This UCSD TV program is presented by University
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up with the latest programs. [MUSIC] The Sam and Rose Stein
Institute for Research on Aging is committed to advancing lifelong health and
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achievable goal for everyone. To learn more please visit our
website at aging.ucsd.edu. Hi everyone. Welcome
to the Sam and Rose Stein Institute
for Research on aging. Monthly public lecture series. For those of you who I haven't had the chance to meet yet, my name is Danielle Glorioso, I'm the Executive Director
of the Stein Institute. At the Stein Institute, we are committed to
advancing lifelong health and well-being through research, training, and
community outreach. This public lecture series
is an example of one of our community
outreach programs that's designed to connect the
public with some of the exciting advances that are happening and aging
here at the university. We are proud to say that this program has been going on for over 25 years and has been sponsored entirely
through donations, through people like you. We appreciate all of your
support through the years. To learn more about
what we're doing at the Stein Institute, please find us at
aging.ucsd.edu. It is such an honor and
a privilege to introduce our speaker tonight,
Dr. Natasha Josefowitz. She's a good friend
and colleague of the Stein Institute and a long supporter of
the work that we do. She also is a true inspiration and a quintessential
successful ager. At the young age of 88. She's accomplished more in the last 10 years than many of us can hope to accomplish
in a lifetime. She got her master's
degree at age 40. She got her PhD at age 50 and is accomplished
so many things in-between. She has over 20 books and 100 magazine and
newspaper articles. She recently has added blogger for the Huffington
Post to her resume. She really is quite accomplished
and just doesn't stop. I think she's going to give us a wonderful
presentation tonight, so please join me in welcoming
Dr. Natasha Josefowitz. [APPLAUSE] Good evening. I'm going to be talking about
a difficult topic. I'm going to be
talking about loss. The reason I'm going
to be talking about it is because very often people start doing
research and reading about a topic that
is personal to them. I'll start with that. I lost my husband
five years ago. We were pathologically symbiotic because he was a professor at UCSD Professor of Economics, and was a Professor of
Management at San Diego State. We did everything together, we wrote together, we taught
together, we did consulting. When he died, I was a mess. It was really hard. Then two years ago I
lost a first cousin. I lost my brother who
was six years younger, and last year I lost my son. Loss has been something
that I really wanted to understand and because I
was grieving so badly, I thought how do
other people grieve? What is it like for
everybody else? What does it depend on? I thought, well, besides
reading in the literature, I thought I would
interview people. I interviewed 50 people who
had had a fairly recent loss. They were still in their minds. One of the things I
decided to do is to interview people
closer to my own age. I'll be 88 on Halloween. I'm a certified witch. [LAUGHTER] Because
these older population have a very different
issue than younger people. First of all, of course
their parents have died. The kids have either moved
away or if they're there, they have their own
lives, they're busy, and they don't
have work anymore. Very often they are
isolated and they had had long marriages. It's different from young
people who have lost someone. They have parents, they
have jobs, they have kids. I decided to concentrate
on that population. But when I'm going
to be talking about loss, loss is everything. Loss is a parent, a child, a spouse. It is also the loss of a job, the loss of an identity, the loss of a community,
the loss of a home. These are all losses. As you listen to the way
I'm going to talk about it, think about all the losses
you've had and whether what I say works for you in
terms of understanding. You remember Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross, she wrote this book, this is 35 years ago. She wrote the book called
The Five Stages of Grief. She wrote it for people who are dying and the media took it
for people who were grieving. It helps some, because
I always think it's interesting to take
a word or name, identify an emotion with a name. It helps to understand, oh, this is what I'm going
through. That's what it is. I think it helps.
