Dan Levy on the quiet, unexpected moments of grief

Photo: Dillon Kydd

Dan Levy, a writer and actor known for acting in and creating the show Schitt’s Creek, has recently shifted gears from comedy into the grief world with his creation of the movie Good Grief. He recently joined the We Can Do Hard Things podcast to share about his grief experiences and the perspectives that shaped this recent creation.

In the movie, he describes grief “like swimming in clothes and I can’t take them off,” but in the podcast he shares the surprising feeling of delayed grief after the loss of his grandmother until a quiet, poignant moment in the snow. It does a beautiful job of summarizing the unexpected feelings that come along with loss. All feelings fit.

“It’s not about resolution. It’s about loving your way through it.”

You can listen to the full episode below - the grief portion begins at 10:17.

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The full transcript of the podcast episode can be found here.

The Real Stages of Grief, from McSweeny's

Credit: Francesco Cavallini

Originally posted by Janine Annett on McSweeny’s, February 10, 2023

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Denial

The first stage of grief is denial that calories still exist while you are grieving. Either you will have no appetite, or you will eat junk. You will want to eat fried potatoes in some form almost every day. You will eat all the food that your wonderful friends bring you. You will not step on a scale or even attempt to wear any real pants. When you finally give in and buy an air fryer for all the potatoes you want to eat, you have moved on to the “air fried” stage of denial, where you insist you’re eating healthy.

Anger

The next stage is anger that your phone keeps assuming that you want to call or text your loved one who recently died, which is obviously something you can’t do anymore—but you don’t know how to change the setting that is causing this to happen, and you don’t want to delete your loved one’s contact information in your phone. You will be tempted to throw your phone in the toilet. This will result in more anger, and the cycle begins anew.

Bargaining

During the bargaining phase, you realize you can still be on the hunt for a good deal, even when coping with a horrible situation. Did you know Costco sells caskets? Where else can you get four pounds of pretzels and a casket? Want to forgo the casket? Consider cremation. Do you know how much cremation costs? Be prepared for sticker shock. Maybe it’s time to sharpen those haggling skills.

Depression

You will get depressed over how terrible you look because no amount of eye cream, concealer, or eye drops can reduce the puffiness of your eyes. You will desperately want to get a haircut but don’t know how to face the inevitable “Did you have a good holiday season?” chitchat without blurting out, “Actually, my sister died three days before Christmas; Christmas was also my deceased father’s birthday, so it was already a difficult occasion. How was your holiday?” Then you’ll be depressed over making someone else feel depressed. Try to save face by saying, “And how about this weather!? Can you even believe the sun continues to rise each day?”

Media

During this phase of grieving, all books, movies, television shows, songs on the radio, and dog food commercials will make you cry, no matter how stupid or innocuous they may seem. You’ll be flattened by sheer exhaustion and unable to do anything but lie in bed and watch cheesy movies (all of which seem to have Hugh Grant in them for some reason) and cry for several days.

Bean

You will only want to wear clothing from L.L. Bean. You will acquire a very snuggly blanket from L.L. Bean, and you will also purchase flannel sheets because you are still spending a lot of time in bed watching Hugh Grant movies (he’s pretty delightful in Paddington 2).

Prince

You will listen to Prince on repeat, but to be honest, you sometimes do that anyway. Then you remember that your deceased loved one loved Prince too, and before you know it, you’re sobbing to “Raspberry Beret” in the middle of the supermarket. This is your new normal.

Improv

You will be desperate to do something fun and take your mind off things. This will result in an inexplicable compulsion to sign up for an improv comedy class. Yes, and your loved one is still dead, but at least you now know how to pretend to be someone who didn’t just eat two pounds of air-fried potatoes.

Acceptance

You will accept that since you had to travel at the last minute on a very crowded airplane during peak travel/cold/flu/COVID-19 season and the weather was awful, you might come down with a cold, the flu, COVID-19, or all of those things. Also, your credit card bill will be about two thousand dollars higher than you thought, even with that discount casket, but there is nothing to do but accept it and pay the bill.

The dark-humored side of grief, with Karen Kilgariff

Photo: John Towner

Karen Kilgariff, a writer and comedian most recently known for co-hosting the podcast My Favorite Murder, lost her mom to Alzheimers in 2016 after a 12-year battle. She shares about her experience in a podcast conversation with her friend Chris Garcia. You can listen to the full episode below.

Later in the episode, she shares about how she and her sister navigated their mom’s disease and some of the sisterly dark humor that emerged amid the tragic circumstances. The clip starts around the 17:00 and goes until 19:15. It’s also transcribed below.

Karen: [My sister and I] talk to each other pretty much every day, and she's my best friend. But during my mom being sick there was just so much tension and there's so much anxiety and — there was so much to manage at one time, and as we lost my mom more and more we would tell each other.

Like the first time I had the experience where I was trying to put mom to bed and she fought me and I yelled at her and then I scared her and she kind of went like, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," and apologized to me, and then I couldn't stop crying because it was so awful.

[Laughs] This is like gallows humor, like crazy. But one night my sister came to get me and that had happened and it was really bad and I had to tell my sister because I felt like I'd done that so badly and that was like I yelled at our sick mom - what's wrong with me? [Laughs]

And my sister goes, "Are you fucking kidding me? I do it every time."

And I was like, "Wait, what?!"

She goes, "She drives you crazy! Of course you yell at her." And I was like, l felt like I was like borderline elder abuse, how mad I got.

And she goes, "Yeah, she makes you that mad. That what we're all doing all the time."

Then I said, in the middle of really bad sobbing, I just go, "I just want her to die.” I said it so dramatically of like, can you believe I'm even saying this?

