in oppression, which keeps people in their trauma and grief. The counter-culture is demanding a grief-literate society. The counter-culture asks us to look at our systems rooted in oppression. I am asking us to do better. I am asking myself the same thing. If you are good with what is, I urge you to listen to others without interjecting your opinion of their experience that isn't yours.

Our society has been seduced by platitudes like, "suck it up," "Get back out there," "Don't share your pain; that's weak," "Everything happens for a reason," "It was God's plan," and other apathetic "support" that does not help people heal.

I promise that being dismissive while witnessing people's pain, being the one who reaches for easy platitudes or makes it about yourself, will keep you further from what we all desire as humans: to be connected, intimate, real, and empathetic to each other.

You are in the wrong place if all you want is power over others.

Listen to people on their deathbeds. If you don't understand what I am talking about, take in their regrets.

Grief comes out sideways if swept under the carpet. Watch how untended grief can rip families apart. Watch the dynamics unfold when we don't allow each other to feel what's on our hearts or what has broken them.

We must grow our tolerance for witnessing hearts break and allow it to be what it is. That is the medicine. We witness a shift in someone's body language when acknowledging their grief instead of offering solutions to their pain. You don't live in someone else's body. You don't know their pain. What may work for you does not mean it works for someone else. Show up humble.

Become aware enough to know what comes up for you when witnessing someone else in grief and pain—your own fears and hangups around death and grief. That is yours, and exploring what comes up in that realm will expand your life in beautiful ways.

Teach people how to hold broken hearts so that they can mend.

Teach people that living in pain won't swallow them whole. You tend to every inch of it until it loosens its grip.

The timeframe and way we deal with it are different for everyone.

Some never get out of the dark, but I promise it doesn't change by pretending it's not there. Let yourself grieve fully to move forward with meaning, understanding, and love.

My grief is a ceremony. Each day, a ritual arises to honour our grief and the love that I carry for those who have died and those no longer in my life. A new part of myself revealed and tended to each brave step into the painful yet freeing space.

Meet your grief with curiosity.

I get pangs of grief about the things I cannot share with my dad, not because he's hard to approach or an absent father, but because he's dead. I say it like that because it's my way of landing it bluntly for the death-phobic amongst us who wince or try to soften the language around it. It's my dead dad, and I use words that suit that ache. Passed on feels too light, yet I will tread softly with those I barely know and their dead. But for me and mine, I want to land it solidly in your chest, not with a whisper, a bang—dead dead dead. Language is a landmine when it comes to grief. The words we choose can build a bridge with a solid foundation of trust and safety to one another or burn it to the ground.

I cannot call to let him know I arrived safely in a new land, nor is he part of our group family chat, where I send our travel pictures daily, although I thought about adding his old number to see what would happen. It would go something like this: I add his old number to the group chat. The number would now belong to a man around my mother’s age, 71.

He would text

“Hi, you all seem like such a nice family. I am enjoying all your pictures, but I think you added the wrong number to the group chat.”

I would say,

“Hi, I’m so sorry about that. This used to be my dad’s number. He passed away from cancer five years ago. I must’ve added it by mistake.”

As you know, that’s a lie, but I can’t fight the soothing effect of an even number: me, my partner, brother, his wife, mom and replacement dad. The text thread would reveal that he is a widower, with a one-syllable name like Jack, Rob, or maybe a fun nickname like Big Cat. His wife also died around the same time as my dad. He then becomes a family friend for a few years. My mom and Big Cat hit it off. He’s well off but not a flashy kind of guy, with no kids, so the blended family drama is out. He has two dogs, Walter and Daisy, who are six years old and long-haired dachshunds. He owns a villa in Tuscany, but that is the least interesting thing about him—an even six.

The grief that shows up when you're doing something joyous with your life needs to be navigated delicately and skillfully, and with grace that you didn't think was possible, each new experience, an absence lingers, like a low hum or ringing in your ears, sometimes it's loud, other times, it fades into the background, but there, forevermore. The year my dad died, it mostly consisted of broken sleep, crying in the car on my way to work, and feeling so exhausted I could barely function at times. I felt like an exposed nerve, but what I was was grief-stricken, and in that state, I like to plan trips I can't afford. So close to a year later, my partner and I booked a trip to Thailand, and you know what happened next.