She was helpful. But this is 35 years ago. I have now worked on
a different sample. I call it the seven
emotional states of loss and stepping
stones to healing. I want to start with the first
thing that I came across. One of the things that I found which is not
in the literature, is that men and women grieve
and heal very differently. I wanted to talk and
start with that because that was a new finding
which I did not expect. For instance, gender,
of course is a factor. Our value systems, life experiences the way we
have been raised, culture. But one of the things
that I found is that men, when they lose someone, have a six percent
higher rate of suicide than the
general population. However, after one year, have you all heard about
the casserole brigade? This is all these women who come with casseroles because
there's a single man. After a year a man is already
with the best casserole. [LAUGHTER] I'm going to start
with a really bad joke. It's a terrible joke. This is
in a retirement community. A man comes in as
a new resident. One of the women's says,
you're a new resident. Where do you come from? He said, well, I just
came out of jail. Jail? Why were you in jail? Well, I murdered my wife. So you're single? [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHTER] This is funny and it's not funny
because what it says, is as a man grows older, his pool of available
females grows larger. As a woman grows older, her pool of available
males grow smaller. This is why by the time a man has been grieving
for about a year, there's a lot of women
with casseroles. [LAUGHTER] Let me tell you some of the
difference I found. For instance, men tended to increase the
activities after loss, women tend to decrease them. If I would ask a man, how would you help a friend of yours who had just
lost his wife? The often answer was, well, I would take
him out for lunch. We'd play a game of golf and
we talk of other things. If I ask a woman, what would you do if a friend
of yours lost her husband? Or I would come with food and we'd sit and
we talk about it. Totally different way
of helping people, the way people think
people should be helped. In fact, it is true
that it works. By the way, you've
all heard if you don't go through your grief and if you don't
work through it, it'll come back to haunt you. It's not true. Denial works. [LAUGHTER] Don't say denial is terrible. I give
you an example. I was running a workshop for grandparents who
had lost a grandchild. One of the grandmothers said, "I don't know my daughter,
I don't know what to do about her is just awful. The pictures of the baby
are all over the house. She's just not moving on." Another grandmother says, "I'm so upset about my daughter. She has no pictures
of the baby anywhere. She's just not moving on." [LAUGHTER] I'm saying
this because what I'm really saying is that there
is no right way to grieve, but people have expectations of how someone else's
should grieve. Never listen to anyone
who says you should have, you couldn't have whatever. It is very personal. Don't listen to people who have their own idea of how
it should be done. Grief workshops, mostly women, because women cry and get in
touch with their emotions. Men say I don't like
seeing people cry and I don't like to go back to where I was because
I want to move on. That was a very common thing. Depression. Depression
in women shows itself. Sleep problems, crying, feeling of
hopelessness, lethargy, feeling too tired
to do anything, go anywhere, just getting out of bed sometimes
is difficult. Men exhibit something
totally different. If you know a man who
had just lost a spouse, he may exhibit risk-taking than self-destructive behaviors, substance abuse,
anger, irritability, and that is a male
way of depression. Also, there is a different
way of analogies. One man told me that no woman
could have possibly said. I said, "I knew your wife
and this must be hard. How are you dealing
with this loss?" The man said, "Well,
it's like golf. I miss a shot. I don't obsess." [LAUGHTER] Can you imagine a woman saying
something like this? No, it's a very male thing and deny it and it
worked for him. Men pretend more than
women that they're okay. How are you doing? I'm fine. Women do that too, but
men do it more often. Big boys don't cry. That's where that comes from. The other thing that I
found interesting is that I looked at something
no one has ever looked at. That is birth order. This is what I found. Now, remember, I've only
ever interviewed 50 people. Statistically not significant, but what this says is it's maybe worthwhile
researching further. When people were raised
as only children, they had learned
resources of being alone or finding friends on their own and not being
comfortable being alone. This later translated into
behaviors when they were widowed so that people who
were raised as only children, did better at being alone than people who are
raised with a lot of siblings. I thought that was an
interesting thing. Then I looked at food patterns. Men will buy a
rotisserie chicken, standard the kitchen sink, and eat it with their hands. Women will sit down with a napkin and a knife
