Grief inequality

Are women "allowed" to feel grief more intensely by our society, where boys were traditionally taught crying was weakness?

Are we penalized for grieving by our professional codes of conduct (does your organization have rules of engagement - are consoling hugs allowed?) or leave policies?

If a woman has traditionally taken on care-giver mode, or suffers a miscarriage, is there a way we should be looking to equal out time that organizations provide for bereavement leave?

And the flip side of that coin, if a male then takes on the lion's share of a caregiving role, or in today's world of increasing gender fluidity, how can we look to lead our organizations to being more people-focused in bereavement policies?

And in what office was a decision made that a parent's death would be felt more significantly (allowing more paid time off by many policies) than a dear friend?


I don't have any answers... just some questions I am mulling over at the moment.

Building pyramids

In the article I posted a link to yesterday, there is a quote from a senior bereavement counsellor in the US (Kenneth J Doka):

"We have always used technology to deal with dying and death. The Ancient Egyptians used pyramids; what we are doing now is adapting our rituals to the technology that is available."

This quote REALLY struck me... like "a-ha moment" struck me.

When I was growing up, my grandparents used to read the obituary sections of the newspaper. I thought it was morbid. The other day, I came across someone sharing their grief in a very personal (yet pubic) post on twitter.

Linking back to the pyramids, if a part of our grief is also the sharing of it, I suppose we are indeed adapting.

But sadly, adaptation and acceptance takes time. That person I mentioned above was then grief-shamed by someone reading her tweet... the responder thought that she was being inauthentic by posting about her grief. He actually accused her of making light of a situation in order to get online 'likes'.

I get that it is different... but I guess what I am saying is, who are we to say what is morbid or what should be left in private? I mean building a pyramid isn't exactly discreet or private... maybe the builders were once accused of attention-seeking as well.

Deathbed requests

A few posts ago I highlighted some work being done at McMaster University called Three Wishes. The team doing the research is doing some lovely work, and I really admire it, and the learnings that are coming out of it.

Today, I read an article about how people are taking it upon themselves to help grant their loved ones' wishes: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50550018 .

This article starts out with a photo that was posted on social media - a dying man having a last beer with his family.

The article then goes on to pose the question as to why the photo has resonated with so many people on social media. Ann Neumann, an author of a book titled The Good Death is quoted as stating that part of the reason the photo resonates is because it captures what 'everyone' would want on their last night (to be surrounded by loved ones).

Which got me thinking... what would my deathbed wish be?

Definitely hubby and daughter, my two best friends, my parents, my siblings, maybe my dog, and... well now, its becoming a bit of a party isn't it? So yep, I'd like a deathbed party I think.

You?

Distancing ourselves, and our compassion

Tech can be a godsend these days. There is no doubt that FaceTime has redefined how I spend quality time with my best friends and family in Ottawa.

But as you've likely heard, tech is also responsible for our chronic loneliness. It gives the false appearance of connectivity, but all of us are removed. Weekly calls have been replaced by text chats and social media photo 'likes'. 

Though we may see posts that bring a tear to our eye, it is just as easy to shut out any real emotion online. And I believe that is breeding death of another kind... death to our humanness.

See also, my previous post. ;) 

Fred freaking Rogers

My husband and I had a date night tonight and saw the new Mr. Rogers biopic "Its a Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood" - a quick warning: spoilers may be present in the remainder of this post.

In the movie, Mr. Rogers is portrayed as being with a family at a moment when no-one wants to speak about the elephant in the room - death. I am not direct quoting here, but in the movie, the line goes something along the following lines:

The thing about talking about death is, that to be human, we must die. And anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable is manageable. 

The last part comes directly from an easily google-able actual Mr. Rogers quote, but the direct link to the subject of death is not easily located. It could be that the filmmakers wanted to use this great sentiment and made it work for the plot, but in any case, I think it is quite enlightened...

The thing about talking about death is that to be human, we must die. And anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable is manageable. 

Talking about death should be manageable.
Won't you be my neighbour?

We're all struggling

Adding this book to my must read list - I learned about it from the BMJ article I posted a few days ago. It is called The Way We Die Now, by Seamus O'Mahony.