“Holy fucking shit, this is like the movie Contagion, but real life” I said to my partner plunking down beside him on our tired grey love seat.

Glued to our TV, we watched video clips of doctors double-masked, wearing light blue and green gowns and caps in Wuhan, China, their hospitals overrun with sick and dying patients, trying to warn the rest of the world about what was coming. The death toll climbed in Northern Italy and Iran, and those poor cruisers (3,700 passengers and crew) quarantined on a Diamond Princess ship docked in Yokohama, Japan, for weeks. New York was the epicenter in the U.S., where bodies overflowed outside funeral homes in freezer trucks.

The global pandemic quashed our travel plans into oblivion, and many others, but it was the least of our worries.

Five years later, we were Thailand-bound with new aches and pains, bracing for the 17-hour flight. Our red-eye flight from Vancouver to Tokyo, not much sleep happened, leaning left to right, rotating my aching ass cheeks, regretting my choice of gluten-free for flight food. A short layover in Tokyo, I marvelled at the pristine public bathrooms with heated seats, music playing as you sat, birds singing, and down to the floor door stalls, a luxury I didn't know I needed, lingering longer than I ever have. Tokyo to Bangkok, I got the window this time. My partner reluctantly sat beside a tall, thick drink of water who no doubt thought about hurling himself out the emergency exit more than once. His muscular tree trunk legs, painted on dark-wash ribbed jeans, were pressed hard against the seat in front of him for the entire seven-hour flight. I'm 5'3 and my partner is 5'6. Economy class chose us.

We breezed through customs, grabbed a cab to the Rattanakosin area, old city, groggy, euphoric, and fighting to stay awake as long as possible to get on the time change, spending the first three days exploring the temples, adjusting MY stomach, and sweating through the streets around Samran Rat. Throngs of people, a sea of orange fabric piled in shops, monks garments, golden Buddha statues, all sizes, ceremonial offerings for temples and home altars lined the street shops we walked, steady streams of cars, motor bikes, and tuk-tuks created an organized chaos that swirled the polluted air, just as I remembered it when I was there in my early twenties, but with less climate anxiety, no smart phone addiction and perkier breasts.

On our last day before boarding a flight, north to Chang Mai, we adjusted to fast-paced city life, weaving through streets, frequently stopping at 7-Eleven’s for a blast of air con, band aids for my blistered feet from walking twenty-plus thousand steps a day, and water breaks. Exploring the nooks and crannies by the klongs, the city is filled with them, and by these waterways are rows of houses, which connect to the inner city streets. While walking down one, my partner spotted a few older Thai men sitting out front. The owner, a man around seventy, had a makeshift bar in the lower level of his house, with a few sturdy wooden tables set out,

“Dad would have loved this,” I said, slowing my pace to take in the painted blue wooden two-story house before we chose a table.

My partner glanced at me, sensing the waft of grief in the air, then looked around and nodded.

“Yeah, he would have.”

The sensation hits, call it what you will, a grief pang, a feeling of homesickness when you were younger or butterflies in your stomach, but filled with sadness that gets lodged in your stomach and travels up to your throat and into your tear ducts.

Dad would have loved,

This Thai beer,

This old Thai house/bar,

This jolly man who served us,

The two husky Russian men, sitting across from us, four empty large bottles of beer deep for each of them, and on to the next,

This murky canal lined with old houses.

I let it wash over me, look down the klong, and think about him, and no more.

No more beer,

No more texts from his daughter from a foreign land,

No more life left to live, and that thought twists in my gut.

This doesn’t break me, at least not anymore. I’ve gotten used to it being part of my life, the grief lingers, flares, lets itself be known, the art of practicing letting it come and go, ready for its return. Could I have so boldly said this year one, two and even three? Probably not, my body was fighting the loss of my dad with sleepless nights, utterly wrecked by caring for him until his dying breath, but now joking about a replacement dad.

