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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart. If you've experienced grief, and you have, since you're human, you've likely heard of the five stages of it, a process that is a neat ladder you climb, moving in an orderly fashion, from denial to acceptance. Even though we know that's overly simplistic, the overarching narrative of grief is, in the words of my next guest, a problematic and narrow story based on a harmful set of beliefs, and it causes people who are already suffering to suffer more unnecessarily.

Lisa Keefauver is a clinical social worker. After her husband died 12 years ago, she grew frustrated with the prevailing advice that grief is something you move on from. It led her to host a podcast on grief, as well as write a book that just came out. It's titled Grief is a Sneaky Bitch: An Uncensored Guide to Navigating Loss. It makes the point that, while you can't avoid grief, if you really understand it, if you really understand grief in all its flavors and shades, maybe the experience will just suck a little less. Lisa, welcome to All Of It.

Lisa Keefauver: Oh, I am so honored to be on the show. Thanks for having me today.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. It's our honor as well. I want to dive into the book. I also want to dive into your experience. As I said, you lost your husband, Eric, when he was just 44, two weeks after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. At that point, you were already a social worker, somebody trained in grief. I'm wondering what surprised you about grief, going through that experience.

Lisa Keefauver: The interesting thing is, I was a clinical social worker, a clinical director of a big nonprofit, and yet, I wasn't trained in grief. That was one of the biggest surprising things, that even in the helping profession, social work school, psychology school, grief is not a required subject or course, which, of course, in retrospect, was completely bananas to me, because what I discovered when I was required to go back to work, two weeks after my husband died, that even among my clinical peers, we really had a misguided and, frankly, problematic story of grief.

I recognized the ways in which people didn't know how to show up for myself or my 7-year-old daughter, and the ways in which, frankly, I and my fellow clinicians hadn't been showing up, really, in the ways we needed to, for the grievers in our lives as well.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, if you have questions about grief or grieving, give us a call or text us. We're here. We're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. If you're going through it, check in with us and let us know how it's going. You can call us, text us. We're at 212-433-9692. What's been helping you through this process? What's been hurting you? Give us a call. 212-433-9692.

Lisa, I love the title of your book. I love saying it. I love reading it. I love that it exists. Tell us about the title of the book and your podcast, Sneaky. What's sneaky about grief?

Lisa Keefauver: Well, I think that is the operative word. Of course, there's that word that gets everybody's attention, but sneaky is the most important part. I always say that grief is both sneaky, necessarily and unnecessarily. Here's what I mean by that. Grief is sneaky just by its nature, because it's non-linear. It's messy, much like life, by the way. Though we have the illusion that it is neat, and that's what makes it sneaky, because we can have triggers.

Things can pop up over time, when we experience new losses, things that we thought we had laid to rest pop up. That's the normal way in which grief is sneaky. Part of my mission as a grief activist, and the work I do on the podcast and this book, is to make the unnecessarily sneaky part less sneaky, and that's sneaky because we live in a culture that prizes productivity over a process, and destinations over a journey, and that we can just follow a five-step or Top 10 to-do list and, voilà, we're better.

That's what makes it sneaky, because that story that we see does not match the reality, that-- All of your listeners who are listening, who've experienced grief, no, it's not that clear. It's not that straightforward, and that's what makes it unnecessarily sneaky. I'm trying to be visible in the realities of grief so that people, as my TED Talk-- so that grief sucks less. It's going to be hard, but it doesn't have to be as hard as it is because of the myths and the stories that we consume.

Kousha Navidar: Can you talk more about that word that you used a little in a funny, irreverent way, better? What do we think better should look like? Does it exist? What does it actually look like?

Lisa Keefauver: Better does exist. The not-neat answer is that it looks different for everyone. The reason I frame it that way is that over time, what we hoped, what we look for in grievers, for ourselves and the people that we love, is to have more good moments than bad, find moments, even if they're micro-moments of micro joys, as my friend Cindy Spiegel calls them, to find more ease.

To maybe be able to-- if it's a death loss we're grieving, which, by the way, we grieve things beyond death loss as well, that we can maybe remember the good times with that person, because so often, early in grief, all we can remember is the ending, or the death. That whole notion of being better, it's not George Clooney comes and sweeps you off your feet, which-- that was the myth I had as a widow, which, by the way, George Clooney, you are welcome to come sweep me off my feet.

