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Friend Grief
Hierarchies of 9/11 Grief
Aug 17, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Ground Zero Museum (14th St.)
There is a lot of talk these days about the changes in the observances at Ground Zero this year, for the 10th anniversary.It’s a significant anniversary, not just because 10 is a special number, whether it’s a birthday or anniversary. The new 9/11 Memorial, on the footprints of the Twin Towers, opens that day (the underground Museum won’t open for another year). Because of those things, changes have been made, and it seems no one is happy about them. Although it’s been alleged that they’ve never before been officially invited, survivors and first responders have been told there is no room for them this year. It will be families only along with a...
The Silly Things You Remember about Your Friends
Aug 16, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Last night I was working on something I’d promised to the Voices of September 11 people. That’s the organization compiling a digital archive for each victim of the 9/11 attacks. One of my high school classmates, Carol, died in the South Tower, and I’ve become the contact person for our class. I visited the Voices office in New Canaan, Connecticut, in May, to deliver some remembrances and discuss what else we would contribute. One of those things was my memory of attending an interfaith service at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago a few days after the attacks:As I waited, I called home for messages, and had one, from another classmate, Ann.At that point, I had known her for 35 years....
Dreading Anniversaries – 9/11
Aug 11, 2011 by Victoria Noe
With a month to go before the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the media is gearing up for what promises to be saturation coverage.Memorial events – some annual, some special for this year – are being announced in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania.Politicians will invoke the attacks and the bravery of first responders, and try to link themselves to the courage shown on that day.News specials – reruns of documentaries from those early days as well as new programs – are being announced for networks and cable channels.President Obama has declared September 11 to be a National Day of Service, so communities around the country are not only planning commemorations, but activities to focus on positive action.I...
Why I Started Friend Grief
Aug 10, 2011 by Victoria Noe
I started this blog 6 months ago, so I thought it was a good time to look back and take stock.I’ve learned a lot about the technical joys and frustrations of blogging.I’ve learned a lot about the challenges of trying to stick out in an online world of blogs on every conceivable topic. This is what I wrote in my first post on February 1:Welcome to Friend Grief. It's here to raise awareness of a powerful experience in all of our lives: the death of a friend. Millions of people each year suffer the pain of a friend's death, and many of them suffer more because those around them don't respect their grief. The people who are part of Friend Grief...
One More Thing about Paul McCartney and Friend Grief
Aug 06, 2011 by Victoria Noe
My posts this week, before and after seeing Paul McCartney’s concert at Wrigley Field, have inspired some great conversations.Comments both here and offline have focused mostly on a new appreciation of friendships (not just Paul’s).My friend, Gregory, mentioned that he and his late sister (my friend, Delle) had discussed the stark contrast between the emotions expressed so eloquently in Paul and John’s music and their inability to communicate their love to each other.I suspect that’s not unusual for anyone who expresses themselves in an artistic way: visual artists, writers, songwriters. Actions directed to “the world” or 40,000 people in a stadium are easier than words directed across the table to only one person. The fear of rejection is much greater...
Paul McCartney – Grieving for John and George in Music
Aug 02, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Last night at Wrigley -Ruthie Hauge - Sun Times MediaOkay, another gratuitous photo of Paul McCartney.At his Wrigley Field concert last night, he did indeed perform the two songs I wrote about yesterday, “Here Today”, dedicated to John Lennon, and “Something”, dedicated to George Harrison.It has been said that men grieve differently. But what I saw onstage was a man who grieved two very different friends in very different ways.“Something” began simply, with Paul singing along to his ukulele accompaniment. But eventually his band joined in for a lush performance. The video screen was filled with images of George and Paul: rehearsing, performing, and goofing around at various moments in their friendship. It was a tribute to George, a love...