We pay and get up from the table,

“What do you feel like eating for dinner?” My partner asks as we walk past the four older Thai men still sitting at their table.

The feelings fade and settle back to their usual hum. If grief pulls up a seat at your table beside a Klong, welcome it, and ask if it wants a beer, just not four. I don’t recall my answer or what we ate that night, but looking back on that moment, I probably would say

“Pad Thai, Pad Thai, Pad Thai.”

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The emergency room is a sea of scrubs and unsynchronized beeps from medical monitors checking patients' vital signs from the four-bed unit where my mother and I found my grandmother curled on her side. I focus on the one attached to her, willing the neon green lines not to fall flat. My throat is dry from dehydration, and my eyes burn from crying most of the day. Involuntarily, I eavesdrop on the nurse next to us. She is attempting to soothe a wheezing child having an asthma attack, assuring the child's father that the medications will soon do their job. 

It's close to midnight, and that doesn't feel kind. There is  new-fallen snow—a  hallmark of northern Ontario's winter weather—spring is still winter, even in mid-March. I long to be back on Vancouver Island, breathing saltwater air, but I would settle for anywhere but here. 

The emergency doctor arrives, I know him, but he doesn't know me or pretends he doesn't, and I am relieved. Running into people you know at inopportune times is one of the many pitfalls of growing up in a small town. An excruciating memory is tainted by having it attached to someone you know from high school that works in the emergency room. 

It's her heart, and just hours before, my father died. 

The phone call that wakes my mother is from the care home where my grandmother lives. With all life force drained out of us, we get out of bed, me howling "fuccccck" loudly and "Are you kidding me." After a few more consecutive "fucks," haphazardly, I pull on my black sweatpants that pass for a regular pair of pants. The purple walls in my room were my choice when I was ten and are now gray. I want them to be purple because if they are purple, then I am ten. If I am ten—my dad is still alive. 

The house is cold, dark and sullen, like it, too, is grieving. Earlier that day, we gathered in the dining area, which turned into a makeshift hospital room, but now, my father's hospital bed is dormant. It’s also where I sat with my dad's lifeless body in his outfit of choice, worn-out navy blue sweatpants that he had kept for twenty years or more and a grey t-shirt, also his choice, to be cremated in. Undoubtedly, he would have chosen the same outfit to be buried in. I walk by the kitchen, glance into the dining room and feel my heart shatter a little bit more. It's where we said our final goodbyes this afternoon—not a couple of days ago—not a week— just hours ago. I pull on my boots and jacket and grab the keys to my mother's car and head out the front door. As I drive, I flashback to when the coroners arrived to pick up my father and waste no time. They wheeled him out in a plush green body bag, or was it black? Maybe it was green on the inside and black on the outside, but all I know is that my father was inside, which did something to my body that I cannot explain. 

"I can't watch Dad being taken out," my brother says to me with severe pain in his eyes, and I wordlessly nod, then shift my numb feet on the cherry-stained hardwood floor. I understand why my brother does not want his last memories of our father to be this. Days and hours ago, he was a breathing being, and now he was gone forever. "I am going to stay," I force out. I want to reverse time—when we ate ice cream for dinner and cuddled in my father's hospital bed until he fell asleep each night. Instead, we are watching two large men with mammoth hands put my dad's dead body onto a stretcher. 

The doctors and nurses chat in the kitchen, and I stay where I can see my father in the dining room, unable to move. The doctors wait for the coroner to sign the death certificate. I don't know what appropriate dead body etiquette is. I can barely take in what is happening as I watch the rose colour in my dad's cheeks leave his body. I want to scream but can't, so I sit and witness my father here but gone. 

 I stand, surprisingly able to move my legs that feel like bricks and drag myself up to the tan carpeted stairs that overlook the front door like I did when I was a little girl and a teenager, where we would greet friends and family and say our goodbyes. I perch like a bird gazing over them, but this time I am looking at the outline of my dad in a body bag, and he would not be coming back. 

