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Friendship
Giving Thanks for Missing Friends
Nov 23, 2011 by Victoria Noe
“As long as you remember him, he’s not really dead.”I’m paraphrasing a line from Doctor Who, but that’s certainly the intent of the Doctor’s message.As Americans pause to celebrate Thanksgiving Day, and even those in other countries mark the day with giving thanks by volunteering, it’s a sentiment worth considering.Holidays - like anniversaries and birthdays - can be painful for anyone who’s lost someone they love. We are haunted by memories of time spent together, and I use the word “haunted” deliberately. The memories don’t necessarily make us feel good.But as we give thanks, let us remember - without being haunted - our friends.I’ll remember laughing on the phone with Carol, who watched the Iran-Contra hearings on C-SPAN as she lay...
Is It Better to Have Loved and Lost…A Friend?
Nov 21, 2011 by Victoria Noe
“Hearts will never become practical until they become unbreakable.” - Wizard of Oz“To have memories of those you have loved and lost is perhaps harder than to have no memories at all.” - Van HelsingMost people who use the phrase “loved and lost” think of a relationship breaking up. But what if it really meant the death of a friend?Are you better off - even in your grief - for having known your friend?Do you wish you’d never met them, because the pain you feel now is so intense?In other words, is the pain worth it?There are certainly moments - especially when your grief is fresh - when you may think it’s not worth it. But then who would you...
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...
How to Avoid Grieving Your Friend
Nov 14, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Sometimes it's too lateI’ve been encouraging (a nicer word than “preaching”) visitors here to reach out to their friends and let them know how important they are to you before it’s too late. What’s too late? Too late is when all you can do is regret what you didn’t do or say. And that happens a lot more often than we care to admit.Sometimes the idea begins with a simple thought, “I wonder whatever happened to…” Sometimes a discovery triggers an old, pleasant memory. Both happened to me recently.I was planning yet another trip to New York, and knew I had some unplanned down time while I was there. I called the usual friends I see when I’m there -...
A Question about Friend Grief
Nov 04, 2011 by Victoria Noe
I posed this question on my Facebook page Friend Grief:“What’s the most important thing you learned about yourself when you lost a friend?”We’re here because we’ve experienced the death of a friend. We’ve cried and raged and felt regrets.But what have we learned?Not about death, not even about how those around us have dismissed the impact of our grief.What have you learned about yourself?Have you learned - perhaps too late - how much your friend meant to you?Have you learned your friendships are more important than you ever imagined?Have you learned you are who you are because of your friend?Did their death teach you that you’re stronger than you thought?Maybe you have an answer to one of these questions. Maybe...
Grieving Your Friend in Public
Oct 31, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Your friend died, and you’re grieving. For the most part, that grief is private. But imagine if everyone in town was talking about your friend. Imagine if every time you turned on the TV or radio, or logged onto your computer, someone was talking about your friend.Imagine, too, that upon hearing the news of your friend’s death, you are confronted with members of the media pushing microphones into your face, asking for a comment. How eloquent do you think you might be?In In Other Words: Artists Talk About Life and Work, Anthony DeCurtis recounts an interview with Paul McCartney in 1987. They covered his years with the Beatles (it was the 20th anniversary of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”)....
To Tell or Not to Tell…That You’re Dying
Oct 28, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Many people seem to have had the experience that I described in my last post, "Would You Tell Your Friends That You’re Dying?"An older woman was distressed that to find out about a friend’s death when the Christmas card she sent was returned, stamped “deceased.”Another woman was sworn to secrecy by her family member, who didn’t want her friends to know she was dying. She didn’t want to see “The Look”.A friend of mine refused to accept visitors, and would only talk to a very few friends over the phone.Make no mistake: I respect each and every person’s decision to live their lives as they wish, especially after receiving a diagnosis of impending death. The decision to tell - or...
"Living in the Material World"
Oct 24, 2011 by Victoria Noe
A few months ago, I blogged about Paul McCartney’s concert at Wrigley Field and how his tributes to John Lennon and George Harrison were so very different: while the song dedicated to John was full of regret and guilt, the one for George clearly showed the love they felt free to express to one another.HBO has been showing Martin Scorcese’s documentary about George Harrison, “Living in the Material World”. His wife, Olivia, and son, Dhani, spoke fondly and honestly about George. But it was in the words of his friends that you really got a sense of the man: strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures.One friend admitted that it was still difficult for him to talk about George, ten years...
Why Friend Grief is Different - Pt. 2
Oct 19, 2011 by Victoria Noe
From the outside looking inI have a friend, a dedicated librarian at a public school for special education kids. When I told her about my book, she said she had a story for me.I sat down with her after school, in the back of her library. She told me the story of a friend of hers. They’d been friends for years, had their ups and downs. But nothing prepared her for finding out about her friend’s death months after it happened. The family knew of their friendship, but hadn’t contacted her. The pain she felt was real: not just the death of the friend, but the missed opportunities to set things right, and to properly mourn.Months later, I received an...
Why Friend Grief is Different - Pt.1
Oct 18, 2011 by Victoria Noe
If you have lost a friend - recently or not so recently - you already know. Pick up your local paper on any day, and you will find a section devoted to obituaries. Some are news articles about prominent people in the community or the world at large. Some are standard “death notices” submitted by families through the funeral home.These notices tend to follow a standard format, which includes the surviving family members (sometimes mentioning those who have already died, particularly a spouse). They may list names, or just note the numbers of surviving grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They may list the deceased’s alma mater, career, places they lived, hobbies and charitable causes near and dear to their heart. What they...
How Can You Tell Who The Friends Are?
Aug 22, 2011 by Victoria Noe
No gladiolas, please
I remember sitting in the funeral parlor for my uncle’s wake. He’d died in a car accident less than two weeks before Christmas, and we were in shock. There would be no Christmas that year, not really. But first we had to get through the wake and funeral.I sat there with my sister and cousin as the funeral directors brought in the flower deliveries. It soon became apparent – at least to us – who knew my uncle and how well.He and I shared a hatred of gladiolas (and no, you can’t change my opinion on this). They exist only for funerals, in my mind, and depress me just thinking about them. It seemed everyone...
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....
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...
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...
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....
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’...
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...
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...
“Let Us Learn to Show Our Friendship…”
Jun 21, 2011 by Victoria Noe
My high school reunion - 2010“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald I heard that line while watching a rerun of Law & Order: UK, and I thought it was perfect for the topic of grieving the death of a friend.As I’ve interviewed people for my book, there is one subject that raises genuine passion. They’re telling me the story of a friend who has died. Sometimes there is a lot of pain: they were shut out by the family, maybe not even notified; they were not allowed access to their friend while they were dying. Maybe they couldn’t get off work to...
Author photo by Alina Oswald
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