and fork and a plate, is again, different. Anyhow, I thought it all. These are differences
which I thought were curious that nobody had
ever found and looked at. What I would like to do now, l would like to talk about
the various states of grief. This one is not really one of the first states because
it's not universal. I call it pre-grief or pre-loss. These are people who have
been caregivers for weeks, months, sometimes even years. These people who have been
caregivers have dropped out of the activity scene
and of the social scene. They are there as caregivers. If time is really with the person who is ill,
that person dies. Not only have they dropped
out of life in a way, they now have a large gap in
their day what to do with. This is very difficult. These are the people who
need more than anyone, friends who will invite them, take them into activities, help them move back into
the stream of life. What I've done, I have written a poem for each
one of these states. The reason is these
poems come from the time that I was in. They are all time sensitive
to what I was going through. It's called Still at Hospice. We're still here because he's
back, he's still hurting. He has prostate cancer
metastasized to his bones. We're here to get some relief, but the relief comes at a cost. Opiates put you to sleep. He lies there only
half-conscious. As the hours become
days and the pain is only relieved by increasing
the medications, the days are turning into weeks. We came here believing he would
get better and come home. But instead, he
came home to die in a different hospital bed and one in our continuing care unit, two floors up from
our apartment. In a retirement community. He can see the ocean from the
window and hear the waves. Hospice people come here
to adjusting the pumps, the nurses are already at
his bedside day and night. At first, he has
trouble talking, then swallowing, then moving, then breathing, and
finally living. Let me start with the first of what I call the emotional
states of grief. I call this shock. This is what happens. Your loved one has just died
and what you have to do. There is the funeral. There are all these
people, the family, the friends, they're all there. You have to think about where they're going to stay and
what they're going to eat and so you're busy
doing all that stuff. That works while you're
in shock because you really not fully aware
of what is going on. Shock even happens to people
who have been caregivers and who knew that their husband
or wife was going to die. Because when a person disappears from this
Earth is just a shock. It's just very difficult to comprehend how that's
possible. Some barrel. What I suggest is that, when you know someone
is or when you're old and a couple of people
here have white hair. When you're older and
you know that, well, how many years you're
going to have left, do your own funeral arrangements ahead of time. Do everything. I have everything in place. I have my casket. I know
I'm going to be buried. I've chosen the music. All the kids have
to do is show up [LAUGHTER] and
everything is paid for. I suggest that you do that
because when you have prepared nothing and your loved one has died and you have to
start dealing with that, that is really awful. I wrote a poem called,
Where Are You? Give me a sign, blow
out the candle. Rustle the curtain, make
a sound in the wind. Touched my cheek with
a breadth of air. Give me a sign so I will know you were here
somewhere with me. Please let me fill
you in the room, in the air, and the energy. Paul sitting in the universe. My love, where are you? I was sitting in bed and
I say, "Okay, Herman." There are people who
see their loved ones afterwards and heal
them and so on. Do something. [LAUGHTER]
No, nothing, didn't. The next date I call numbness. It's amazing how many people I talk to who said things like, I felt like a zombie. I felt like a ghost, I felt nothing, I didn't cry, I don't know what's
the matter with me. I felt abnormal. If you remember nothing
from this talk except this being abnormal is normal. In fact, if you were not
feeling abnormal I'd worry. This is a time when you already have to now deal
with all the paperwork. You have to have ahead of you who's going
to be your lawyer, your accountant, you need
help with paperwork. There's a huge
amount of paperwork. Also, this is a time where
judgment can be impaired. This is a time where the
immune system is weakened. What is important
during this time is that you really
pay attention or your friends should
pay attention that you sleep enough
hours that you eat, that you exercise, that you take care of yourself
physically and mentally. It is a strange period
and I'm wondering whether it's for the brain to help people not be so soon in this
terrible kind of pain. I wrote tired. Ever
since he died, I have felt tired,
awake, up tired. I may have a bit of
energy during the day, but then I'm
exhausted afterwards. I have become a person
who drags her feet, pushing herself out of
an armchair with a sigh. I walk slower, I think slower and everything matters