Someone from the care home told my mother that my grandmother was found unresponsive and slumped over in her bed. The only information we had was that she had turned blue, the nurses worked on her, and now she was being taken to the hospital by ambulance. With a splitting headache, I drive with intrusive yet realistic thoughts—what if my grandmother and father die the same day—what if my mom's husband and mother die the same day? That's all I could think of for the thirty-minute drive to the hospital. Are we about to plan two funerals at the same time? Were we going to arrive at another loved one's dead body today?

"Well, the family will be up." I smile grimly, "Maybe we can get a two-for-one deal at the funeral home." My mother laughs and shakes her head at me. 

We arrive at the hospital parking lot, which is daunting and too familiar. The trips we had with my father: his stroke three years ago, his colonoscopy when the doctor told us the cancer was too invasive for surgery. I knew what that meant. One session of chemotherapy landed him in an emergency room from severe dehydration. I shudder at the thought, push the window button down, grab a ticket, and find the closest parking spot. We walk up to the emergency room entry and step in front of the automatic doors—a burst of hot air wacks me in the face. I notice two wheelchairs, empty and waiting to be claimed by some other family. 

We beat the ambulance, and my heart is no longer in my chest cavity. It's in my toe, trying to escape this madness. 

We find a spot to sit. Shortly after, my brother walks in groggy and puffy like us. He, too, was attempting to sleep off the worst day of his life. He and his wife had left us later in the day to tell their kids their Papa died. I notice the look on his face. It's the same as mine and the same as my mother’s—grief-stricken. It’s a look I’ve come to know well. My surroundings  make my throat close up, still waiting for the ambulance to arrive, and when it does, my throat restricts even more. 

On the other side of the two oversized beige emergency room doors, we had no idea if my grandmother was dead or alive. The smell of antiseptic with an assortment of artificial fragrances turns my stomach. We sit silently in a row, wearing our unwanted grief—waiting in disbelief. 

I finally see red lights barreling into the side of the hospital. My mother gets up to speak with the receptionist, then gets buzzed into the other side. The massive doors swing when I am let in about ten minutes later. 

My grandmother's glazed-over blueish-grey eyes take in how terrible we look, eyebrows raised in her sweet and tender tone, says, "You don't look good. What happened" and continues to repeat it a few more times until we crack. We decided on the car ride to refrain from telling her about my father dying that day. It felt like good manners for your ninety-two-year-old grandmother, who just had a heart attack and may not survive the night, to spare her the details of why we looked so gaunt. She says again, "You don't look so good," which felt like she was peering into our souls, then my mother tells her why. Hand over hers, we stayed by her side for the night.

Our matriarch held us as we held her. Our matriarch survived and made it another year and one month. Our matriarch felt our hearts shatter that day, or maybe it was an awful coincidence.

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When Susan had breast cancer, we heard a lot of lame remarks, but our favorite came from one of Susan’s colleagues. She wanted, she needed, to visit Susan after the surgery, but Susan didn’t feel like having visitors, and she said so. Her colleague’s response? “This isn’t just about you.” “It’s not?” Susan wondered. “My breast cancer is not about me? It’s about you?”

—Susan Silk and Barry Goldman

Susan Silk and Barry Goldman developed a concept called the “Ring Theory.” I found it helpful, so maybe you will too. I like to call them circles. I put my spin on it, so feel free to read the original article linked.

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Platitudes fly your way. People tell you how your grief should look or the "proper" way to deal with a crisis, but they are not playing a central role. You receive insensitive or ignorant remarks, then have no idea how to respond. Some people even demand things of you, so you are forced to shoulder the reactions of people who do not like your response when you say, gently, "I don't find this helpful." or "I can't make it to your wedding or party because I am not feeling up to it, my dad just died." It takes a mature human to give grace to people as they grieve or whatever struggle they face. Grace is needed as we pick up the pieces of our lives to rebuild them or start from scratch.

We won't always know what to say or do. It's important to ground ourselves before supporting another in the heavy. It's ok if you don't pick up the phone every time or text back if you need a time out. There are ways to do that respectfully. It's a good idea to reflect on your relationship with the person going through something life-changing. What level of love, support, space, time, and understanding are you willing to give and be part of their healing. Accepting that there may be things that aren't fixable but wanting to love them through it anyway. Be honest with yourself and the relationship you have with that person.

