Victoria Noe

Award-winning Author, Speaker, Activist

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Delle Chatman

Grieving a Friend After Another Midterm Election

Grieving a Friend After Another Midterm Election
Nov 07, 2018 by Victoria Noe
Delle Chatman

Twelve years ago today was a midterm election. The Democrats won both houses of Congress, as well as a majority of governorships and state legislatures. It was also the day my friend, Delle, died.

I knew it could happen any time. Her brother Gregory had emailed me that he was writing her obituary. She’d said her goodbyes and was surrounded by those she loved. Those who loved her comprised a much larger group, one too large to fit into her lakeside condo or even the ballroom of any downtown hotel.

I turned off my computer earlier than usual that evening, eager to watch the election returns, needing the distraction. So it was the next morning when I...

Old Friends

Old Friends
Jan 11, 2018 by Victoria Noe
The title of this week’s blog post is one of my favorite Simon & Garfunkel songs. I was a teenager when the song was released, and the old friends sitting on a park bench were not people I related to. They were...old. They were slow-moving. Nothing like me or my friends.

But time has a way of changing things. There are friends in my life who I’ve known for decades. Some have stayed in my life continuously. Others - and I think this is more typical - have moved in and out. But as I get older, those friends are the ones who have moved closer.

I’ve watched my 88 year old mother’s world shrinking as friends and family members die. But...

Books for the Special People on Your Holiday List: Part 1

Books for the Special People on Your Holiday List: Part 1
Dec 07, 2017 by Victoria Noe
I was inspired by Sandra Beckwith’s post on the Build Book Buzz blog, suggesting holiday gifts for writers. It got me thinking about books I've loved and love to give to friends. So in that spirit, here are a few I’d like to recommend. In the interest of full disclosure, most are by writers I know. All are by writers I admire.

For the Nasty Woman in your life - Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance and Revolution in Trump’s America by Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding

 

 

   

For the daughter who lives and loves basketball - Home Sweet Hardwood: A Title IX Trailblazer Breaks Through Barriers for Basketball by Pat McKinzie

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the friend looking for the courage to leave an abusive relationship - Ever...

6 Things I Learned Writing the Friend Grief Books

6 Things I Learned Writing the Friend Grief Books
May 03, 2016 by Victoria Noe
         

As the Friend Grief series comes to a close, I started feeling a little pensive. It’s been a remarkable journey I could have never predicted, much less planned. So I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned, one thing for each book from last to first:

Friend Grief and Men: Defying Stereotypes. I began interviewing men secure in my sexist view that getting stories out of men would be like pulling teeth. I was wrong. So wrong. Incredibly wrong. None of the men I interviewed clammed up, though a couple were slow to open up. Some wanted to be interviewed. Some wanted to be interviewed a second time. All wanted to share...

Keeping in Touch with a Friend Who Died

Keeping in Touch with a Friend Who Died
Nov 07, 2014 by Victoria Noe
Delle ChatmanI was helping my mother sort through old papers yesterday morning: bank statements, tax returns, paid bills. The shredder simply stopped twice, overheated and tired. On one of its breaks, I picked up two envelopes addressed to her in my handwriting. Puzzled, I opened them both to find copies of emails I had shared with my parents: emails from my friend, Delle Chatman.When I realized what they were, I had to smile. You see, today is eight years since Delle died. I’ve felt her presence on occasion – so strongly at times I’ve heard her voice and once even felt her arms around me. My first thought upon seeing the emails was, “Gee, you’ve been quiet for a while....

Letting Your Friend Die

Letting Your Friend Die
Oct 25, 2013 by Victoria Noe
benawyn.wordpress.comI think most people agree that everyone has the right to make decisions about their health. No one wants to be forced to have medical procedures they don’t want. And who wouldn’t want to decide their own end-of-life care? But theory can be very different from practice, especially when it comes to our friends.I remember when my friend, Delle Chatman, announced she was discontinuing treatment for yet another recurrence of ovarian cancer. Before that, she’d led us to expect miracles each time it came back. But after a month of treatments, she emailed her friends to say her body couldn’t take anymore. Everyone agreed in theory that the decision was her right. But that didn’t mean we weren’t angry....

Death Ends a Life, Not a Friendship

Death Ends a Life, Not a Friendship
May 28, 2013 by Victoria Noe
Delle's was grey & mine was blackIt’s no secret to anyone who reads this blog that I have “heard” from my friend, Delle, many times since she died in 2006.The time that has passed since she died is actually longer than the time we knew each other. But I still find myself talking about her in the present tense.I’m not the only person who feels that way. It’s going on seven years since she died, and I still hear her friends say “I think about her every day.” She had that kind of effect on people.Maybe you have a friend who changed your life, and maybe they’re dead. Does that mean your friendship is over? I’ve learned in many ways...

