.SOMETIMES RAW.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine needed me to check on her husband, Michael, to make sure he had not killed himself.

Earlier that evening, Michael (the ex-husband) had confessed to my friend that he had been entangled in a two-year-long sexual affair. His mistress was pregnant, and she was probably keeping the baby. Michael was a doctor, and she was originally his patient, and he was likely going to get fired from his practice because his medical partner had caught them sixty-nine-ing in an exam room. As if the story couldn’t get any more scandalous, Michael was also likely going to lose his medical license because the partner was pissed.

Upon being punched in the gut with this shocking and horrifying news, my friend packed up their daughter, checked into a hotel, and told Michael to jump off a cliff and die. Then, a few hours later, she called me worried that Michael would actually do the thing she commanded, and jump off a cliff (or more likely a bridge) and die.

She was too angry to check on him herself, and it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you could bother the police with at this point she said, so she assigned the job to me.

So I left and was prepared for a tough scene. I didn’t think I would find a cold body or anything, but I assumed Michael would be inconsolable, unrecognisable, and incoherent. He had, in one night, lost everything: his wife, his daughter, his work, his future, his name, his legacy, his money. It is still crazy to me how one bad decision (to keep your dick in your pants) can murder your entire life, and yet, we flawed humans never learn.

When I banged on Michael’s door, hoping he was not hanging from the chandelier, I also hoped he would not want to talk about what had happened.

I knocked again and again. Nothing.

Suddenly things got real. What if Michael wasn’t going to kill himself, but he was going to kill me? I mean, according to my friend, he was a “fucking” sociopath. Or maybe he was the murder-suicide type. I didn’t really know him but he could definitely be a monster.

Finally, I heard some commotion inside. Then I heard footsteps coming. And suddenly the door swung open and there was Michael. No slit wrists. No bloodstained goodbye note. Just Dr. Cheater, drinking beer, chitchatting with his girlfriend on the phone.

“Hey, you!” he said nearly buoyantly to me. “Sorry. I had to put a shirt on. I thought you were the burrito guy.” Burritos? “Uh, nope. No burritos,” I replied voter cautiously. “I was just checking on you.”

Michael told his girlfriend he would call her right back. Then he came out and we sat on his doorsteps in front of the apartment. Stylish. According to Michael, he and my friend had been planning to get divorced for several years. She started throwing around the D-bomb right after they got married, like seven years ago. He only started the affair after they agreed to basically “fake” their marriage for the sake of their daughter, until she went to school. In other words, according to Michael, this marriage was totally over. So, he met someone else who lit up his life, and he felt free to go for it. There wasn’t much guilt involved, for him. As for his work repercussions, the aftermath wasn’t nearly as fatalistic as my friend had made it sound.

We have all heard the expression, “There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth.” His side of the story was very different from hers.

My friend: I was sick to my stomach, wondering if he was going to jump off the bridge or shoot himself in the head.

Michael: It was a very stressful situation. The Burrito Shack had the chunkier guacamole, but Mama Mexican delivers those crunchy tacos…..

The reality is, both sides of a breakup is a creative exploration that doesn’t make a dent in understanding how or why a relationship decays. If love is the greatest mystery of all, then death is even more inexplicable. We are hardwired to be, at once, fixated on our hearts and completely dumbfounded by what lives inside them. That’s just the way it is. No wonder love makes us insane.

Unlocking the details of a bad breakup might help with self-growth or self-compassion, but it won’t make saying goodbye, or letting go, any easier. But I say goodbye to my wild 20s and the jazz-saxophone-guy who couldn’t keep it in his pants; the CEO with his tragic cheating habits; the artist who had a minor stroke every time he ejaculated; that guy who liked the feeling of my feet on his penis a little too much; the rabbinical guy who just wanted to snuggle; the recovering sex addict who didn’t seem so recovered; the dog walker who reeked of beer and weed; the banker who was into Botox injections; the perfect man….. with the micropenis (because of course); the army guy whose penis was so big that no one could possibly have sex with him; and the Russian who, after a morning-after coffee, said he had to go “poo-poo-ca-ca” and I couldn’t so much as look at him again.

I am making peace with it all even though closure is for real estate, not love stories.

* I receive many emails on a daily basis and I sometimes wonder why certain phrases are used to start email exchanges. Here I will share some email highlights and how I interpreted or responded to them:

“I hope this email finds you well”

Did the email look for me?

Glad, the email found me.

But I was hiding so well. Damn you, email !!!

“To whom it may concern”

Nobody will read this in a timely matter.