It can be quite confronting when you assume you are in one circle when you are not. It can be hard on either side to realize that you no longer are in a relationship with this person like you once were, and now with the extra life stressors, it's too obvious to ignore the cracks or craters between you. That is why many relationship ruptures occur during a loved one's death, illness or as you grieve. As our capacity lowers for certain behaviours or relationship dynamics, so does our filter and patience. Our circles change over time because we don't always understand what our relationships mean to us and our role.

How do we support our friends, acquaintances, colleagues, partners, and families in their grief or crisis? Susan Silk, a clinical psychologist, and Barry Goldman came up with Ring Theory after Susan's experience with breast cancer. People offered her unsolicited advice and became offended when it wasn't received as helpful. My family also went through something similar with my dad. One of his old friends called a handful of times to tell my family how to cure my dad's stage four colon cancer with coffee enemas, not realizing that my dad was already dying. It was disrespectful, and finally, my brother let him know. He got offended and did not show up at the funeral. He had no active relationship with my dad or us, which resulted in him being way out of line and out of his circle.  Ring Theory Explanation 

You may not know where each person in these circles belongs, but you should know to who the people are directly connected. The primary purpose is to know what circle you are in so that you don't cause more stress and grief to the person(s) in the center. It is also not to say that someone from an outer circle cannot make their way into a closer one or vice versa. People come together when hard things happen, but sometimes they grow apart. 

Each circle represents the direction support should go. The direction of venting or dumping feelings needs to go outward and away from the center person(s). The person in the center can share with people in each circle who they feel most comfortable with. People around them can share their feelings, reactions, questions, and frustrations with people in the outside circles but not the inner ones. Our words should support the center circle while abstaining from overburdening them. Comfort always goes in, "I will make you a meal and drop it at the door— is that ok?" "I hate that you're going through this." "I will rearrange my schedule to make it to the funeral."

 1. Draw a small circle. This center circle is where you put the name of the person (or family) grieving, in crisis and going through something traumatic. You can also do this for yourself if you are the center person to clarify where you feel people fit in your own life. 

2. Draw a larger circle around the first one. In that circle, put the name of the person(s) that are closest. 

3. Next circle, put the next closest people—for example, immediate family or intimate friends. 

4. Final circle could be acquaintances, colleagues, neighbours, etc. 

Just because someone is in your inner circle does not mean they will know how to support you. People don't magically turn into therapists. That is why I am such a big proponent of gaining grief literacy and general relational competency skills to prevent a stressful time from worsening by those unable to relate generatively. This is one of the most heartbreaking aspects of grief and loss. People panic, act unkindly or flee when they cannot understand their reactions to complicated things, creating even more stress for the person in the center.

One more time—understanding, listening (without problem-solving), providing tangible support with permission, and giving grace go inward. It always flows towards the center. Complaining to the center person(s), being negative, demanding, giving unsolicited advice, venting, making excuses, expressing shock, rambling about your issues, and becoming judgmental is best communicated to people in the same circle that you are in, a friend or a therapist. To give more context, the person or people in the center who are directly affected may not have much capacity outside of caring for their needs, families, etc., for a time, it’s longer than you think it will take. Patience is key. The people in the other circles can also express their feelings and valid concerns.

It's not that you aren't allowed to grieve or feel or have a life and your problems. Kind boundaries are good. However, venting and openly sharing whatever is on your mind with someone already dealing with so much could be straining, leaving both people feeling unheard and creating more stress. It doesn't mean your feelings don't matter. It means that going to someone else, for now, will be more beneficial and will keep your relationship intact with the person who can't be the person you are used to them being. THIS TAKES TIME.

Relationships shift as life keeps spinning, and so our circles change. Taking care of yourself when supporting someone else is imperative, be honest about your capacity, and have that conversation. Being transparent with each other can prevent heartbreak. Especially if the person you are supporting is in an ongoing crisis, like a chronic illness, continual mental health concern or going through a heart-shattering loss or losses that will take more time than you think. That is how people grow tired and resentful. They become drained and feel like the relationship is not worth the work. Inner circle people and those who love them must take good care of themselves. They must have an outlet and take breaks when needed. 