Friend Grief and Anger is Finally Here

Friend Grief and Anger is Finally Here
Mar 26, 2013 by Victoria Noe
After a number of fits and starts – too many to list, but including Mercury in retrograde – I’ve finally released the ebook version of the first book in my Friend Grief series (paperback version coming soon). Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives A Damngrew from a conversation I had with my friend, Delle Chatman, in 2006. We were sitting in Metropolis, the coffee house we frequented, and she was in remission from ovarian cancer. An idea had been bouncing around my head, and though I was nervous, I told her I had an idea for a book to write. She was enthusiastic as always, and I promised her I’d do it.I guess it...

Dead Friends Who Still Talk To You

Dead Friends Who Still Talk To You
Mar 08, 2013 by Victoria Noe
Delle ChatmanFour of us sat in the front of St. Gertrude’s Church one November morning. It was a year after our friend Delle Chatman’s death.Kim, Rina, Jeannie and I originally met Delle because our children attended Sacred Heart Schools on Sheridan Road in Chicago. Now the four of us decided to remember her with Mass followed by red velvet cupcakes at Metropolis, the coffee house where we all hung out.In November, St. Gert’s puts up an ofrenda: a small, temporary altar displaying photos of parishioners who died during the previous year. Prominent on the table, just to the side of the main altar, was a joyous photo of Delle and her daughter, dressed in traditional African robes, dancing. It was definitely...

How Long Should You Grieve Your Friend?

How Long Should You Grieve Your Friend?
Jan 08, 2013 by Victoria Noe
Sometime last year I was on my parish Yahoo group. I mentioned my friend, Delle Chatman, whose encouragement led me to begin writing about grieving the death of a friend. One of the women on the group posted: “I think about her every day.”When she typed this, it had been five years since Delle died.“I think about her every day” doesn’t mean she thinks about her in a sad way, of course. It might mean that she simply walks by Delle’s apartment building, or sees a gun-metal grey PT Cruiser like the one Delle used to drive. Something triggers a memory.There are times when I walk into the coffee house we used to frequent and even now, six years...

Big Changes for Friend Grief

Big Changes for Friend Grief
Oct 29, 2012 by Victoria Noe
UPDATE - 11/1/12HURRICANE SANDY-RELATED DELAY FOR E-BOOK LAUNCH. DON'T WORRY - IT'S COMING!If I’ve seemed quiet lately, there’s a reason. I’ve been attending a conference and doing research, which took a lot of time. But November will be a big month for Friend Grief.On November 2, the first in a series of small books on the topic of grieving your friends will be released. Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives a Damnwill expand on a few earlier blog posts on anger. It will be available on all e-book platforms, and the links will be posted here as soon as they’re available. For my followers in the UK, Canada and Australia, you’ll be able to...

Sharing Delle with StoryCorps

Sharing Delle with StoryCorps
Aug 28, 2012 by Victoria Noe
Delle ChatmanIf you listen to NPR, you’re probably familiar with StoryCorps. They provide the audio recordings of ordinary people talking about their lives: sometimes about a person, sometimes an event. They’re in Chicago right now and I made an appointment to talk about my friend, Delle Chatman.I knew I’d have plenty to talk about, but I brought a few things with me, along with a list to jog my memory. I had a weekly bulletin from St. Gertrude’s with her picture on the front; her obituary, written by her brother, Gregory; a mailing from 30 Good Minutes, a local PBS program about religion where she frequently appeared; the note she wrote in the hospital announcing that the cancer was back...

How Do You Honor Your Friend?

How Do You Honor Your Friend?
Jun 22, 2012 by Victoria Noe
ehow.comFor the next few posts, I’m going to look at the ways some people have honored a friend who has died. In many ways, this blog is a way for me to honor a friend. Before she died, I promised my friend, Delle Chatman, that I’d write a book about what people go through when their friends die. She was enthusiastic and supportive, as always. It took almost 3 years to finally get going, but later this summer, I’ll be self-publishing a small e-book, My Best Friend Died and No One Gives a Damn. The bigger book is still in progress, though it’s getting close. She’s taken over my life, changing my career path in a very unexpected way....

