Celebrating Day of the Dead

Today I celebrate Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.  It’s not a holiday I grew up with but one I’ve borrowed from the Southwest and Mexico. And it’s become one of my favorite holidays –in part because it’s a good spiritual counterpart to Halloween. Except for the candy, October 31^st doesn’t leave much for grownups. Being scared of goblins and ghoulies lost its sway when I got old enough to lose people that I loved. The dead just aren’t scary in the same way anymore. In fact, I’d welcome a visit from some of them. 

That’s what Day of the Dead is about. There is a belief that on this day the veil separating this world and the next is thinner and so it’s a time we can be closer to those that we love

who are dead.

Day of the Dead celebration centers on rituals for remembering loved ones.

We can visit in our imagination or feel their presence. It can mean prayer or conversation, writing a letter or looking at old photos. The tradition that I use includes making an ofrenda, or altar, something as simple as putting photos and candles on the coffee table and taking time to talk and remember. We also have chocolate as a symbol of the sweet and bitter separation from those we love. 

A ritual is a way of ordering life. Whether Purim or Advent, hearing Mass or saying Kaddish, small ceremonies help us sort and reframe our memories. When someone dies the relationship doesn’t stop, it’s renegotiated, literally re-conceived. 

This isn’t a very American idea. Culturally our preferences are for efficiency and effectiveness; even with grief we use words like closure and process. 

I remember my frustration when I was grieving the loss of my brothers and sisters and well-intentioned friends would suggest I move along in my process and quoted Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. The simplified version of her theory lists stages: Denial--Bargaining--Anger--Depression, and Acceptance.  But it’s false to create an expectation of five discrete steps. This listing implies order and that a person can move from point A to point B and be done. 

That makes grief seem like an emotional Monopoly game where you go around the board, collect points and get to a distinct and certain end.  This false notion of linearity is apparent when we hear people judge someone who is grieving, “Oh she missed the anger stage”, or “He hasn’t reached acceptance yet.” 

I always thought that “losing a loved one” was a euphemism used by people who were afraid to say the word dead.. But after losing my brother Larry I know that lost is the perfect word to describe the feeling that follows a death. Something just out of reach, still here, but also gone. 

Though he died several years ago my feeling about my brother is that I have misplaced him; It’s that sensation of knowing that my book or that letter I was just reading, are around here somewhere…if I could just remember where I left him.  

I think this is why we can sometimes be so hard on the grieving, and why we want them to go through those stages and be done with it. We love closure and things that are sealed and settled. But death and grief, for all their seeming finality, are not as final as we would like. 

So tonight I’ll make cocoa and light candles; we’ll look at pictures and tell stories. We’ll take John’s father’s picture into the living room and we’ll open up the family albums. And we’ll laugh. 

The root of the word grieve is heavy. We carry our dead as a cherished burden. Death may end a life but not a relationship. Who would want to close the door on that?

Learning from Sheryl Sandberg's Option B

Last week I was in Chicago attending the SHRM—Society of Human Resources Managers—conference. I’m not an HR manager but at the last minute someone could not go so I said yes. And what a treat. 

Chicago, of course, is a great city, and the weather was great, and I walked a lot and ate a lot.

But the best part of the conference was the opportunity to see Sheryl Sandberg—COO of Facebook-- in person. She was the keynote speaker, and she was also interviewed by Adam Grant, who was the co-author on her powerful book, “Option B”.

You may know of Sheryl for her first book, “Lean In” –about women and leadership. That book has been celebrated, criticized and parodied. I had mixed feelings about that message: “What’s holding you back is that you are not speaking up, working 80 hours and leaning in.” Just a teeny bit of privilege there.

But when I read “Option B”—written after Sheryl’s husband died unexpectedly—I was cheering for her and the message: “When option A is no longer available, you have to kick the sh*t out of option B”.

If you have not read—or even better, listened to—“Option B” go get it. If you have cancer you are living option B, and if you are a caregiver, you are living option B. You will laugh and cry along with Sheryl, and you will race for a pencil to write down great ideas from co-author, psychologist Adam Grant.

In Chicago Sheryl talked about what she learned, and because this was a conference for HR people she gave great advice for organizations and people at work. She is the COO of Facebook and she was stunned to learn that her company offered only five days of bereavement leave for the death of a spouse. Changing that for American businesses has become her crusade. She asked every HR director to go home and change their policy to 20 days—that’s four weeks.

She also spoke to the audience as people who are coworkers of someone living option B.

 She said, “Don’t avoid talking to your coworker about the death in their family or the cancer they are dealing with. Bring up chemo and caregiving with a coworker. You are not reminding them. They already know they are hurting.”

You, here in CancerLand, know that look at work. Someone trying to not notice that you have cancer, not asking about your sick child, or your Mom in hospice. 

HR Departments should have copies of Sandberg’s “Option B” or maybe some of us should keep a couple of used copies on hand. Everyone—every single one of us—will be called on to kick the sh*t out of option B someday. So let’s start learning.

November 1st-Day of the Dead

On November 1st I celebrate Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.  It’s not a holiday I grew up with but one I’ve borrowed from the Southwest and Mexico. It’s become one of my favorite holidays partly because it’s a good spiritual counterpart to Halloween.

Except for the candy, October 31^st doesn’t leave much for grownups. Being scared of goblins and ghoulies lost its sway when I got old enough to lose people that I loved. The dead just aren’t scary in the same way anymore. In fact, I’d welcome a visit from some of them.

That’s what Day of the Dead is about. There is a belief that on this day the veil separating this world and the next is thinner and so it’s a time we can be closer to those that we love who are dead.

Day of the Dead celebration centers on rituals for remembering loved ones. We can visit in our imagination or feel their presence. It can mean prayer or conversation, writing a letter or looking at old photos. The tradition that I use includes making an ofrenda, or altar, something as simple as putting photos and candles on the coffee table and taking time to talk and remember. We also have chocolate as a symbol of the sweet and bitter separation from those we love.

A ritual is a way of ordering life. Whether Purim or Advent, hearing Mass or saying Kaddish, small ceremonies help us sort and reframe our memories. When someone dies the relationship doesn’t stop, it’s renegotiated, literally re-conceived.

This isn’t a very American idea. Culturally our preferences are for efficiency and effectiveness; even with grief we use words like closure and process.

I remember my frustration when I was grieving and well-intentioned friends would suggest I move along in my process and quoted Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. The simplified version of her theory lists stages: Denial--Bargaining--Anger--Depression, and Acceptance.  But it’s false to create an expectation of five discrete steps. This listing implies order and that a person can move from point A to point B and be done. That makes grief seem like an emotional Monopoly game where you go around the board, collect points and get to a distinct and certain end.  This false notion of linearity is apparent when we hear people judge someone who is grieving, “Oh she missed the anger stage”, or “He hasn’t reached acceptance yet.”

I always thought that “losing a loved one” was a euphemism used by people who were afraid to say the word dead.. But after losing my brother Larry I know that lost is the perfect word to describe the feeling that follows a death. Something just out of reach, still here, but also gone.

Though he died several years ago my feeling about my brother is that I have misplaced him; It’s that sensation of knowing that my book or that letter I was just reading, are around here somewhere…if I could just remember where I left him. 

I think this is why we can sometimes be so hard on the grieving, and why we want them to go through those stages and be done with it. We love closure and things that are sealed and settled. But death and grief, for all their seeming finality, are not as final as we would like.

So tonight I’ll make cocoa and light candles; we’ll look at pictures and tell stories and we’ll laugh.

The root of the word grieve is heavy. We carry our dead as a cherished burden. Death ends a life but not a relationship. Who would want to close the door on that?