My Excuse to Write About Paul McCartney and Friend Grief
Aug 01, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Why I love black tshirts & jeansMy friends probably think I wrote this as a flimsy excuse to post a picture of my favorite Beatle, but that’s only partially true.The media are all over his two concerts here at Wrigley Field (I’m going tonight). “McCartney Mania” has been running on my favorite radio station, playing his music from those ground-breaking Beatles days right through to the present. TV reporters were camped out in front of the ballpark, reporting on the concert and the crowds. Today’s papers ran his play list from last night, and I saw that he continues a tradition he started some time ago: playing a song in honor of each of his late band mates, John Lennon...
Signs from Our Friends
Jul 28, 2011 by Victoria Noe
People who grieve often watch for signs from their loved one who has died. I’ve had a number of signs from my friend, Delle. She had felt a strong calling to be a priest, an impossibility (at least at this time) in the Catholic Church. A couple years after she died, I went to Christmas mass at Sts. Clare & Francis, an Ecumenical Catholic Communion church in St. Louis. A woman priest was concelebrating the mass, and I couldn’t help but think of Delle, and what she’d been denied. My eyes filled with tears, and then I felt arms around me, as if someone were kneeling behind where I sat. And I heard Delle’s voice in my head saying “it’s...
A Support Group Just for Friends
Jul 26, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Grief support groups are available in most communities. Some are affiliated with hospitals or hospices. Others are programs offered by religious communities or nonprofit organizations.Most offer an open group for anyone who is grieving. Everyone is welcome, even though they may be experiencing different kinds of losses (such as spouse, child, parent, friend or petBut not everyone is comfortable in a general grief support group. They may be the only one mourning a spouse, or they may feel that others in the group don’t understand that their dog was their only companion. People – rightly or wrongly – make comparisons about the level of grief they experience: “mine is worse than yours”. So specialized support groups were formed.There are groups...
Friend Grief at the Bloggers Ball – Take 5
Jul 23, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Welcome She Writers to the Friend Grief stop on the latest Bloggers Ball!Some of you have been here before; some of you are visiting for the first time. I encourage you to browse the archives here, as well as this post.Writing is hard.Writing about difficult subjects is harder.I wasn’t sure I was up for it.But those who follow this blog, the She Writers and the posse I’ve gathered have encouraged me and sustained me when I felt I was in over my head.Once a month I write about 9/11, and also about the AIDS epidemic. I share stories about people who are struggling as they grieve their friends, and about those who have made major life changes because of that...
One Way to Avoid Regrets: International Friendship Day
Jul 20, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Kristie West’s 30-Day Challenge - http://www.kristiewest.com/ - is all about showing appreciation now for the important people in your life.I started it myself on Monday, and it’s a refreshingly painless way to begin a new (good) habit. Telling your friends what they mean to you has no downside. It also got me thinking again about regrets: about how the grief we feel when our friends die is sometimes compounded by the sadness we feel about what we never did. We never told them how much they meant to us. We never took that trip together. We never…well, you get the idea.An Australian group, Global Friendship, celebrates International Friendship Day on the first Sunday in August, this year on the 7th....
What Else I Learned Writing a Book about Friend Grief
Jul 18, 2011 by Victoria Noe
When I posted last week about what I’ve learned in this now almost two-year book project, I had the feeling I was forgetting something. It took a day, but it finally popped into my head:I forgot to tell what I’ve learned about writing.Last week I concentrated on the grief aspect, the subject matter, the people I interviewed (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But this is my first book, and I’m learning by doing. Some things have come easily; some not so easily.I knew why I was writing the book. In its simplest form, I was keeping a promise to my friend, Delle. What was harder was coming to terms with who was writing the book and what it...
Kristie West's 30 Day Challenge
Jul 15, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Grief and guilt seem at times to be intertwined. We regret the things we didn’t do, the things we didn’t say, when we had a chance. That’s human, but it can sometimes deepen our grief.Now, it has been said that it takes 30 days to create a new habit (or break an old one). So, I was intrigued by Kristie West’s 30-Day Challenge.Kristie and I are tweeps: we know each other only on Twitter. She lives in England; I live in Chicago. We’ve never met, although I hope we do something about that soon. ;)Kristie’s website, www.kristiewest.com, is a great resource for those looking for help navigating their grief. She has challenged her followers in a unique way. Here...