Example of Circles and Disappointment: 

An acquaintance was going through a hard time. I was surprised to be included in an email more geared toward being in her inner circle requesting help. She put me in a much closer circle than I would have considered myself, and I was already at capacity with a health-related crisis in my family. Eventually, she expressed her disappointment that I did not support her in the way she needed and explained that she saw me as a good friend/inner circle person, and I had to be very honest that it was not what I could give her. 

Communicating and ensuring you are on the same page and understand how relationships need tending. People deserve clarity. We're all entitled to our feelings but picking our moments matters. Ring theory became a tool for me to reflect on the relational issues I had as I grieved my friend and dad. It was unclear who belonged in what circle. It also helped me understand my role and that the level of support depends on the circle I am in with others. I was also shocked and, at times, appalled by how insensitive some people could be. It is also why I sought therapy right away to ensure I was not leaning too much on my people and to start showing up for them as much as possible once I got out of survival mode. There is nuance in all of this, but I believe Susan is asking us to be mindful about what we say and who we say it to in times of heightened sensitivity and crisis. 

Ring Theory

How not to say the wrong thing

Psychologists' 'Ring Theory' can help you not say the wrong thing to grieving people.

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Art by Boozie

The months after my dad died, I couldn't stop thinking about the book Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. It was written by American author Elizabeth Gilbert and came out on February 16, 2006. According to the Wikipedia page about the book, it remained on the bestseller list for 187 weeks.

The book found its way into the hands of women deeply unhappy with their mundane lives and spotlighted their strained relationships. I also fell into that category. I was a tattered 22-year-old trying to make sense of the abusive relationship I had just left. The one that I quit school for and moved provinces to get away from—the one that shattered my sense of self.

I didn't have names like depression or trauma in my vocabulary yet. I didn’t understand the aftershock of leaving an abusive relationship—so it got buried. I tried to move on quickly, which meant drinking in excess and getting caught in a whirlwind romance that lasted six years longer than it should have. 

Let me break it down if you haven't read the book or watched the movie that starred Julia Roberts. It chronicles Liz divorcing her husband, throwing her stuff in a New York City storage unit to head off on a grief-filled but whimsical "white woman finding herself" year-long trip. It begins in Italy, where she pines over her hot actor rebound boyfriend. A relationship that crashes and burns, or so it seemed when you watched the movie.

You are transported to cafes and restaurants where she eats pasta, learns to speak the language from a hot Italian man, eats pizza, meets some locals that become good friends, and eats pastries alongside her super chic Swedish gal pal that she meets at a cafe in Rome. After that, she was off to an ashram in India to sit at the feet of her guru, who was not in India at the time she went. The last leg of her trip was in Bali, where she finds a medicine man with no teeth to learn ancient teachings from and falls head over heels for a sultry Brazilian man and marries his ass.

That is why her book resonated with me at that time. I, too, wanted out. I was lost and trying to find myself. I wanted a guru to teach me how to be and live. It seemed easier than raw doggin' life the way I was.

Do you see why the book was a bestseller?

Escaping your life is a privilege. Travel is too. Some women will never know the liberation of leaving their relationship or travelling to a different country to "find" or reclaim themselves. Some women are geographically stuck, institutionally constrained or financially bound to a man they will never escape. They are caged in suppressive conditions that don't have luxury vacay on the options list.

Escaping for a time has always been my first choice when life gets overwhelming. That is also part of my impulsiveness, which I am attempting to quash or tame in the name of not being broke and reckless for the rest of my life.

Self-help books were having a moment then and still are because people always try to fix themselves or make sense of their lives. That will always be having a moment. Some self-help books are useless, but I loved this one (then) because going to Italy, India, and Bali instead of therapy sounded way more fun. So I went to South East Asia in 2007, pretending that trauma didn't exist in my body— drinking buckets of alcohol while adventuring into caves, flirting with cute boys, taking buses and planes to and around Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia to numb the pain—a temporary fix that worked for a time.