Although I don't think his wife would appreciate that. The better is just the moments of ease, the grace, the remembering, just ways in which we can soften and eventually move towards a place where we're finding meaning in our life, but it's not the all-or-nothing, Hollywood, "I fell in love, and now everything is great." I think that's the important standard we have to hold ourselves to.

Kousha Navidar: You used the term death loss there, that I want to go into as well. You're saying that there are a number of ways that we experience grief. Death loss is one of them. What else is there?

Lisa Keefauver: Oh, probably, most of your listeners have experienced anticipatory grief, the terminal diagnosis of someone they love. Our grieving happens before someone dies. Even not related to death loss, when we have a family member who's experiencing dementia, Alzheimer's, or addiction, we have something called ambiguous loss, where they are physically present, but psychologically distant.

I experienced that because the year before my husband died, he became a completely different person. We went from doctor to doctor trying to get answers and turned out, as you alluded to earlier, we didn't know it was a grapefruit-sized brain tumor until two weeks before he died in my arms. We can also grieve the losses of things that were meant to happen, but never came to pass, so infertility, the lack of a nurturing relationship with a parent, a sense of safety in the world as a result of trauma.

There's lots of ways in which we can grieve. Now, as we think about expanding the ways in which grief impacts all of our lives, my hope is that we all start to see the ways in which we need to be attending to grief in ourselves and others in a more holistic way. What's happened, because we don't name that, is we pathologize people and we make what's their "presenting behavior" as problematic, which maybe it's not. Maybe it's grief, which is a normal response to loss.

Kousha Navidar: Non-linear.

Lisa Keefauver: Non-linear and messy, and impacts not just your emotions. The myth, of course, is just-- grief is sad, and then you stop being sad someday, and everything is voilà. Grief impacts all of our emotions, anger, rage, loneliness, homesickness, but it also impacts us cognitively, physically, relationally, spiritually. Knowing that we are going to have to attend to all of these domains in our lives is so important so that we don't misdiagnose or dismiss the presenting issues that are happening for all of us as we grieve.

Kousha Navidar: It sounds like there's this literacy that you're talking about, where that is the gap, that is the thing that folks need to be more aware of, this 360 view of what grief is. It's not a ladder. It's a chessboard.

Lisa Keefauver: Absolutely. I call myself a grief activist, and really, my mission is to create a more grief-literate culture. That's really what I'm on a mission to do, so yes.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, if you have questions about grief or you want to tell us how grief has impacted your life, how it is impacting your life right now, we're here with Lisa Keefauver. The title of the book is Grief is a Sneaky Bitch: An Uncensored Guide to Navigating Loss. Give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692. Got a couple callers I'd like to bring down. Robert from Newark. Hey, Robert. Welcome to the show.

Robert: Hi. Well, I was telling your screener, I'm 67 years old, and five and a half years ago, my best friend died, a guy that I knew for 25 years. I thought I'd experienced grief before, but this was a grief that was so deep that it just took me completely by surprise. I was with him when he died. He died in my apartment. I ended up being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder over this. I was actually hallucinating. It was just pure hell.

Kousha Navidar: Robert, I'm so sorry to hear that. Is there something that's working for you right now? How are you experiencing right now?

Robert: Well, the best I can say is that I've just learned to live with it. I do try to remember the good times.

Kousha Navidar: Robert, thank you so much for calling and for sharing that very difficult memory, and we're sending you our condolences. Lisa, listening to that, I wonder, is that the right path forward for Robert, to just learn to live with it? Is there a version of that that works?

Lisa Keefauver: Well, first, Robert, I just want to say that I am holding you and your friend in my heart, and I think friendship loss so often goes unrecognized, right? It's usually the partner or the parent, so I just want to name and acknowledge that. When we experience grief that has a traumatic component, which not all grief does, I think it's extraordinarily important to find a helping professional, which I know quite a few of, here in the New York City area, who are trained in trauma and grief.

While not every griever needs a therapist to move forward in their grief, when you have trauma and you have a diagnosis like Robert has, of PTSD, having a professional come alongside you and use the modalities, EMDR, or whatever the treatment protocols are, can be really important to find more ease. Sounds like he's doing some good work and he's working on bringing the memories forward of his friend, which is really important, right?

That's a tactic that we can all use. I would name for anybody listening, Robert or anybody else, if there is trauma related to the loss, this is not something to go with alone. Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Robert, thank you so much, again, for that call. Let's go to Christine, in New York. Hi Christine. Welcome to the show.

Christine: Hi, how are you guys?

Kousha Navidar: Good, thanks. What's on your mind?