less the way I look, what clothes I wear, whether I need a haircut. I'm also more forgetful. I have to keep checking
my calendar lest I forget to go somewhere or do
something I promised to do. I forget who just asked me a question or even
what the question was. I walk into a room and
wonder why I'm there and mix up names and faces and worry whether
I'm losing my mind. I wonder whether I have MCI, mild cognitive impairment, but maybe it's not
even mild anymore. Yes, I'm more tired and
forgetful than I was a year ago. I want to give you permission
to feel exhausted and to feel that there's
something wrong with you because there is something wrong with you when you are mourning. If you worry about what's
going on, it does pass. It is a state. It is the state during
numbness where you feel that you're not
functioning quite right. That is a normal state. This is so that you don't worry about what's
going on with me. The next one I call disbelief. Disbelief is that third state, which slowly numbness becomes
a cognitive disconnect. The phone rings, oh, it's him. You will hear footsteps in
the hallway, oh, it's her. My mother died 20 years ago. I still sometimes think, oh, I should tell my
mother...no, no. Disbelief is also the time when you start saying our room, our bird, our thing and forget to say that,
no, you're alone. This is not real. The unconscious has not caught up with the new
reality of the life. You have to reprogram your reflexes and your
habits during that time. I have the poem called Maybe, maybe it's all a mistake. Maybe it wasn't real, maybe it was a bad dream, maybe it didn't happen. Maybe when I come home tonight, he'll be there saying, hi, how was it and I'll
tell him all about it except he wasn't there
and so he didn't ask. The next one is reality. Reality is maybe
the toughest one because that's when it hits. It hits that there is
a finality to death. There's the permanence
of the absence that you now have to live without the one you
cannot live without. This is also the time for guilt. Maybe I could have,
maybe a should have, maybe why didn't I? Maybe the doctors,
maybe you start asking yourself all
these questions of what you could have
done differently, should have done,
could have done. That is also a very
common thing that people have worrying about
a different outcome. This kind of asking yourself
all the time is pervasive. Also what happens
during this reality? It's very strange. No one is a witness
to your life. You just realize, I mean my husband
died five years ago. Sometimes I wish when I read
something on New York Times, I couldn't calling in and
say someone to say somebody, hey, this is a
really good article, now I have a zillion friends. I live at White Sands which
is a retirement community, I never eat alone, I eat
with a lot of friends. It's not the same. No one knows what I had for
breakfast, no one cares. No one is the center of my life. I'm not the center
of anyone's life. It is that piece now some people miss it,
not everybody does. I miss this kind of intimacy. That is pervasive
and that is forever. Even now five years later, I sometimes wish was
no one knows I'm here. No one cares. No one's going
to ask me, how was it? That part is sad, but one has to live with that. I wrote a poem called Pain, but before I made up a theory which I called
the dopamine fix, it's my own theory. This is how it goes.
You have a spouse. Your spouse puts his
or her arm around you. You get a little
surge of pleasure. You're across a room, that person goes like this. You get a little
surge of pleasure. They give you a little kiss. They ask you a question. You get a little
surge of pleasure. Every time a spouse that you love pays a little
attention to you. That surge of
pleasure is dopamine. Dopamine is a drug. When that person dies, you are on dopamine withdrawal. You're on drug
withdrawal so that if you don't sleep and don't
eat and don't feel well, it is like any drug withdrawal. Now, you may be
surprised that I'm going to give you
another example. I want to give you
an example of a pet. Every time your dog wags
his tail or the cat sits on your lap and
you pet your pet, you get a little
bit of pleasure. It's a little bit of dopamine. The pet dies. You're on drug withdrawal. People who've never
had a pet say come on your dog died,
get another dog. They don't get it.
A pet who has been your companion for many
years and part of your life, you also are on drug
withdrawal from the dopamine that
the pet gave you. This is a theory that
I think might be important because if you think about it and you feel
this dopamine missing, you say, I need some dopamine I want some dopamine, okay. Call a friend or go for
a walk, ice cream cone, I mean something to give you a little dopamine because you know that you're on
drug withdrawal. Pain is my poem. The pain comes on suddenly. When I drive or eat dinner
or talk to a friend, the pain is terrible. It starts somewhere in
the center of my body, and radiates out everywhere. Is the pain of being
aware of how I miss him. In that moment, the overpowering awareness of his forever absence is there. No one to turn to.