When my dad died—he got colon cancer and died four months after his diagnosis. I wanted to run like hell. I wanted to Eat, Pray, Ghost my life. I longed to bolt or, at minimum, cry beside a palm tree while sticking my feet into some white sand by the ocean for months. Not that it would cure anything, but grieving at the beach seemed superior to my couch. Covid ruined that. Having no money did too. Being a self-employed Massage Therapist who took five months off to be a caregiver to my dying dad meant all our financial responsibilities got put on my partner. The not-so-glamorous reality of caregiving—death and grieving, sometimes you financially fuck yourself (and your partner too). 

When caring for my dad abruptly ended. I went back to work right away because I had to. On my way to work, I would have crying sessions in the car to get myself together enough to massage my clients before turning into a grief pumpkin. During those moments, Eat, Pray, Love popped into my head. I felt envy and anger, followed by laughter at the absurdity of it all. Grieving people return to work two days or a week after the death of a loved one. Ludicrous. Grieving people have to figure out how not to implode their entire life and deserve a medal. I'm not proud, but I felt big fuck you energy for people with disposable income and alive dad's. I let out audible laughs when I think of it now. Eat, Pray, Love - Dead Dad Edition.

Bone tired—worn the fuck out—barely holding it together.

How did I ride this out you might be asking? 

I don't recommend being a grieving Massage Therapist. It required me to do emotional aerobatics. Compartmentalize. My school did not offer a unit in their curriculum on how to do your job without dripping tears on your patients while you're grieving. My way? Jam some tissue up your nose, then act cool as a cucumber once you turn them over. I know what some of you may think: "that is unprofessional," but time off was a luxury I couldn't afford. I didn't have the option to stop working as my left, and right heart ventricles did.

Between mustering enough energy to work, you would find me on the Isle of Couch (Yes, someone made sad art of me on that couch pictured above). I shamelessly watched movies like Eat, Pray, Love, and other Netflix shows I am too embarrassed to share now. I did as Liz would do but in my mind. I envisioned pizza in my mouth hole from Naples. I imagined renting a house in Bali in the middle of the jungle where no one could hear my sobs. I pretended to have a group of friends through the TV screen, the ones she met in Italy because in real life, I got so depressed I didn’t see anyone but my partner and clients for at least six months. 

And you all know what happened next— a global pandemic. A collective uncertainty and grief engulfed us, the toilet paper saga, people dying in droves and banging pots and pans, making loaves, turning to unhinged conspiracy theories, and protesting in front of hospitals.

I also had just moved to a new city where I only knew a handful of people, most of whom I didn’t want to subject to my grieving energy. We weren’t that tight. I did manage 67 straight days of Italian lessons on Duolingo. I found something to hyper-focus on for a while—researching my Italian ancestors on my mother’s side and creating an elaborate family tree. I was obsessed with exploring ways to retrieve my Italian citizenship. That was a dead end. Grazie mille.

Thanks, Liz, for keeping me company on the worst days of my life. You are a real one.

Eat, Pray, Love dead dad edition field notes

I didn't get to hang out with a medicine man with no teeth, so I found a cheap therapist a month after my dad died instead. Her house smelt of smoke, and she was close to death herself. She sometimes wore an oxygen tank in our sessions.

Financial stability sounds fantastic because spending all your savings on keeping your body alive while grieving is a full-time job, so that you can work your actual job. That’s soul-sucking.

A grief salve to slap all over my body would have been nice. Instead, I turned into a scared armadillo.

A colon hydrotherapist or someone that does IV hydration and a vitamin cocktail drip that ordinary people can't afford from all the tears I cried could have made all the difference. Instead, I ended up with bacterial overgrowth in my small intestine.

Daydreaming of someone taking pity on my tired, frail sad ass and gifting me a year-long vacation, all expenses paid, so I could cry around different parts of the world. Is that so much to ask? Still open to that one.

Like Liz’s friends in Italy, a language barrier that’s what I needed, so we could eat in silence because that would be better than hearing another platitude that made me want to hurl myself against a wall.