And my sister goes ,"Oh please, you don't think I think about spiking her shit with Abilify every time I go over there?"

[…] In the middle of crying she said that and then we both were laughing so hard, where it's like…this is a nightmare. [Laughs]

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The full transcript of the podcast episode can be found here.

Beautiful advice on caring for grieving friends

Photo: Allison Wopata

On a recent episode of Glennon Doyle’s podcast, We Can Do Hard Things, author and cancer survivor Kate Bowler joined to share her story and helped respond to listener questions about grief. The episode is cry-in-your-car beautiful. One listener question and Kate’s subsequent response really stood out.

The listener asked how to help someone going through an incomprehensible loss, especially when you’ve never experienced a loss of that magnitude. Kate’s answer is below.

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Kate Bowler: What a thoughtful question. How can I bubble wrap somebody whose pain is unimaginable to me and I’m so scared of doing it wrong?

I mean, I feel scared of doing it wrong all the time. And yet, I know it’s only because people were willing to embarrass themselves to try. That I got the community that I needed.

And I guess, maybe the first thing to always remember is that the person who is suffering doesn’t know what they need, because their needs are going to change all the time. That it is okay to offer things that they don’t need or want and be turned down. And then try again with something else, like inviting them to things that you worry will be painful for them. You don’t know and they don’t know either. It is always good. It is always good just to offer it, but offer it lightly.

It is always good to like, food and gift cards and just a thoughtful card that says, “I’m thinking about you.” But, it’s also good. Maybe just as the friend or as the community to have a moment where you’re like, “What’s my best thing?” Am I like the firefighter friend, who’s kind of good at rushing in at first and can boss and redirect traffic? Am I actually more of the loving presence person, where I’m actually better in the long game? Where I can send… One of my favorite kinds of people, is the person that doesn’t forget. Who writes down an anniversary and then puts it in the calendar a year from now and just says, “Write a thoughtful card that says, I’m thinking of you during this hard season, sending you so much love.” And maybe, also this cheesecake gift card.

I mean, everybody has their thing. And if your thing is presence, great. Presence. If your thing is funny texts, great. But like, nobody really expects you to know what to do. Because they have no idea what they’re doing and their grief will evolve over time. But just being the person who keeps showing up and taking cues.

And if you can’t help the main person, help the helpers. Help the caregivers in their life, those people don’t get nearly enough of what they need. So you don’t have to muscle your way into the very center. You can love that second tier or that third tier. And everybody is lifted by that kind of love.

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Kate Bowler is a writer and cancer surviver. She has written multiple books on grief, including Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.

Six pieces of highly autobiographical bereavement advice

Originally posted by Mae Rice on McSweeny’s, September 26, 2012

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1. What to Do When Your Mom’s Death Certificate Incorrectly Lists Her as Chicano

“My god, how embarrassing that we would mistake her for Chicano,” the lady at the funeral home will say, in a way that suggests she either hates Chicano people or thinks you do. You will want to clarify that this is not about Chicano people being famously awful, or famously immortal, but just about accurate government records. Even if you tell her you are a Chicano supremacist, though, she will keep muttering “Chicano” to herself like a remorseful house elf. Let it go.

2. How to Tell People Your Mom Died

You will sometimes want to minimize the problem by comparing it to more serious problems, as in, “She died, but at least apartheid is over.” Other times, you will want to downplay the news via hesitant questions—“I think my mom is like… dead?”—which can elicit responses such as, “Have you tried calling her cell phone?” Even when you send a group email to your closest friends, announcing her death, you might sign off with, “Thanks for your support during this shitshow,” because “shitshow” is a fun, casual word for a fun, casual death. It is better to tell people in a simple, declarative sentence, though.

3. How to Find an Outfit For Your Mom’s Service

You will buy a black sheath dress that hits above the knee, and you and your dad will wonder whether it is slutty. Your mom would know, but you are too young to have been to many funerals, and your dad only knows about fashions from the men’s department at Costco. You will call your friend Alice for a second opinion, which is actually a first opinion because you and your dad shared the non-opinion of “huh.” You will eventually return the sheath, to be safe; ideally, you will replace it with a knee-length skirt.

At your mom’s service, a single-file line of people will hug you and whisper, “I’m sorry for your loss,” until you reach Alice’s mom. She will instead whisper, “You don’t look slutty at all!” Although you are at a memorial service, you should feel free to high-five her. She is awesome.

4. What to Do With Your Mom’s Ceramic Birds

Loving your mom and loving the tiny ceramic birds she ordered online from her hospital bed are two separate things. This is especially true of the last one she ordered, which will arrive in the mail after her death. It will be roughly the size of a golf ball, and it will be glued to a hairclip.

Do not incorporate the surprisingly heavy bird into your only hairstyle (a look somewhere in between “bedhead” and “meth user”). You can just give the bird to your friend’s dog with bangs. It will look very festive on the dog.

5. What to Do When You Want to Play the Dead Mom Card

Don’t. Playing the dead mom card to win an argument—unless the argument is about what your mom has been up to lately—is like playing the Hitler card. There is always a gentler way. When you want to say “omelets were Hitler’s favorite food,” or “my mom liked omelets, and then she died,” just say what you mean. You don’t want an omelet.

6. What to Do When It is Mother’s Day

You will worry that people will approach you on the street—because you are not with your mom or on the phone saying, "You are my mom!”—to heckle you. “No mom today, huh?” and “What day do you think it is, Labor Day?” and “Cat got your mom?” are all questions you will have nightmares about. Luckily, people never say these things. You can go outside on Mother’s Day. It will be fine.