Everyone’s Best Friend




Steve Daley

 

“Mourning him would be rather silly. He died too soon, but so do we all. The universe is run idiotically, and its only certain product is sorrow. But there are yet men who, by their generally pleasant spirits, by their dignity and decency, by their extraordinary capacity for making and keeping friends, yet manage to cheat, in some measure, the common destiny of mankind, doomed like the beasts to perish." - H.L. Mencken

We all know people like Steve Daley, who shared this quote with his friend and colleague Mary Schmich. They have lots of friends, but when asked, each one will insist that he made them feel like they were his best friend. In some ways - sometimes literally - they are bigger than life.

So their deaths leave a noticeable hole in our lives.

People in the media - local, national, international - are exposed to death every day. Some of them are embedded with troops in war zones; others report from the scenes of drive-by shootings. They might file stories on funerals and accidents. They are required to stay out of the stories themselves, to just report the facts.

But people in the media are human, and sometimes a story hits a little too close to home. Such is the case with former Chicago Tribune sports and national political correspondent Steve Daley, who died suddenly at the age of 62. Daley was one of those people who you just assume will always be there, always be around, because they seem immortal. But they’re not.

Colleagues have weighed in on Daley (no relation to the former mayors) and his importance in their lives. Tribune columnist Eric Zorn provided samples of Daley’s articles and blog posts. Mary Schmich’s column considered their friendship. Even colleagues at the rival Chicago Sun-Times, such as Carol Marin, mourned their friend in print and online.

In the cut-throat world of media, it’s rare to hear of people who are almost universally respected and loved. Steve Daley appears to be one of them.

His friends echoed Steve’s own words from his blog post on the death of his friend, “Shoe” cartoonist Jeff MacNelly:

“They tell you that in this life you’re supposed to get over this stuff. But you never, ever do.”

To read more about Steve Daley, you can check out his blog, Failed Talkers, and the following tributes from his friends:

Mary Schmich   "Steve Daley was the Best of Friends"

Carol Marin   "A Masterful Failed Talker Passes On"

Eric Zorn   “Steve Daley: A Memorial Tribute in his own words”

Why Anger and Grief Go Together



EvilMilk.com



My posts on anger and grief - and my guest blog on Memoir Writer's Journey - have brought out some pretty emotional responses.

It’s hard to tell, sometimes, just what people reading my blog are thinking. Most posts don’t inspire a lot of comments, either on or off the site. But anger has been one of those topics that had really resonated with people.

I think the comment - off-line - that stuck with me was the woman who thanked me for giving her permission to be angry.

Imagine: a grown woman who needed a stranger’s permission to feel angry.

Why wouldn’t you feel angry if your friend is dead? Yes, of course you’re sad. You feel a hole in your heart and your life.

But it’s ridiculously hard for people - men and women both - to admit anger. Usually, you’ll find anger reserved for the person or situation you blame: the doctors, the drunk driver, the cancer.

Occasionally, you’ll be angry at the friend themselves.

Sometimes, you might even be mad at yourself, for not being able to prevent it.

All of those reasons are valid, if not necessarily accurate. Chances are, there was nothing you could do. Doctors aren’t infallible.

But that anger deserves to be acknowledged and accepted. It deserves to be felt, no matter how messy it is.

I’m a firm believer in anger. I think it’s easy to get stuck in grief if you’ve never been angry. I think it’s easy to get stuck in grief if you can’t get past being angry.

Anger is one of the stages of grief for a reason: it’s a stage. I’m skeptical of people who say they’ve never been angry about the death of a loved one. I think it’s more likely they haven’t gotten there yet.

This is a topic I hope to keep going with from time to time. Anything that provokes strong responses deserves to be discussed, and this is as good a place as any to do it.

Just try to give those around you a heads-up before you let loose.

“Finding Hope in the Midst of Grief”~Guest Post by Victoria Noe | Memoir Writer's Journey

Today I was a guest on the lovely Kathleen Pooler's blog, "Memoir Writer's Journey". I hope you'll check out my post and her wonderful blog.


“Finding Hope in the Midst of Grief”~Guest Post by Victoria Noe Memoir Writer's Journey

“50/50”

“You’ve been sucked into the cancer vortex.”

That my friend Delle’s reaction when I told her of my Dad’s diagnosis. She’d been battling cancer herself for almost two years, and knew what was ahead of us.

“50/50”  is Will Reiser’s autobiographical film about a 27 year old man whose world is rocked by the discovery of a rare form of cancer.

Anyone who’s been through cancer diagnosis and treatment will appreciate the truths in this film.

The characters are real and mostly sympathetic:

Adam himself, vaguely restless before getting sick, now determined to maintain that everything’s okay. He insists he’s fine, even if it means keeping others at arm’s length.

His mother, already caring for a husband with Alzheimer’s, is angry with the cancer and her son’s refusal of help.

His girlfriend, too self-absorbed to handle the “negative energy” of his new life.

His therapist, new and eager to help, who finally breaks down his walls.

But mostly, it’s his best friend, Kyle, played in all his vulgarity by Seth Rogen, Reiser’s real life friend. Uncouth, immature and naturally offensive to almost everyone, he proves himself to be the best friend a guy with cancer could want. Adam’s discovery in Kyle’s bathroom, near the end of the film, is enough to make anyone cry.

Every word, every scene - and some probably seem weird to those who haven’t “been there” - rings true.

Kyle and Adam go out the night before Adam’s last-chance surgery. What happens will stay with you for a long time. You knew it was there all along, simmering below the surface. But seeing it unfold is remarkably powerful.

