Yesterday, adding to my election grief, I got the news that a woman I knew through my original Lynn’s Weigh blog passed away in July. There’s no way I could’ve known if I hadn’t reached out to another woman—who worked with her and also knew me through Lynn’s Weigh—to ask how “T” was doing (she’d been diagnosed with ALS in 2022) since T hadn’t been on social media for a while.
After reading the news, and having a good cry, I thought about how Internet friends can be some of the best friends ever. What a wonderful addition to in-real-life relationships, and an even bigger heck-yeah(!) when you meet them IRL.
I’ve been fortunate to have met several Lynn’s Weigh-adjacent friends over the years, including T. I met her in person in 2008 when I was in New York doing all that People promo stuff, and it was like I’d known her all my life.
T was a beta reader for my memoir, An Obesity of Grief, and we shared a love/obsession for Toad the Wet Sprocket and their lead singer Glen Phillips. When I read over our dozens of Facebook messenger posts yesterday, I smiled remembering how the group was a dominant topic of our conversations. (That and menopause.)
T reached out to me in late 2022 to tell me about her diagnosis, and other than a few more messages back and forth, I didn’t hear from her again.
Today, in the midst of mixed grief, I did what I always do when I’m feeling this way. I reminded myself that there are uniting elements in grief that we all experience to varying degrees, depending on the type of loss: shock/disappointment, denial, anger, resentment, depression, and acceptance. We don’t usually experience them linearly, like tidy tasks you tick off when you’re “done” with one of them. Sometimes they’re a wheel spinning out of control: Let’s see, right now I’m in denial… No, wait, it’s anger; nope, it’s denial; or is it depression? Sometimes we get stuck on one particular feeling, like a skip in a vinyl record.
And sometimes it just is what it is: a vague feeling that hangs over you like a raincloud.
There’s a raincloud above my head today as I remember my friend, mourn the future, and wade through what I know to be the best coping mechanisms for dealing with my twisty, gangly grief. I won’t lie; Xanax, Imodium, and wine have been involved, but they won’t get me to acceptance and a fresh skin of determination in the long run. That will take greater involvement with my friends (IRL and online), a news hiatus (like putting a bandage over a fresh wound), and an increase in creative work (stitching, playing guitar, writing).
In T’s honor and memory, please listen to the Toad song, “Is There Anyone Out There,” that she claimed as her favorite in 2018 and is still apt in 20204.
May you walk on the ocean, my friend, and step on the stones.
Lynn Haraldson, Author and Writing Mentor 