Living With Death

By Marjorie Smith

OLLI at MSU member

Many years ago, during my halcyon days in San Francisco, I had a close friend named Liz who was, like me, an aspiring writer. We both regularly sent manuscripts and article queries to magazine editors, mainly in New York. One day Liz made a confession. “Sometimes when I’m in a drugstore with a big magazine section I thumb through all the current magazines to see if my by-line turns up,” she said. “I do it even though I’ve never submitted anything to most of those editors.” Writers need a certain amount of optimism that someone will want to read their words, but Liz may have carried optimism to an extreme. I thought of Liz one day when I was on my daily walk. I was passing Sunset Hills Cemetery, and noticed an open back gate. My bizarre brain fl ashed a thought: “Maybe I should stroll in and see if my name is on any of the tombstones.” It’s not that I’m usually in a macabre frame of mind. Still, I have suffered through the passing of several good friends in recent months. Although I know intellectually that the likelihood of people we care about dying increases as we age, I’m having trouble coming to terms with it emotionally. I’m not sure how to prepare myself for the loss of more dear ones or if I even want to do that much thinking about it. Still, there is one thing we all can do when the news of a death comes to us: we can try to communicate our care and concern to those most directly bereaved. Showing up at a funeral or memorial service can be a very powerful statement of caring, demonstrating that the loss of

Marjorie Smith Osher Lifelong Learning Institute “OLLI” at MSU http://www.montana.edu/olli/ Tele: 406-994-6550 MSU Academic Technology and Outreach 128 Barnard Hall • P O Box 173860 Montana State University Bozeman, MT 59717-3860

that person was important to us, and we took the time and trouble to be present. Traveling to the funerals of two of my favorite uncles, in Miles City and Oregon respectively, probably provided as much comfort to me as it did to my widowed aunts and cousins. It gave me the feeling that I had done something about the inevitable end of life. Words don’t seem so important when one can bring a warm hug to the bereaved. There’s a temptation to reach for the phone, call the bereaved and ask, “What can I do?” But it’s diffi cult for some of us to ask for specifi c help at the best of times, and probably impossible when our world has been torn apart. If you can think of something the bereaved might need, do it. Traditionally, people show up with casseroles, knowing cooking is usually impossible when a loved one has just died. I heard about one woman who showed up at the door of her recently bereaved friend carrying a vacuum cleaner and promptly set to work. But many times, we must convey our care in written words. Although we may do most of our communicating by email or via text on our smartphones, a handwritten message on paper conveys the most lasting comfort. But what to say? Letters of condolence are often the most diffi cult of all messages to write. But, like a warm hug, a brief note may comfort the bereaved person just knowing you are thinking of them, or that you admired and respected their loved one. Forty years ago, “Dear Abby” published a booklet called “How to Write Letters for All Occasions,” which included several pages of sample condolence letters. I know, I know, quoting “Dear Abby” in a column sponsored by a university-backed program like OLLI seems like analyzing the performances of Dolly Parton in a seminar on famous opera singers. But I have always felt a special connection to “Dear Abby.” I once worked for the editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, who fi rst discovered Pauline Phillips (aka Abigail Van Buren) and launched her column in 1956. And besides, her advice (and that of her daughter, who has written the column for the past couple of decades) seems sensible. Abby’s advice begins with a list of things not to say. Don’t write “It’s for the best,” or “it is a blessing.” That’s not how the bereaved person feels right now. “Avoid comparisons,” she writes. “Your past sorrows will not comfort your grieving friends.” The columnist suggests that if the departed one was someone you knew well, mentioning a specifi c memory, especially a humorous incident, will be appreciated. If you didn’t know the person who passed, express your deepest sympathy to the survivors. One thing that has comforted me through my latest round of losses of friends and acquaintances is a passage I found in the novel that was the One Book, One Bozeman selection this past year: “Cold Millions” by Jess Walter. “At my age, you don’t cry for the loss of old friends. You make a noise, ‘Ah,’ that is an expression of sorrow but also of contentment that your friend lived a good life. It is, I suppose, the sound too, of loneliness— here is yet another person I will never see again. After that comes the memories, and these swirl for days afterward.” So lately when I send condolences, I try to let some of those memories swirl a bit before I begin my letter.

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