There were no dry eyes during the Women's Conference lunchtime "Once-in-a-Lifetime Conversation: Grief, Healing & Resilience". California First Lady Maria Shriver began by sharing some of the feelings, experiences and emotions she had this summer after both her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and her uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy's passed away.
My brother committed suicide three years ago and I'm still unable to talk about it without bursting into tears, so I am absolutely in awe of Shriver's ability to speak so eloquently about emotions that must still be raw. Maria was joined by a phenomenal group of women living in every stage of grief: actress and dancer Lisa Niemi, actress Susan St. James, and Senior Fellow of the Center for American Progress, Elizabeth Edwards.
Shriver said of her motivation for having the conversation despite how emotionally difficult it is, "It is our hope
that this conversation will give anyone out there dealing with a broken heart or
a shattered soul a sense that you are not alone."
The discussion: Shriver began by asking Lisa Niemi, wife of Patrick Swayze, if it's easier to let go if you know death is coming. Lisa shared that she thought the long months of her husband's illness would help her get used to the idea of loss but it didn't. When Patrick's death came, it made the "sadness and grief prior to that look like an intellectual concept."
Susan St. James lost her son Teddy in a plane crash five years ago. Shriver asked her, "Listening to Lisa, is the pain five years later still the same?"
Susan says it is and shared how she once told her husband that if she ever lost a child she'd never speak again. But of course, right after the crash she had to deal with it. "You take your character and then you choose how you're going to go on."
Elizabeth Edwards lost her son 14 years ago and she says, "The truth is you honor somebody by taking whatever greatness they had in their life and incorporate it...translate it into your own life as you move forward."
Edwards went on to share, "You're not going to get over it. You're never ever going to get over it." And you don't know what the trigger will be. She shares how she dissolved into tears last week when she saw a picture of a young woman that's the age her son would be right now. But you try to turn these things into something positive.
What do you say to someone who's grieving? Maria Shriver says,"In the United States we're a grief illiterate society. People don't feel comfortable talking about grief or loss." Too many people don't know what to say when someone's grieving, they don't know what to say when you've lost a child, they don't know what to say in the first couple days and weeks.
Susan St. James made the crowd laugh by saying that right after her son died in the accident it was not helpful to hear a guy tell her he'd lost his dog so he knew how she felt.
Lisa Niemi shared that she herself never knew what to say to people before. But now she has a couple of girlfriends who've told her she can call anytime to talk. She told how she was having a panic attack at three a.m. and she actually called one of them. "It's very important to reach out and reconnect with people."
Elizabeth Edwards explained of her son, "When he died, I didn't lose the desire to parent him." --I started to cry, and so did everyone else around me, when she told how she goes to her son's grave and still talks to him. In the year after he passed away she took the books on the high school senior reading list and read them aloud at her son's grave.
She says of saying the right thing, "People mean to say the right thing even when they say the wrong thing. Even if you say the wrong thing, don't worry. Be present, be the person who's willing to get the call at any time, and not just now, 14 years out."
Maria asks Lisa if it makes it harder to be able to turn on the TV and see her husband in film. She shares that it's different because that's an actor playing a role.
Susan St. James talked about keeping her marriage together after the death of her son. After the accident, her husband couldn't move around because he'd also broken several bones. He had to be still so he couldn't distract himself with work and be gone all the time. It meant that he had to share the grieving process with her.
Grieving in the public eye: Lisa Niemi talked about tabloids like the National Enquirer and how what they did was emotional cruelty to her family. "Every month they were killing Patrick off and it was very demoralizing."
When do you start to laugh again? Susan says you do find yourself laughing, her other kids made her laugh. But she looked in the mirror a few months ago and she felt like she saw herself again. Saw herself as the woman she used to be. Says she had five natural childbirths, is vegetarian, raised her kids, -- and she couldn't do anything about her son's death. "You're used to these things happening to someone else and you're helping them... People are afraid to talk to somebody who's just lost someone."
Maria says she knows it's been eight weeks but, "I find myself more emotional today than I was two weeks ago or a week ago."
Then she asks Lisa a doozy of a question, "Do you see yourself as a widow or still married to Patrick? Lisa paused and finally said, "That's a hard question." (I thought she was going to start to cry on this one. I wanted to cry!) She explains she spent 2/3 of her life with Patrick. "My regret is I didn't tell him I loved him enough over that 34 years." She regrets the times she was mean or bossy.
Maria had the room in tears again when she shared how, "I did Meet The Press last Sunday with David (David Gregory) and it was the first time I walked out and there was no call." She explained that her mother would always call her after TV appearances and it was the first time she'd done a TV show and hadn't gotten a call from her mother -- and then she lightened the mood by making a little reference to
Cell Phone Gate by saying that she was never in her car when she talked to her mom.
Maria then asked Elizabeth Edwards about the process of having cancer and grieving through it. "Do you find yourself grieving now while you're living, the loss of your own life?"
Edwards responded,"I grieve the loss of my life as I knew it." But death offers her a chance of reunion with her son.
Lisa said of Patrick, "Cancer may have taken him but it never beat him."
Maria Shriver ended the discussion by saying the most important thing is that the grieving process hasn't beaten these women, "And you're an inspiration to all of us."
Written by Liz Dwyer aka Los Angelista.
This post is sponsored by Lean Cuisine.
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