Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity: Real Women, Real Talk for Personal and Professional Development
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This week on Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity, I'm sharing my personal journey of navigating grief as a partner. I'll discuss supporting my husband through multiple losses while managing my own emotions. We'll explore the importance of open communication, sharing memories, and allowing ourselves to feel our grief. I'll offer practical tips that helped us grow closer during this difficult time. If you're coping with loss as a couple, this episode is for you. Let's find healing together.
TL;DR
Let’s talk about supporting a grieving partner, my experience with loss, and tips on communication and healing with your partner. If you're dealing with grief as a couple, this is for you.
Time Stamps
00:00 Introduction to Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity
Coming up next on Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity. The death of a loved one leaves a gigantic hole in our soul that can never be filled. It's not easy to be the grieving partner or spouse of the one who suffered the closest loss. You're navigating your grief and theirs. I was just orbiting around my husband's grief while trying to maintain control of my own. When you are the partner or spouse of someone, you're in a unique position. You share special moments that bond the two of you together. Your hopes and dreams are intertwined with each other. Your day's happiness may rise and fall on the love and support you and your partner provide each other when the outside world isn't kind. It's a special bond when you share your life with someone else. You take on weights that you never knew you would or could. Sometimes those weights are compounded because of your own emotions and feelings. That's especially true when we talk about grief. Hey girl, have you been looking for a safe space for women to have authentic conversations around everything that impacts our life, careers, and relationships? I'm Shai Boston, and on this show, I talk about all things connected to our personal and professional development so we can live our best and authentic lives. Grab a drink. Sit back and let's have a chat. It's time for some Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity. Trigger warning. This particular episode dives into the topic of grief and mental health. If you are not currently in a position to listen to this episode, I encourage you to listen to my next episode where we will talk about other topics that may be of interest to you. If you need immediate care, please see the show notes because, as always, there are links and numbers to any number of resources available to assist you when you are ready to reach out. Take care of yourself first. You can always come back to this episode later. Today I am again sipping on my Cafe Bustello. I wanted something comforting to drink as we talk about a particular topic that is challenging for many of us. So I'm going to take my sip. I want you to take your sip. Good. Now, let's get into it. November 4, 2016. December 24, 2018. December 29, 2021. Three dates that rocked my husband's family: the date his mother passed, his younger sister and her unborn child passed, and the date his father passed. Out of respect for my family, I won't go into details about each of their passings, but I will say that each one was harder for various reasons. Ma, that's what I call my mother-in-law, wasn't necessarily unexpected, but it happened sooner than we thought. My sister-in-law was completely unexpected. It was tragic and devastating. Dad, my father-in-law, we knew was going to happen, but we still just weren't ready. What made his passing even harder was that my husband had moved back to Florida to take care of him. He and I were separated for a whole year while he cared for his dad and his dad's affairs after his passing. It doesn't matter how each of them passed, what matters is the impact the loss had on our family. I've often described death as that loud, earth-shaking crack that happens only in our world. There's a shift in the balance of the earth. A glitch in the matrix, if you will. It's the movie scene where time is moving fast, but you're standing still. No matter what your beliefs are about what happens to those who pass away, the one reality for all of us is that the death of a loved one leaves a gigantic hole in our soul that can never be filled. These feelings are even more compounded when you are the spouse or partner of someone who's lost family or close friends, so dear to them. I didn't realize how compounded those feelings are until I received a text from my sisterfriend, Janyetta one day that said,"How are you friend? I know you had your own relationship with your father-in-law, too. How are you?" It was the first time someone asked me about me and my relationship with my father-in-law, or any of the other family members that were now sleeping in death. I felt seen and I felt validated in my emotions. He was important to me too. He was my other father. He made me laugh. He told tall tales. He gave me advice. He was the angel investor in my business so I could launch it. This man had been in my life for well over 20 years, just like my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law, and they were all gone. Our small family, got even smaller. I ached for each