That slurry of grief and guilt when someone you love dies
Claire Bidwell Smith leaves it all in The Confessional
Claire Bidwell Smith is a therapist specializing in grief and the author of three books about grief and loss. Visit her website to find her offerings including courses, meditations, one-on-one grief sessions and more.
Learn more about here here: clairebidwellsmith.com
Instagram: @clairebidwellsmith
Opening essay:
In 2019 I was on 90 airplanes and in 7 countries.
And my friends will tell you that at the time, I talked a lot about how tired I was, how much I missed home, how annoyed I was by giving the same talk so many times.
In 2020 I was in my apartment. And about 6 months into this pandemic, I tweeted “Sorry for how much I complained about my travel schedule back in 2019 but I was busy taking my entire life for granted”.
In the newly unhurried and uncluttered spaces of my life I have found myself wistfully longing for things I had no idea I was taking for granted at the time. I miss the buzz of humanity that wafts off a live audience as they find their seats – I miss speaking to large groups of actual human beings and not just squares on the screen of my MacBook.
I miss hugging my parents and who I am when I am with my friends and movie theater popcorn.
It reminds me of what it feels like to see pictures of my children from when they were small. How their baby pictures can elicit a longing in me for those lost moments of sweetness – but also elicit a tinge of remorse wondering if I was appreciative then of the thing I wish I had back now?
–Perhaps we are not yet in a place where we can talk about the gifts that have come from this grotesque pandemic, because how do we name a gift that comes to us out of molded ash and tears?
All I can do is love the unhurried and uncluttered space I have now, as I may wistfully long for it if I am again on airplanes every week of my life.
That’s all we’ve got. We can’t go back and fix who we were. We cannot import the wisdom we’ve earned in middle age back to who we were in young adulthood. We can only try and honor now what we wish we had appreciated then. We can only savor now what we will miss when it’s gone. We can only practice being the person today we regret not being in the past.
In The Confessional today, Claire Bidwell Smith tells her own story of how who she is now was molded out of ash and tears.
Join me and Claire for a short follow-up chat on my Instagram Live this Friday 2p PST/5p EST
(Just go to my Instagram page and when I go live, the circle on the upper left of your screen will change and say “live” - just click on that circle and you’re in!)
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First I want to thank you Nadia, my therapist suggested to me that I may like your work. I have been questioning my faith on top of all this grief; it actually triggered me to talk about it again. But yeah a few months ago I found your podcast and I have read your books and a lot of the things you say I see myself thinking that too. So thank you for helping me along in my journey with the Bible.
I just listened to this episode today and I a lot of Claire’s story mimicked mine. And let me say I think it is awesome that she took her grief and became a grief therapist, she’s a strong lady. I was my mom’s caregiver for years. And she had a bad colon as well but being on steroids for years damaged her liver and she was diagnosis with cirrhosis of the liver because of it. And as I’m listening to the episode when she got to the part about getting that call from her dad I was in tears. It’s crazy how your mind time stamps things. It was 9:30am I was in our kitchen and the phone rang and it was my dad and all he could get out was “Brandi she is gone.” I remember hanging up the phone and falling to the floor. But I remember that moment March 9, 2009 9:30 am. I wasn’t at the hospital when my mom passed but she didn’t want me to be there. Having been her care giver I watched her slowly die and we got to say goodbye long before she didn’t know what was going on. But I felt guilt afterwards any ways but I didn’t get to hang on to that guilt for long cause I had her family turn on me telling me it was my fault she died because I wasn’t there. And at first I just took it they were grieving too and I know grief makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do. But it didn’t stop there they kept pushing and pushing making things worse till one day I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had just lost my mom, my best friend and her family is telling me she never loved my dad, arguing about the little things, it got to where they would take my flowers off of her grave, it got bad so I lost it and told my grandmother to “Fuck Off” and I never talked to them again. I don’t have contact with all of my mom’s family anymore. And ironically I have been talking through this stuff with my therapist when I got to this episode yesterday and as soon as Claire said her my had colon cancer I turned the episode off I even closed my spotify app. I just couldn’t listen to what she was going to confess to. I guess I was scared to hear if it could be me talking. But I did listen to it this morning. And yeah after my mom died I did the reckless drinking too much and then go driving around, I lived in the country at that time so I basically the only one on the road but still a stupid thing to do. Then one night I ran off the road, I didn’t wreak but it scared me enough to stop the driving part but not the drinking. And I continued the drinking until one night I was at my best friend at the times house and we were getting drunk and her boyfriend at the time was a tattoo artist and I had been thinking of getting something for my mom I just didn’t know what and I told him the idea I had. And he told me if I trusted him he would draw something for me. I was drunk and told him sure go for it. And he did and then he said he had all his equipment there if I wanted it done that night. I was like sure what the hell, stupid in hindsight cause a tattoo is permanent and it takes me weeks if not months to plan all of my others one out but that night I just wanted to feel something other than grief and sadness. I can’t believe I picked pain but there we were. And this was my second tattoo but my first one was small. This one goes from my ankle to my knee on the outside of my leg. So 4 hours and a few glasses of whiskey later I got my memorial tattoo for my mom. It a rugged looking cross with a rose vine wrapped around it with each rose the color of the rainbow. It’s a combination of me and my mom she loved roses and I am gay and she fully accepted me. What is sort of funny about that night was I don’t even like whiskey but it was going down really smooth and I haven’t been able to sit that long straight for any other tattoo and I do have another big one. Wow I can’t believe I wrote all that out, sorry for that but thank you if you read all the way through to here.
Just listened. Wow...that blessing made me cry. Beautiful.