In reading Amazon reviews, I came across the following excerpt:

"Doctors, by the nature of their selection and training, are conformist... a good doctor sometimes has to tell a patient things they do not want to hear. ... it is much easier ... to order another scan than to have the Difficult Conversation."

Wow. I work with health professionals every day and I too have long-held the likely VERY wrong impression that physicians are at least a bit more equipped that the rest of us to encounter and be upfront about death. But it makes sense right? Why talk about it when we can seemingly keep doing 'everything we can'? 

I guess it comes down to the fact that we are all on this journey... and all of us struggling along clumsily on our own path.  

Testing, testing, one, two, three

Yesterday I had a routine, bi-yearly scope. Fun times (except not at all).

As I have mentioned in previous posts, most of the time, I try to pretend that I haven't encountered my own serious health scares, or that there isn't anything different between me and the next person. But I have, and there is... and every two years I have to go to have my insides looked at and monitored. And every two years, I worry that something new will crop up.

For now, all is well & good.

And for now, I will use this as a reminder that everyone has their 'stuff' and that most of us won't let on at all.

Palliative care

I recently read a really fascinating post on the British Medical Journal site: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2019/11/12/is-palliative-care-having-an-existential-crisis/

This post begins with a concept first discussed in another journal, The Lancet, entitled With the End in Mind and a discussion of the perceived 'chronic niceness' of palliative care. But like any other field, the myth of palliative care professionals being of some kind of one-note niceness is debunked. 

The article also explores the gender imbalance in physicians who choose the speciality - a really interesting avenue of thought that I won't get into here, but a conversation that definitely needs to be further explored. 

But.. the phrase that got me was this: I think that our death anxiety is what has led to a desire for palliative care to take over all of dying and make it invisible. 

Really, I couldn't agree more. What we want, more than anything else, is a solution. What we want is someone we can make responsible for our 'good death'. We want it to be someone else's responsibility. We want it taken care of... gone. 

"Good death"

A lot of people are now talking about death. Excellent news! 

A lot of people are using the terms 'good death'... also EXCELLENT news!

What do the terms mean though? What constitutes a good death would be subjective, no? 

For me, it would be a death where I have had the opportunity to say what needs to be said, make amends where needed. A good death would also be without pain and undue suffering for both myself and my family/friends; it would also be one that was left uncomplicated by outside or underlying factors (a clean estate that wouldn't drag on for ever, as an example). 

Have you thought about your 'ideal' death scenario? More on this in the next post...

Lockdown

My daughter's school had a lockdown drill on Friday When debriefing about it over dinner, she also nonchalently mentioned that she and her friends were "playing lockdown drill" at recess.

What. Is. This. World. Coming. To?

What is worse than knowing that your child has to practice this because of today's reality? To me, it looks a lot like a child using that same scenario while playing pretend. 

In some regards, I guess I could feel reassured by this - getting extra practice in can't be a bad thing, right? But somehow I feel like it is actually a false sense of understanding, a normalization of the extreme. 

And I think we do this a lot in our lives... seeking normalcy in the uncomfortable can be helpful, but I also wonder about the false sense of security it can also provide. Are we ever really ready?*

*please note that I am not advocating against lockdown drills, just lamenting the reality of them, and questioning whether they actually help to prepare our kids... 

3,325 wishes

Read this: https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9697857-prayers-pets-and-a-final-toast-hamilton-s-three-wishes-end-of-life-program-a-success-far-and-wide-study-shows/?utm_source=twitter&source=thespec&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=&utm_campaign_id=&utm_content=

Because of what I do, I am surrounded by fabulously uplifting and important news like this. I am so glad to hear that this program has been found to be relevant and is now proven to be effective by research findings.

What would your wishes be?

Lest We Forget

This week commenced with Remembrance Day - a day that has always meant a great deal to me. My grandfather was a part of the Royal Canadian Navy and he shared war stories with me before his death in 2004. And working at McMaster, I am also surrounded by beautifully moving stories like this one:

https://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/articles/ten-graduates-ten-friends-nine-remember/

I'm often left wondering why we don't take time to hear the important stories, everyday - not just November 11th. Everyone has a story after all...

And that leads me to wonder in turn, if grief is compounded if we forgot to listen during lifetime?