Nowhere to go. Not getting away,
no possible refuge. No stopping the pain. It sits there,
enveloping me and I'm helpless in its
grip contemplating with all the immensity of how much pain one can bear
without dying from it. The thing that I wanted
to say about this is that I absolutely guarantee it
diminishes, it gets better. But at the moment that you're in that kind of pain
after recent loss, you can't imagine ever
being better. But you do. The next state I
call alienation. That's again, one
that I have not seen written about.
This is weird. A lot of the people I talk to, especially women, and
it happened to me. You are a couple
and you'll meet one another couple.
You're now single. Couples have dropped
friends who are single. It's a very strange thing. I think it has to do with an awkwardness
about odd numbers, three is a crowd,
the fifth wheel. Also, another thing
that happened, which is really strange. I'm with my husband and there's another couple and
we meet for dinner, and then we split the
bill and then we go home. Now the same couples invite me. Now I'm grateful. I say, thank you for having me. It's different. I came across something which
I really don't like. I'll tell you what it is. I
had a friend called Ruth. Ruth lost her husband. Why do I say to my husband? I said Ruth lost her husband, really should invite Ruth. Should. Single people
become shoulds. People are sorry for them. It's not oh no, let's
invite Ruth. It'd be fun. It is, she lost her husband. We should. I became a should. People were nice to me and took me out and I was grateful. A lot of people
stopped taking me out. By the way, I wanted to say, if ever anybody
wants to take you off when you're single, accept, even though if you don't
want to go because they wont ask you twice [LAUGHTER]. The other thing that I
encourage people to do during this part of alienation
is when you are invited, you need to reciprocate. I live in a retirement
community so I can invite people to my
retirement community. If you're at home, you can invite people to your
home, make a meal, or you say, you pay for dinner, I'll pay for the movie, or I
have done the other thing. Some people have invited
me several times, I call the restaurant ahead, gave them my credit card, and after dessert I pretend
to go to bathroom and sign. You need to reciprocate
because it gets uncomfortable, because when couples, the men are match or they always pick you up and they
always pay for dinner. No, I want to pay for dinner
and then they take you home. You feel like a burden. It's unpleasant time, but I think it's very
real for a lot of people. I wrote two poems.
It's good for me. Everything is an effort. I make myself go
out with friends, go to cultural events because
I know it's good for me, but I make myself do it. It's a conscious effort. I used to look forward
to all kinds of things. I don't look forward
to anything anymore. I just do it because
it's good for me. The other poem is
called Alone at Party. Going alone to a party, will the people
there be friendly? Will someone talk to me? Or will I stand in
the corner glass in hand scanning the room
for a familiar face, not finding one, looking
for a smile or nod, approaching close-knit
groups unable to enter. I am a stranger
among the natives, an alien in a foreign land. I will go home early tonight. That has happened to me, but I'll give you a strategy. If you have to go to an
event and you're not quite comfortable that
you're going to be there all by yourself
and not know people, go with someone
even if you don't like them, it doesn't matter. Go with someone, anyone. You have someone to talk to so you don't feel
standing there, as oh my god, this is awful. The next one I call reinvention. You go from being half a
couple to a whole person. You have to reinvent yourself. You reinvent yourself
into a new single life. You change your identity. You become a whole
person. You're not half. You reinvent yourself
in order to move on and to stand on
your own two feet. Reinvention is the
purposeful transformation of your perception about
yourself in the world. It is two steps
forward, one step back. When you reinvent yourself, you have to start a
whole new language. You don't say our and we, we say I and mine, is different. You need to be
conscious of how you do that to reinvent yourself
into this other person. Now I'm going to read
you a poem which is embarrassing but I
think it's important. Looking at men. I caught myself looking at men. I have not done
that in 70 years. Then, it used to be boys. Now it's older men
in my age group. I look and wonder
whether they're married. I would like to go out with a male companion
for a quiet dinner, perhaps a movie so that we
can talk about it later. I have women friends. Why isn't it the same? I'm somehow not sure. I am allowed to feel this way. He died just several years ago. Is it too soon for me
to wish for couplehood? Am I being disloyal to
him and his memory? I feel guilty catching
myself scanning men. I mean, I'm a little
embarrassed reading this poem but I know I'm not alone and not everybody
feels this way, they are I have friends
who say, "Well, I'm happy to be single,
I don't need anyone." I still would like to have
a companion, and I'm old. I mean, I'm this old woman
and I still want a companion. What's wrong with me?