and every one of them, but I found it hard to show. When your spouse or partner is grieving, you end up taking on the role of being the strong one and that's why we end up putting ourselves on the back burner. There's nothing wrong with that. It's something that does need to be done momentarily. We may step back while our partner or spouse makes the final arrangements. We lend our advice and guidance in the background when it comes to finalizing the loved one's affairs. We may encourage our partner or spouse to spend time with their family, other friends, or the children of the ones we lost. We make sure that they eat and take care of themselves. We hold it down when they can't. There's a word of caution though. Holding down, shouldn't mean swallowing our own feelings, yet, usually, it does. From personal experience, I did that for about five years until it was one of the reasons that drove me into therapy. Because I was grieving too and I was not handling my grief very well. I don't always cry in front of my husband or my older sister-in-law and her family. They were shedding their own tears. I didn't always say the names or mentioned our loved ones without feeling like I was walking on eggshells, not because they would be angry, but because I wasn't always sure if it was going to evoke a happy feeling or a sad one. I didn't talk about my own grief, what I missed about each of our family members or my love for them, unless my husband or my sister mentioned something first. That was me swallowing my feelings, my grief, instead of sharing it. While I'm not a grief counselor or a therapist, here's some things that did eventually help me work through my grief while supporting my husband through his: I listened when he talked about his grief, even invited him to talk about it, then I would share mine. This way he knew he wasn't alone in his feelings, and he also knew that I was still grieving. When he would bring up happy memories, I would share some of my favorite memories. If something reminded me of Ma, Dad or our sister and made me laugh or smile, I would share it and laugh and smile. For example, my in-laws knew that I love the song Brick House by the Commodores. One of my favorite memories was getting into their car when they came to visit, and my mother-in-law insisted I turned the radio on. When I did, they had Brick House playing on the radio, and we all had a good laugh about that. When there were moments that I felt overwhelmed with my grief, I would take the time to cry privately and say a prayer, which works for me. Sometimes I'd share that with my husband. Either way, I was able to express my grief. To manage my grief I leaned into my faith. I'd talk with my friends, and I would also take the time to feel what I felt in the moment instead of ignoring it. Most importantly, it was the talking and sharing with each other, my husband and I, in quiet moments that helped us draw closer together in our grief. It was challenging for us because I couldn't be there with him when his father was sick and when he passed. I couldn't be there for the final goodbyes. I was literally on FaceTime with them during those moments. I had my own health challenges at the time, and we were still in the thick of the pandemic, so I didn't get to see and hug my husband in person to comfort him until he came home almost two months after his father passed for a brief weekend visit. That's when I could look him in the eyes and say, I'm sorry about your father." And give him the biggest and longest comforting hug I could manage at the time. It's not easy to be the grieving partner or spouse of the one who suffered the closest loss, even when it's a shared loss like a family member or a family friend, it's challenging. You're navigating your grief and theirs. It's not easy, but it can be done. It may take one or both of you going to therapy or grief counselors. It may take you putting forth the effort to share your feelings with each other. It's worth the effort and it can be done. When I look back on the last several years, I was just orbiting around my husband's grief while trying to maintain control of my own. Now we navigate it together and it's been easier to bear. We smile together when we hear"Caribbean Queen" which was dad's favorite song. When something exciting happens, we say,"Mom would say,"Ooh, I have goosebumps."" And when- and when we think about my sister-in-law, who had the biggest heart, we think about how she was the best mom to my nephew, she loved dancing to reggae music. So when I hear a song and start grooving I do a little extra groove just for her. Please, don't swallow down your feelings of grief. Embrace the memories of your loved ones and share them with your spouse or partner. Navigate this challenging time together. It may be just a short amount of time, or it could be months, even years. But doing so together brings you closer together, and I hope that during that time your bond does become much closer to each other. And, just know, that I am truly and sincerely sorry for your loss. I know your time is valuable and I appreciate you choosing to take the time to chat with me today. I hope our conversation helped you to see things more clearly. If you like this episode, don't forget to subscribe so you can always be alerted to my new episodes each week. Enjoy the rest of your day or night and let's get together again soon for some Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity.