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’...
Naming Names: The 9/11 Memorial
Jul 11, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Northeast Corner of the South Pool I’m old enough to remember the very heated controversy over Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial design: the names of the dead etched in stark, black stone. How depressing! How disrespectful! Now, its “naming” focus is one that is copied the world over, including the new 9/11 Memorial, opening to the public on September 12. I visited “The Wall” in 1988. The Vietnam War shaped my youth, particularly high school and college. I stopped at the kiosk, got my paper and pencil, made a donation and set off to find the names of the two guys I’d grown up with. It had been 20 years since Ernie Sanazaro died, but it was still surprising to...
A Birthday Reflection on Friends Lost
Jul 09, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Some occasions make you reminisce and I guess birthdays are one of them. Today’s mine, and I woke up thinking about friends.Some friends come into our lives for a relatively brief amount of time; others for decades. Some friends represent a specific time in our lives; others remind us of who we were way back when.But the one thing all of my friends who have died have in common is that they all left too soon.I remember Carol’s wake. A talented actress, she died after a long battle with breast cancer, and her death was neither peaceful nor a relief. She had deliberately cut herself off from most of her friends: wouldn’t see them in person, barely talked to any...
Should You “Un-Friend” Dead Facebook Friends?
Jul 06, 2011 by Victoria Noe
I don’t do much on LinkedIn, at least not at this point in my life. But I regularly get requests from people I know – and don’t know – to connect. One of them is an old friend of my husband’s…who’s dead.I’m not sure his family knows about the account, as LinkedIn tends to be strictly business-oriented. And I’m not sure how to bring it up. But it’s a little unnerving to see his name pop up now and then.Facebook, I’ve found out, actually has a policy on accounts held by people who have died. Family members can permanently remove a page. They also have the option of converting it to a “memorial” page, which allows friends to continue to...
Social Media Day - Grieving Your Friend Online
Jun 30, 2011 by Victoria Noe
YahooTwitterFacebookMySpaceYouTubeBloggerThe internet has become such a pervasive element in society – and in our lives – that it was inevitable that grief should find its way online.The Yahoo group my high school classmates started after 9/11 is still going strong, though its purpose has changed. My friend, Joe, started a Facebook group to keep friends up to date on the health of his partner, Dennis, who died a few months ago.There are Twitter accounts that exist to inform the world about deaths of celebrities.Blogs and websites are devoted to grief support.Is civilization better off with these resources?As much as I’m tempted to say “no”, I have to say yes. The ability of the internet to connect people not just with...
When Your Best Friend is Your Boss
Jun 27, 2011 by Victoria Noe
We spend a good part – perhaps the majority – of our waking hours at work: shared purpose, shared cubicles, shared snack room. The people we work with become a second family. For some people they may actually serve as a family. Most of the friendships we make last only for the time we’re in the same building. Other friendships may carry over to weekends or vacations. Some few become long-term, deeply important friendships.One such friendship is at the center of a story in today’s Chicago Tribune: “When word spread of Chief Executive James Tyree’s death spread through the 12 floors of Mesirow Financial late on March 16, several dozen employees converged on President Richard Price’s office to console each other....
Giving a Eulogy for Your Friend – Fr. Michael Duffy
Jun 24, 2011 by Victoria Noe
I’ve never been called upon to give a eulogy for a friend. I wrote the eulogy a hospice chaplain read for my father’s funeral. I’ve made remarks at friends’ memorial services. But I’ve never given a formal eulogy: never stood up in front of a gathering of mourners, script in hand, before a microphone, praying for strength.The photo here is one of the most iconic images of September 11, 2001. Fr. Mychal Judge was a New York City fire department chaplain. He died ministering at the World Trade Center. His funeral, at St. Francis of Assisi Church on West 31st Street four days later, was nationally televised. Franciscans are required to leave instructions “in the event of” their death, and...
Author photo by Alina Oswald
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