Black Armband

On Monday, my daughter Annie called. We talked of many things, including David’s death and our reaction to it. Tuesday evening we had our monthly family book group conference call. The book, Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel By Changing the Way You Think by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky, is a basic CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) manual that Annie nominated. Through my therapist I first learned of CBT around 2003, after my second hospitalization for psychotic mania, and have studied the technique in David Burn’s book Feeling Good.
But this week I’m not ‘feeling good’. Are the aches and pains of this morning from walking briskly to the cemetery and back (5 miles) and the next day pushing a baby stroller 3 miles with my 59-year-old body, or are they the flu-like somatic symptoms of grief? Both, I guess.

The first week after David’s death was full of activity: preparing our house to welcome visitors, planning the funeral, having the funeral, spending our family week in the Catskills.
Since David’s body was donated to the University of Massachusetts Medical School we had no need for a funeral home’s services immediately, so instead of a traditional wake, we held visiting hours at our home. In the 1960s our house was the McCarthy Funeral Home. Catholic families used it, with the funeral Masses held at St. Brigid’s a few blocks away. When we were house-hunting back in 1993, and learned of this history, I was thrilled. Raising our six children in it fulfilled a girlish dream of mine. In many towns in the Northeast, grand Victorian houses are converted to funeral homes. I wanted to reverse the process and turn a funeral home back into a home with children. The McCarthy Funeral home closed in 1983, so by the time we bought the house in 1993 it had few hints of its past, mostly a large sink in the back cellar. (We call it the crypt; I’m certain it was the embalming room.)
In the second month after David’s death, my life seemed to go back to normal, but in this third month grief is not letting me off so easily. I don’t sit around and mope, but neither have I the energy to embark on new projects, or even continue with old ones. I find myself a day late with this blogpost.

A friend of Jim’s told him that in 19th century England, people wore a black armband for a year following the death of a close family member. Expectations were lower for social participation, work, and keeping commitments. I need to honor that need in myself and my family.