Christine: I was wondering, because I heard that, Lisa, your husband left behind a 7-year-old daughter, and I guess-- How do you approach talking to toddlers and kids about grief, or if a parent is no longer in the picture, or a grandparent?

Lisa Keefauver: Yes, that's a great question, Christine. Thanks so much. First, I want to give a shout out to the Dougy Center in Portland, which is a Center for children in grief, and they have amazing resources free online, so if you have any questions, listeners--

Kousha Navidar: Can you spell that?

Lisa Keefauver: The Dougy Center, D-O-U-G-Y center.com, the Dougy Center. Really, in its essence, and this is what I experienced with my daughter, but also having had so many clinicians who work with children on my podcast over the years, is that we need to be, of course, age-appropriate, but as direct as possible. Using euphemisms, like, "They went to sleep," or, "They're no longer here," is not actually helpful. It's confusing to the child.

We want to be direct. We might say things like, "Daddy's heart stopped beating and he can't be here with us on Earth, but he's always in our heart." Something like that. Don't be surprised when the children, because they do have magical thinking, two days later, or five days later, ask, which happened to me, "When's dad coming home?" Then you're going to have to do it over and over again.

I used resources in my home community, where I was living at the time, where she was in a group with other kids. I think that can be a really useful-- Don't have to do it alone, as the surviving parent. I don't recommend that. Get that kid in a group with the facilitator and other kids. Make sure you are getting support for yourself. This is where I say, put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others, is a really important way to think about loss, especially if it's impacting a child in your life.

That's what I would offer. Be thoughtful and direct. You don't have to be overly graphic, but don't make the mistake of euphemisms, or avoiding the subject, because kids know.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Christine, thank you so much for bringing up that important aspect. I want to get one more caller before we have to go to break. Patricia, from Fort Washington. Hey, Patricia, welcome to the show.

Patricia: Oh, I'm a little anxious and nervous right now, but I'm so thankful to have this segment on, because I am fresh on the grief trail, and I'm having a difficult time, but I'm hopeful that I will find a group. I have tried, I went to one, it just was not the right fit for me. I'm looking around and I'm not seeing quite that many that are in activity now. It seems like there are many more during the winter than there are here in the summer.

Lisa Keefauver: Yes. Well, first of all, Patricia, I'm holding you in my heart for your loss, that you're experiencing. I'm not a New Yorker, so I can't speak to that, but what I do know is that, of course, for many of us, being in person, in community, can be so important in our grief, to be in safe spaces where people just get it. They get what you're going through. If you can't find something in your local community, because it is summer, and I know that can happen, there are a lot of great online resources that do weekly meetings over the course of a month, and specific to your--

I don't know what your particular loss is, but I'm thinking of Hope Edelman, who does Motherless Daughters, there's lots of different online groups that can be a supplement to that in-person community, and just to reflect your experience that other people have had too-- Not every therapist, and not every support group is going to be the right match right away, and that's okay. It's okay to recognize what's a good fit or not.

Take a step back and then go try another one. Don't give up. Keep trying. There's a right group or a right therapist for everyone. I think we don't talk enough about how, sometimes, there just isn't a right fit in the beginning, and so, to give yourself permission to step back out, then go and try and find a new one.

Kousha Navidar: Patricia had mentioned that she is a widow, a recent widow.

Lisa Keefauver: Okay. A widow, yes. There's some widow groups. I am actually-- It's not up on my website at LisaKeefauver.com yet, but I will be doing a six-week group later in the summer. I'm currently on a book tour, so I decided not to start it right now. You can look for that in the future, sign up for my newsletter. There's lots of folks out there doing online groups so that you don't have to be living in the same state as the provider or the facilitator, and that can be a really useful resource.

Kousha Navidar: Patricia, thank you so much for that call. We're here with Lisa Keefauver, and we are talking about grief. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll take some more of your calls and dive a little bit deeper. Stay with us.

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This is All Of It, on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar and we're here with Lisa Keefauver, who wrote Grief is a Sneaky Bitch: An Uncensored Guide to Navigating Loss. Listeners, we're talking about grief and how you're experiencing it, and ways that we can experience it more holistically, and maybe better. Make it suck less, in the words of Lisa. Give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Lisa, I think this idea of it being non-linear is so important.

I think that's something a lot of folks don't realize. In two weeks, it'll be the two-year anniversary of my father passing away, and I know that, for me-- I had to be the estate administrator, right after. That time of grief was filled with, instead, lawyers, and in all of that-- I'm sure a lot of people listening can relate. I'm wondering, right now, for somebody like me, who wants to re-enter grief, but it seems like there's a door that's closed, or something. How do you re-enter it? How do you try to try to let it come to you?