Caregiver to Your Friend: Compassion Fatigue

Caregiver to Your Friend: Compassion Fatigue
Jun 21, 2012 by Victoria Noe
I thought this was a great topic to address after Tracey Carruther’s beautiful guest post here on Tuesday. In it, she made it clear that she was deeply affected by the experience of caring for our friend, Delle Chatman, during the last two months of Delle’s life. Having already been through the deaths of multiple loved ones, Tracey still wasn’t prepared for the deep physical, emotional and spiritual effects that took her a year to address.Patricia Smith is the founder of Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project, and author of To Weep for a Stranger: Compassion Fatigue in Caregiving. Though Delle – and Tracey’s family and friends who died before her – was hardly a stranger, Smith’s insights are relevant to anyone...

Life, Loss and Legacy: Guest Post by Tracey Carruthers

Life, Loss and Legacy: Guest Post by Tracey Carruthers
Jun 19, 2012 by Victoria Noe
Tracey CarruthersI met Tracey in October, 2006, when she came to Chicago to move in with our friend, Delle Chatman. Her devotion to making Delle’s last days as meaningful and peaceful as possible was inspiring (if sometimes annoying when I was feeling most selfish). Her reflection on those days is longer than my typical posts, but worth every word. I'm grateful that she was there for Delle and has shared her experience with us all: Thought doesn’t get much more personal and unclear than during a time of loss. In a way, in the matter of how we feel and how we deal with our feelings, it really doesn’t matter what the loss is; a job, a bet, a game,...

Pitching My Book at Writers Digest Conference

Pitching My Book at Writers Digest Conference
Jan 25, 2012 by Victoria Noe
George Davis tweeting at WDC12I've taken a few days off here to attend the Writers Digest Conference in New York.In addition to workshops and speakers addressing the craft and business of writing, there is a Pitch Slam, where hundreds of writers pitch their books to brave agents. I was one of the hundreds.I spent most of the conference with friends (not all of whom I'd ever met in person before). A few of us had met there last year, our friendships deepening over the phone and internet. We practiced our pitches on each other, tweeted madly and bared our souls over calamari and frozen custard (not at the same time).As I stood in lines 10-deep to wait for agents who'd...

When to Remember Our Friends?

When to Remember Our Friends?
Nov 18, 2011 by Victoria Noe
 Happy birthday, Delle May 29 or November 22?January 15 or April 4?What difference does it make what day you commemorate your friend?Well, in the case of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., there’s definitely a difference.Few people know that Kennedy’s birthday is May 29. The day we forever associate with him is the day he was assassinated.The opposite is true of Dr. King: his birthday is a national holiday, but the day he was killed is not as important.My friend, Delle Chatman, died on November 7. Perhaps because my memory of that day is so clear, I tend to not forget it. Her birthday is tomorrow, November 19. I was in New York on the 7th this...

What Else I Learned about Myself from Delle Chatman

What Else I Learned about Myself from Delle Chatman
Nov 09, 2011 by Victoria Noe
When I told Delle I had an idea for a book, I was nervous. I was hoping she wouldn’t laugh, although I knew her well enough by then to know she wouldn’t. Mostly, I was nervous about saying the words, “I have an idea for a book”: a book that I would write, not a book someone else should write.I’d never written a book before, never seriously considered it. She was supportive, as I expected: “just do it,” she answered, with a wave of her hand. In her mind, there were no impediments to following through. But there were. I put the idea aside as her condition worsened and she died. A few months later, I started thinking about it...

Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month

Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month
Sep 26, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Delle ChatmanI was watching the news the other night and the reporter asked why the buildings in downtown Chicago had green lights at the top. Well, they’re not green; they’re teal, the color adopted by the ovarian cancer movement.Ovarian cancer - like melanoma - is a silent killer. The symptoms are subtle and easily dismissed: bloating, painful intercourse, sense of urgency or increased frequency for urination, back pain, constipation, fatigue, unusual weight gain, sleepless nights, abdominal pain, headaches, difficult menstrual cycles, difficulty eating or feeling full quickly. I bet that any woman reading this is thinking “uh-oh...” And most of the time, these symptoms are not a cause for serious concern.There is no Pap smear or mammogram for detection. There...

Things I’ve Learned Writing a Book about Friend Grief

Jul 13, 2011 by Victoria Noe
It’s been five years since I promised my friend, Delle, I’d write a book about dealing with the death of a friend; almost two years since its form finally became clear to me. I’d already spent over two years mulling it over, writing in fits and starts (mostly fits) before hitting the wall. I’d given up, but one day, it was just there like magic; or karma.I began by researching the whole phenomenon of “disenfranchised grief”: grief that is not acknowledged or respected. Grieving the death of a friend certainly fit the definition. I already knew from personal experience that while everyone at some point will experience the death of a friend, most people are not very sympathetic of others’...

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