Shelly Fisher - Breaking Sad: What to Say After Loss, What Not to Say, and When to Just Show Up

Breaking Sad

Copyright 2017 Shelly Fisher and Jen Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2017
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-63152-242-0 pbk.
ISBN: 978-1-63152-243-7 ebk.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949351

Cover and interior design by Tabitha Lahr

For information, address:
She Writes Press
1563 Solano Ave #546
Berkeley, CA 94707

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

To Stephanie Yen-Mun Liem Azar, who was so accomplished and helped more people in her twenty-six years than most do in a lifetime.

And

To Herbert Lotman, who remains my hero, my inspiration and whose memory I try to honor every single day.

They both live on in the hearts of so many.

Shelly Fisher

Contents

The idea for this book came to me on a day in 2013 as I stood beside a close friend just hours after the death of her twenty-six-year-old daughter, Stephanie. Five days earlier, Stephanie had celebrated her birthday and was a glowing newlywed of not even a month who was eagerly anticipating the conclusion of her medical school training. Despite her youth, Stephanie had already touched and helped more people than most people do in a long lifetime. Now... this. What could I or anyone else possibly say to ease the familys unfathomable pain? What could I or anyone else possibly do?

Twice before, Id stood beside parents on the day of a childs death, a witness to the awkward ballet of distraught looks, too-tight hugs, and tear-choked words that attend shattering loss. Then, as now, Id heard fumbling attempts to comfort that surely only deepened the pain of the bereavedmisaimed expressions of sympathy like, They are in a better place, and Thank goodness you have other children, and I cant imagine how someone survives something like this.

I know what it is to be on the receiving end of words and gestures that, though well intended, feel more discomforting than soothing. In 2014, I lost my father, my heart, the sun in my familys solar system, right before my daughters wedding. A month earlier, my aunt (his sister) had lost her daughter (my cousin) suddenly. In 2009, I experienced a different sort of grief when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember the people who went mute because they couldnt think what to say. The people who looked at the floor, too uncomfortable to look me in the eye. The people who literally shied away from me. The people who gave me the pitying look.

For those who are grieving, well-wishers responses can weigh still heavier as the months pass. In other peoples eyes, they find, they are often reduced to the one who had cancer or the widow or the people who lost their son. Such labels not only erase the person who existed before sorrow set in, they make it that much harder for a person to find their way through the haze of grief as they work to gain their footing in their new, forever changed life.

On this day as I watched peoples often-flailing attempts (my own included) to console my friend, I had a keen sense that while most people truly want to help in a time of sorrow, they often feel uncertain what to say or do. Thats when it occurred to me that while there is a rich library of books by professionals designed to help the bereaved navigate their way through grief, there are very few books that offer guidance for the friends, relatives, and colleagues who want to lend useful support. Especially a book by people who actually experienced the loss. How helpful it would be, I thought, to have a book that offers specific suggestions for what to say and doand, just as important, what not to say or do.

But where to find such advice? And how to gather a wide array of suggestions? Loss, after all, comes in many guises (loss of a child, a spouse, a parent, a friendship, a job, ones health). Moreover, to state the maybe not-so obvious, not everyone grieves in the same way. Where one person might want to be surrounded constantly by friends, for instance, another might prefer to be left in solitude.

To get this project up and running, I turned to a colleague and writer, Jen Jones. Together, we decided that in order to gather a cross section of experiences and suggestions, we would reach out through author sites, blogs, Craigslist, and friendship networks to find our contributors. We also sought input from several celebrities who had previously gone public with their stories of grappling with health loss. In addition to asking that our contributors share some aspect of their grief experience, we asked them to answer four questions:

Best thing someone did or said?

Worst thing someone did or said?

Advice for someone going through a similar experience?

Advice for those surrounding the bereaved?

Our contributors hard-won insights and heartfelt advice fill the pages of this book. If a suggestion or idea herein helps even one person navigate the difficult what-to-say/what-to-do terrain, which in turn helps a grieving person to cope with their grief, Jen and I will have accomplished our mission.

Shelly Fisher

| Lisa Liem |

Stephanie Yen-Mun Liem Azar was born on July 14, 1987, inviting everybody to join her world, as her brother puts it. At a very young age, Stephanie decided that there was a purpose in everything she did, that something good would evolve when shit happenedthat her life was worth living if she could make a difference for just one person. She accomplished all this and more in her very short life. I am so blessed that I told her many times how much I love her and that she was a child whom one could only dream of.

A high-achieving individual, Stephanie earned an organ performance diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music. She then did research at Harvard before attending Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. It was during her medical school rotations that she contracted pneumonia with a virus. Even Columbia medicine could not save her. Stephanie died five days after she turned twenty-six, less than four weeks after marrying the love of her life.

Now, more than two years later, my husband and I still ricochet between shock and reality. Unless you really do, please refrain from telling us you know or understand exactly how we feel and how in time we will get over it. With time, our grief is not less; it is deeper. Weve learned how to make that less apparent to the many people who want us to be okay. But we are not. We lost our child. We have no way out!

We receive great comfort from family and friends who have done so much to honor Stephanie and to keep her memory alive. We appreciate those who are there for us, just listening when we go crazy with grief. Part of us died with the passing of our child, and there is nothing anybody can do to make us whole again. I ask for compassion and tolerance free of comparison, judgment, or advice.