Lisa Keefauver: That's a really good question, and I just want to name, as you said, so many of us get caught up in the logistics of loss, and also, our nervous system goes into shock, which is a good thing. I think shock gets a bad rep, but that's good. Our body can't handle it all right away. Especially when we're approaching the anniversary of losses as you are, especially year two.

I think everybody thinks year one is the hardest, but sometimes, year two and three is a little bit harder, because everybody else has "moved on and forgotten about your loss." How do we enter into it? A couple of ways. I think just doing even what you just said right now, which is by naming it, by acknowledging, saying to ourself or someone we love in our lives, "Hey, I'm recognizing we're coming up on the X anniversary, and I want to make some space for my grief."

Then just having some quiet space to feel into your body, what is coming up for you. It can be a time of creating ritual or memorials. You don't have to just save it for that first funeral memorial, or shiva, or whatever you do. Whatever your process is, is to find a way to engage with your person through writing, through talking, through ritual, and that is a door that can open you back into whatever it is that you're still holding, that you need to metabolize.

I think about grief as something that we metabolize. In the beginning, grief is our whole story, and eventually, as we move forward, it becomes a part of our story. That's because we live new lives, have new experiences, but we never have to let our person totally go. They're always a chapter, or many chapters, in our lives. Maybe finding some ritual for yourself as you approach this anniversary could be a beautiful way to re-enter.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. I think ritual is such an interesting aspect that we often overlook, or don't have time. You really got to make time for it. Let's go to some callers. Let's go to Karen in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Hey, Karen, welcome to the show.

Karen: Hi. Thank you very much. I am dating a widower, and I have two questions. One is, what can I do? How can I be a good support person? Two, what are some resources for me? Sometimes I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, and I wish I could be a better support person. I'm hoping there's some resources for helpers.

Lisa Keefauver: Yes, absolutely. Thank you, and I love that you're asking this question, and the fact that you are already asking this question, about how can I be a good or a great supporter to my partner, means you're already on the right track. You're already doing it, because you're curious, and you're asking. I think that's a great question to ask him, and just to bring up their name, to make his grief a safe space with you.

Meaning, giving permission, being explicit about talking about his late partner, approaching the anniversary, offering grace and compassion, asking if there's ways in which he might want you in on any kind of ritual or remembrance ceremony. Those are some ways to do it, I think. We often, as grief supporters, all of us fear bringing up their name, asking the questions, or talking about it, but that actually sends the message that we're not a safe person for the griever, so the more you can name it and talk about it is a great first step.

I'm not just saying this because it's my book, but I really did try to write this book-- First of all, I have an entire section just dedicated to the grief supporters in grievers' lives, but I think learning more about what grief is and isn't, the expansiveness of grief in general, will allow everyone to be a better grief supporter, because I go through the book, about what to say, what not to say, what are the hazards and pitfalls that grievers face.

By learning that, you might start to see some of those signs in your partner, and that might help you show up a little better. I hope that helped.

Kousha Navidar: I'm sure that there was a lot there that-- Karen, thank you so much for calling. I hope that you could take from that. Let's go to Cecily, in Brooklyn. Hi, Cecily, welcome to the show.

Cecily: Hello. Thank you so much, Kousha, and hello, Lisa. Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to say first, I'm so sorry for your loss, and for yours, Kousha. It's never easy for anyone. I'm calling today because-- I am one of six. I'm actually from New Orleans. Our parents died a day apart, in 2002. My mother was only 50, and my dad was 75. It was a very, very, very difficult and unusual time, and I was already living in New York at the time, so-- I'm calling basically to ask, because I'm one of six.

Two of our siblings have never gotten any therapy for this. Even though we have tried and tried to persuade them, or tell them, "You'll feel so much better," they lied-- Well, I wouldn't say lied. It's denial. They're in denial and they say they're fine, but we know they're not fine. It took me such a long time to even realize I had PTSD, because at the time, in 2002, it was just-- You take a few months off of work and you're expected to go back to work. It was such a different time, I think. We didn't have that space and that time to grieve.

Kousha Navidar: Cecily, thank you so much for that call. We got to pause you there, just for time. Lisa, while you're listening to this, what comes up for you?