But I'm not alone. We are meant to be couples. We come in pairs. It's interesting, men
have lost a caretaker, women have lost a handyman,
a financial advisor. It's different,
but we have lost. I wrote a funny poem. I call it caring
about, not caring. The things I used to care
about, I no longer do, but I really do care that I don't care about
the things I used to care about [LAUGHTER]. Then finally, we get to
what I call the new normal. The new normal is where
I am right now and where everybody
eventually lands. That is morphing into
an okay single person. It's an arrival place,
the new normal. It is really living again,
not just surviving. Now life can be good again. Some new adventures are
possible and enjoyable. In this state, you
are able to form new friendships which are
meaningful and enduring. You have friends to go out with, share a meal, travel with. You may be alone, but you're not lonely. In fact, I used to
dread coming home into my very lone room but
now it's a refuge. It's not solitary confinement
like it used to be. One feels more like a
grounded person and so it's a belief in one's
ability to manage life. Because of this particular
group that I interviewed, which were 60s to late 90s, most people wanted a companion. A love affair, no. I don't
think at this age nobody wants to go to bed with
anybody. We don't look so good. [LAUGHTER] But it is more
true of widows than widowers. Widowers find companionship very easily and sometimes get
married to much younger women. It's much more difficult for older women to find a companion. Now, as I told you, single men are at a premium and especially in the
community where I live, is 3/4 single women
and 1/4 single men. I wrote amazing. Today, I have decided that I am not have a couple
mourning the one that's gone for I have
integrated him within me and so I am a whole person standing on my own two feet
independent and strong. There is nothing I cannot do for there is nothing
I can't imagine. I have no fears. Not of living nor of dying. I'm doing the first
the best I know how until the second stops me, hopefully in my tracks. I feel the wisdom of
my years and learning that I can use well to
make it easier for others. My journey draws to an end. I savor the moment
in ways new to me. A quietness has taken hold, like a new distance or
perspective and understanding. I know not exactly of what
a comfort in my place, annoying of my time. The word may be serenity. It exists even in
your adventures in willingness for risks, in shoulder shrugs, at
failures, in smiles, at foibles and secret laughter are the amazingness of it all. These journeys from grief
to healing are amazing. Again, I really want to emphasize that there is
no better way to do it. Some of these steps
are sequential, but not for everybody. Some of them don't
exist for some people, they might even be new ones
I don't even know about. Some are recycled,
go back again. Even though they may be helpful in terms of identifying
what it is, where you're at they
are not immutable. I don't want you to think this is what I'm supposed
to go through. If it does, then you understand
it and if not then not. Then I want to talk about
one which is really not one of the steps what I
called it the post grief. It's more unusual,
but it does exist. These are people
who have done well, have progressed and then regress and then go back to
earlier emotional states. A song sent, a photo, triggers an instant of sharp pain is
still happens to me. This may impact the mood for
several hours or even days. Anniversaries, holidays,
that's always hard, that stays hard for long time. Everybody is in a
celebratory mood and you're missing
this one person. If it comes on suddenly and then gets resolved, that's normal. If on the other hand, it seems to linger on and on, it's called complicated
grief and then at this point one needs to seek
health care professional. Missing him again. He has been gone for
several years and I'm okay. He does not live in
my head anymore. He lives in my heart. By the way, that's an
interesting concept. When you are mourning he or she is in your
head all the time, then when you are doing
better they're not in the head they're in your
heart that's feels better. Yet sometimes
unexpectedly, I feel I'm back to just after he
died, I'm missing him. I'm hurting. I feel disoriented, desperately wishing him back. I remember all that I have lost that I will
never have again. It has been years since he died. It feels like yesterday. That happens and one has to be tolerant to people who are
going through this process. Now, I want to give you, I don't know, I hate
to call it advice. When you know someone
who has lost someone, one of the most
important thing you can do is call them every
morning and I tell you why. When someone has died, the one thing that's
missing you wake-up in the morning and
there's no there. Call every single morning, hi how are you, what
are you doing today? Someone cares, there's a voice. You don't have to do it forever, but you see how the
person is doing? I have several
friends where I live. I call every morning three
months or four months, and then tapers
off and it's okay. I think it's an
important thing to do. In conclusion, I do want
to say a few things. Grief can be long or short. Some of these you'll won't