Seeing “50/50” has made me re-examine how I treat friends who have cancer. Good intentions, after all, are not enough. Do I treat them with kid gloves? Do I go overboard trying to be natural? Do I talk about myself, to avoid listening to them? Do I dare to tell them I’m scared for them and I love them?

I hope this movie is seem by everyone, and encourages people to offer concrete help to their friends.

And I hope that it encourages people in the fight of their lives to be open to accepting the love and help of those around them.

Here’s a preview:

 

100 Thoughts about Friend Grief

Today is my 100^th blog post.

When I started this blog in February, I had one goal: to put a spotlight on the experience of grieving the death of a friend. It appears I’m succeeding.

I already knew there were people out there who wanted to tell their stories, or rather, tell the story of a friend who meant the world to them.

It’s funny, when you become aware of something, suddenly the whole world is attuned to it. Things you never noticed before are now obvious. So it has been with friend grief. It seems everyone has a story to tell about a friend who died much too soon.

Strangers have bared their souls to me, pouring out their frustration and grief. Celebrities have teared up talking about friends who have died. Others have re-directed their lives, because of the influence of that friend.

I don’t know why I got the idea to write my book, which started this whole insane blog/Facebook/Twitter/Google+ journey. It was certainly borne of my friendship with Delle Chatman. My promise to her, before she died, is what has kept me going the past two years as I finally put pen to paper (or more often, fingers to keyboard).

Now I find what fuels me are the responses I receive when I tell people about my book, or they read a post on this blog.

I’ve made a lot of people cry, which was not deliberate.

I’ve given them permission to be angry, which a lot of people seemed to need.

And I like to think I’ve given them a place to come where they know someone understands. That’s what I’ll keep doing, as I start on my second 100 posts and finish my first book (first, because there will be a second and probably a third).

I thank all of you who’ve taken this journey so far, and hope you’ll continue to accompany me, as we celebrate the lives of friends who made a difference in our lives.

Words to Live By from Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the Apple visionary who changed the world, lost his battle to pancreatic cancer on Wednesday.

Although Jobs was known as not always the nicest person to work with, his impact on our lives cannot be overstated.

By now, you may have seen the video of his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University. He’d been diagnosed the year before, and had successful surgery. He was in remission. But a near-death experience had an effect, even on this impossibly driven CEO.

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

When our friends die, it’s a kick in the gut, especially when they’re our age. Our mortality is front and center, and we can’t ignore it. It’s not surprising, then, that many people take a good hard look at their lives: their work, their passions, their relationships. And it’s also not surprising that the death of a friend can be a catalyst for some pretty major life changes.

And though Steve Jobs may not have been a friend of yours, his words resonate. So, while you’re thanking him for your iPod or iPhone or any of the other countless ways he’s changed our lives, it’s worthwhile to consider these words from him:

“Life is brief and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”

Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

A Lot of Angry Friends Out There

My posts last week about feeling angry when a friend dies resonated with a lot of people.

I had conversations with family, friends, and online “friends” all week. My posts dredged up feelings for many that had been long repressed.

Some people took the opportunity to fondly remember a friend. Others reacted as if a scab had been scratched, and indeed it had.

Those were the people who had been denied the chance to feel that anger when their friend died, and now, years later, it bubbled up again.

You can only hold your breath so long, and eventually you have to breathe again. So it is with repressing emotions. Eventually they decide they’ve been constrained long enough.

Those who are overwhelmed by the sudden, intense feelings of anger share another feeling: powerlessness. They are unable to reconcile what happened to their friend, to what they believe is the natural order of the universe. I know that sounds a little goofy, but how else to explain comments such as:

“They shouldn’t have died.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“They weren’t even supposed to be there.”

They want to believe things are supposed to happen a certain way; in fact, they’re desperate to believe it.

If there is an order to the universe, then their friend shouldn’t have died.

They can only accept that their friend died if there’s a reasonable, logical explanation. If they had to die, there has to be a reason. And it has to be an extraordinarily good reason.

But as we all know, often there is no explanation, reasonable or otherwise.

That’s where anger pops up.

I don’t know if God is flippant enough to insist, “Because I said so,” when asked why someone had to die. And I don’t know if there’s a more irritating phrase than “it was just their time.”

In my lifetime I’ve had friends who died from enemy gunfire and cancer, car accidents and suicide, AIDS and terrorist attacks. Not one of those deaths made sense to me. Not one of them deserved to suffer - sometimes for years, sometimes for seconds. Not one of those deaths could be justified in my mind as being necessary.

But all forced me to admit that I could not change what had happened, and for a control freak, that’s a tough lesson.

We’re all control freaks when it comes to death. There are two things, ultimately, that we have no control over: the circumstances of our birth and the circumstances of our death. And since we tend to be adults when the second one happens, we believe we should have a say: not only on our own deaths, but those of the people we love.

If possible, all of us would do whatever was in our power to spare our friend’s suffering and death. Love does that: it makes you want to protect the ones you love.

But instead of throwing a much-deserved tantrum because we have no power, we have to sit back and say, “I hate that this happened to my friend. I hate it with every breath I take. But I can’t change it, and that kills me, a little, too.”

That’s when we have to decide how we want to remember that friend: by how they died, or how they lived? What part of them will we hold in our hearts for the rest of our lives? What part of them will inspire us and motivate us?

Have your rant. Scream, yell, cry; try not to hurt you or anyone nearby. Have it out, once and for all.

Then decide how your friend will guide you. That’s something you do have power over.