Lisa Keefauver: First of all, what a loving sibling you are to be caring about your other siblings in this, and just holding you and both of your parents in my heart. I think the thing to remember-- a couple of things, is-- Not everybody needs clinical therapy when they're going through grief, but if they're displaying symptomatology that feels like trauma or they feel stuck, I do think therapy is absolutely helpful, and/or a support group.

I am sure you already know this, we cannot convince other people what to do. All we can do is model by going to our own therapy, sharing the stories of how it's helped us. Maybe picking up a copy of this book and sending it to them, inviting them to listen to my podcast, or other grief podcast. Maybe baby-stepping their way into that vulnerable space of therapy, because for some people, that feels like too big a leap from where they are.

That's why I actually started my podcast, where I interview guests, because people could listen and learn from the safety and privacy of their own headphones, wherever they were. Maybe start there. Start with a book, start with a podcast recommendation, and then remember that all you can do is model your own behavior and hope that they will pick up on it.

Kousha Navidar: Cicely, we so appreciate you calling in, and for your thoughts, and we're holding you. I am getting a lot of text messages right now, Lisa, around the topic of losing pets. A lot of those texts, I'm just going to sum them up, feel like they need to explain themselves, of saying, "I know it's not a human that I've lost, but I still feel." Can you talk for a little bit about that? About pets, about loss in general, how we put judgment on that, and advice for folks who are losing their pets?

Lisa Keefauver: Pet loss is real loss. All loss is real loss, and all grief over loss is valid. Period. End of sentence. You do not have to defend it, anybody. I lost my rescue dog four years ago now, and he's still with me in my heart. I think about Brutus all the time. This is very common for pet loss, or other kinds of losses, where we rank order, or compete. We either do that to the detriment of other people, or we do it to ourselves.

That's one of the things I call being a grief thief in the book, as we rank order or compare. The thing is, we want to think about grief as the limitless ocean that it is. There's enough grief to go around everyone. We don't need to steal it from ourselves, or others. To all of you grieving a pet loss, I would invite you to practice softening that language of excuse, and really starting to honor it.

I know you might get pushback from other people, so, obviously, you're not going to have just lost a dog and talk to somebody who just lost a child, and say, "I know what you mean." Obviously, that's not appropriate, but to find those safe places with other friends or peers where you can talk about your loss is so important. We don't have to rank order or steal grief away from one another.

Kousha Navidar: That point about communication, I think, is key. We're running up against the clock. There was a caller I would've loved to have taken. Leah, in Manhattan. We're not going to be able to take you, but I want to just sum up your question, that I see in my computer screen here, because I think it's super important. Leah is asking about ways that people can communicate their grief. I think this goes both ways.

Before we close out, do you have any tips about how people who are grieving can communicate to others what they need, and how people who are seeing loved ones grief can communicate their love?

Lisa Keefauver: I'm going to start with the second part of the question, because I really think it's more the responsibility of the grief supporter to show up for the griever than vice versa. My motto is, show up, shut up, and listen, and keep showing up. Remember that as a grief supporter, your job is not to fix the griever, because grief is not a sign that they're broken. Really, what the griever needs is for you to show up, acknowledge, affirm, and hold space.

Often, that actually doesn't even require a lot of words. Definitely, you want to let go of the language of fixing. Never start a sentence with "at least," please, I beg of you, ever. Just showing up with that affirmation, that acknowledgement, holding space. That's how we do it. For us, grievers, part of what we have to do over time is look inward to our own needs, so that when somebody does show up and say, "I want to help," we've tuned inwards to have a little bit of a clue of what might feel helpful, which will change over time.

In the beginning, that might be company, or errands. Later on, it might be talking about our person. We have to do the work, as grievers, to know internally what we need on the day-to-day basis, but you grief supporters, just show up, and keep showing up.

Kousha Navidar: Lisa Keefauver is the author of the new book, Grief is a Sneaky Bitch: An Uncensored Guide to Navigating Loss. She's also the host of the Grief is a Sneaky Bitch podcast, which recently wrapped its 6th season. Lisa will be in conversation at P&T Knitwear, which is at 180 Orchard Street, tomorrow, which is Friday, at 7:00 PM. Heads up, RSVPs are required. Thank you, listening, so much, for your messages, for your thoughts, and for sharing with us, and Lisa, thank you so much.

Lisa Keefauver: Oh, this was such a privilege and an honor. Thank you, and thank you to all the callers for your beautiful questions.

Kousha Navidar: We've been talking about the lived experience of people going through grief. Up next, we discuss a film that captures how one man processes his own grief through the power of theater. Stay with us.

 

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