experience, some you will. They're not sequential, I want you to remember that
or they may be sequential. I just want to be sure
that what I have just said is not cast in stone. All in all, think of
life as stepping stones. I think of life as you've gone a step with one
foot and then you're there quibbling and then you put your other foot on and
then you're steady for awhile. Then you have to
go another step. There's always another step. Wherever you are and
how awful it is, there's always one more
step that you can go on. I wrote, healing. When one is in the
middle of pain, it is impossible to envisage
the time without it. Yet that time comes
unexpectedly, surprising me by suddenness from an agonizingly slow healing to a world of brighter colors, to a lighter step, to being whole again. There is an old saying that
when someone you love dies, the main difference is that he is no longer outside of you. He is inside. I have incorporated him. I am poor for the lack of
his physical presence, but I have become richer for his continuing to exist in me. This is what has
been helpful to me. I'll stop right here. Thank you. I'm done with this piece. Now we're going to
have questions if you like. I don't know. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] I'm very happy to listen to any comments
or any suggestions. Everything is a work in
progress and so I'm still learning about this
whole grief process and the healing part. If you have questions or comments or suggestions
that might be useful to other people
ask the question, say it loud, and then
I'll repeat the question. Any questions or comments? Yes. I've had quite a few losses, but the one that really
hit me the hardest was a 15-year-old who was playing Russian roulette while I was [inaudible] tragedy in Washington and high
on LSD and she lost. I came back and I went on [inaudible] for
about six months in Ireland and finally I've been on some Prozac just to
start feeling normal a bit. It took me a year basically. But one of the best
comments I have from anyone was you may feel you're going to mad
the first [inaudible]. Will you say that
again, it's what? You may feel you're going
mad and you will be seeing her and I
did. Saw a light. I saw all kinds of things the first year and then I started to see butterflies
and other things, and I don't care if
it's my imagination. Now I also teach, I'm 77. You're a baby. [LAUGHTER] The students gave
me my life back. Also some holly
barriers the dogs, that I got from
shelters and I think a dog is incredible
and get in depth with you or some Cambrian but I also seeing that I'm Irish
and my whole family, I promise I find going to an alanine meeting
or other meetings. This is a way to meet people now get regular
hugs from them. I really advise everyone. I live alone with my
[inaudible] to get hugs regularly and to go up all the things you
said are right online. I just thank you so much. I had a TED Talk. I would ask him so I really have a little
bit of a question. It was a happiness talk. By the way, yes, I see something in a movie and I can start crying about that. But she also gave me the gift of having no fear because I don't
fear death anymore. Now you said some very
important things. What was important,
what was said is the person who died
was 15 years old. Fifteen years old. It's totally shocking. I bet she was with her brother who was supposed to be
taking care of. Yes. I had no idea there was
a gun in the house she was with her boyfriend
[inaudible]. What was mentioned
is the importance of having a pet and that is because a friend
of mine just lost her husband and we went to Helen Woodward's
and we got a cat. That's where I got it. A dog. Really. The difference is, she said to me, I can't go home. It's so lonely. It's so empty. Once she had a cat, she said I can't
wait to go home. My kitty is sitting there
waiting for me to come. Yes, the pleasure
of a pet works. You mentioned hugs. Yes. Hugs are good for
the immune system. By the way it's interesting how these
are biological things. They actually good for
the immune system. Women have said to me, it helps to cry
and I'm thinking, why does crying help? What is this about tears? I started researching tears
and what are tears made of? Tears that come from grief
have a toxic element in them. In fact, that toxic element is being released through tears. Now, thought it was interesting. I didn't know that. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. I think if it was perhaps
applied in your points, but the thing that I was interested in is the
feeling of relief. We have a friend who
for many years had a very difficult time for caring for his wife,
day and night. Now that his wife has passed, we think he must feel a
great deal of relief, and that maybe connects with your comments about grief and I wonder what
you [OVERLAPPING] That's a very
interesting comment. The feeling of relief one gets when someone
you've been taking care of has died after a long illness and
sometimes with pain. It's not that simple. There's a feeling of relief
and then there's very often a feeling of
guilt about the relief. So yes, there's relief and then, are you okay about
feeling relief? Is that maybe not okay
and you feel some guilt. Relief is a two-edged sword, but yes, there is both. Thank you for that comment. It's important.
Yes. Anyone else? I might make a comment, but pick up on your point about someone calling
you every morning. I'm 93 and my wife
had Alzheimer's. You look good. [LAUGHTER]
[BACKGROUND] He just had his 93 and that's why I'm saying
he's looking good. But my point is, I took
care of her at home. She died in my arms. It was all over
10 years of 24/7. I was totally prepared
for her death. A week after she passed, I started thinking, I need to sell
everything and leave. I want to go hide somewhere. Within a couple of weeks I
had high blood pressure. I started going to see doctors, I had more problems. It took several months, but the thing that
really counted was my daughter calling
me every morning, every night, during the weekend. Every weekend she came
and took me somewhere, that was so important to me. This is an incredibly
important comment. He's 93, his wife
died of Alzheimer's and he had all kinds of health problems
afterwards. You know why? It's because what I said, your immune system gets
weaker after loss, and so this is why some of
the things that were on hold physically came out. But he had a daughter who called every day and took him out. Those of us who
have kids who are available that way are
incredibly fortunate. Yes, thank you for that comment. It is incredibly important. Kids sometimes don't
know and you know, we don't always ask. We don't always say
to my children, call me every day. [LAUGHTER] Well, I told her I didn't
need her, but [LAUGHTER] Yeah, okay. That's good. By the way, I wanted
to say something else. Very often I see couples who are thinking of
moving into a community. By the way, I believe
in community living. I believe that people should not live alone, older and isolated. Right now I'm involved at
the UCSD New Department, it's called
Technology and Aging. We're looking at how
technology can help the part of the population that is growing the
fastest is 85 plus. The baby boomers,
that big curve, every day, 10,000 people
become 65 and on Medicare. So there is that huge number of older people coming
in and we call it the Silver Tsunami [LAUGHTER], and they are not enough young humans to take care of this, so we're looking at how
technology can possibly help. I want to make a peaceful
living in a community. I have to be in White Sands, and one of the things
I find which is funny, very often couples are interested in maybe
moving into community, and she usually is, and he usually is not, and so I tell to the
men, well, you know, you're not interested
because you've been living in assisted living all
your life already. [LAUGHTER] Any other
questions? Sorry. How long does it take to grieve? How long does it take
to grieve? Oh my God. There is no consensus. There is nothing written, this should be this long or
this should be that long. There are cultures who
program like for instance, the Jewish culture says, after one year, you should go out and be in the community. In the old days, Abraham and all these people, if you didn't go out
in the community after one year you were stoned, [LAUGHTER] But I'm not saying
that this is meaningful. It depends on what
you've experienced. It depends on where you are and what you can do with your life and how
resilient you are, and there's no one who can tell you how long it should
be or shouldn't be. Tell me more about what it is. Your question has another
question. What is it? I lost my mum and my husband
in less than two years. My husband died 10 months ago and it's been very hard lately. You lost your mother and
your husband close together? Because that makes it harder. When you lose two members of your family and the deaths
are close together, that's a double whammy and
so it takes twice as long. Give yourself twice as long as if you would just
with one person. Be kind to yourself,
allow yourself. Anyone else? Shall we end here? Thank you for all being here. Now, wait, [APPLAUSE] I
have something to say. Wait. I wrote a book [LAUGHTER] called Living Without The One You Cannot Live Without. I've been told this book is very helpful to people who
are experiencing loss, so I'll be glad to do that. Thank you all for being
here. I love it here. [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC]