Who will even get this email?

What about if nobody is concerned? Will I ever get a response?

“Trust this e-note meets you well”

Why? What is this even supposed to mean?

“….Urgent!”

Take at least one day to respond.

Start the email with “I hope this email finds you well”

Respond to all other emails first.

“Per My Last Email”

As you all can see,

I have already done this.

Read my damn emails!

“Reply to All”

Seriously, guys!

Who is Xiau Li in HR?

Congrats, you successfully cc’d everyone, so everyone knows I messed up.

“Pre-Meeting Reminder”

I will not attend.

Because I don’t want to attend.

Have fun without me!

“Just a (friendly) Reminder”

Hello, are you there?

You are wasting my fucking time.

Answer me, okay?

“Excellent Idea”

Let’s hear from others.

You are hogging (take or use most or all of something in an unfair or selfish way) the meeting.

Please stop talking, Jay.

“No Worries If I cannot get back to You with the PowerPoint Presentation today!”

But I am worried.

I need the final slide damnit.

Do your fucking job.

“Mental Health Day Participation Request”

If it is bad timing, I can move this new breakdown, and sob at my desk.

I already did this.

Is it mandatory?

“You Must Have Missed That”

I didn’t miss it. I just don’t care.

Your request doesn’t matter.

I will reply never.

“Let Me Check My Agenda”

I cannot do it.

Stop asking me to do it.

I don’t want to do it, okay?

“How Are You?”

I super do not care.

Oh, wow, another get-together?

Just murder me, please.

“I will get back to you as soon as possible”

Get ready to wait.

Prepare another email “friendly reminder”

Yesterday we buried my grandmother which was almost as bad as the day she died. Happiness and good cheer felt like distant memories. They felt like something I had lost when she died. But my grandma knew that even in the darkest times, we can still laugh; we can still smile. Those are the times we need it the most. Smiles and laughter may feel uncomfortable because it may seem like you are moving on or forgetting about her. But it only means that you are learning how to live with loss.

Death requires you to reconfigure your expectations around pleasure and joy. Things that previously brought you joy when your loved one was still alive – mundane things such as getting a promotion, having your nails done, or watching a soccer game – may now be tinged with sadness or nostalgia because your grandmother, partner, or mother isn’t here with you anymore. I absolutely do not advise a “fake it till you make it” approach. It may seem counterintuitive, but to access your joy, you must sit with your grief while allowing natural moments or respite. Cry when you feel like it, shout, whatever makes you feel better.

Everybody deals with death differently. A friend told me when she lost her mother and came back home to her apartment, all she was thinking about was survival. She had to remind herself to eat. She was wildly anxious and depressed, and kept asking herself, “How am I going to get through this? Am I going to get through this?” Those were the two questions running through her brain 24 hours a day. She wasn’t ready to talk about her grief or share memories of her dead mother with her friends or family. She needed a break from it all, but she didn’t even know how to express that.

My grandmother had a hard life with tons of work and lots of suffering. Things turned around when she found the love of her life in her early 70s. She enjoyed many years with him by her side before she got sick. And then she got really sick. And then she fell asleep and never woke up again.

If you are going to live a full life of loss, you have to find a way back to joy. Through all of her physical pain, my grandmother was able to access joy. Experiencing joy for most people is often the simplest thing. My grandmother didn’t have a lot financially, but she saved little bits of money throughout the year to fund her joy, which generally centred around celebrations and giving to others. Rarely to splurge on herself. She did whatever she needed to make it happen, even if making it happen simply involved sitting in a wheelchair, or even a hospital bed, bossing the rest of us around in her way that we are all familiar with. She understood on a cellular level that no matter how hard life is, no matter how much grief or trauma you are forced to manage, life is still meant to be lived. My grandmother literally fell asleep while having breakfast. In her last conversation with me she told me, “Daniela, it is time to go. It is time!” I cried and was rather rude and told her that this is not the time yet and that she should remain positive. She just smiled, we said we love each other and she hung up. I felt deep inside that this was our last conversation. Four days later, she passed away. Her commitment to joy is my inheritance.

My son sat next to me in the funeral home today and wiped away my tears when I cried. Bless his heart. His love was exactly what I needed at that time. He smiled at me and whispered, “Mommy, grandma is at a better place now. No more pain. And she can float on a cloud. How awesome is that?”

If you ask those who knew my grandmother what they remember most about her, they will tell you about her smile, how she was able to take over a room with her craziness and funny behaviour, and how generous she was. She was always smiling. Even in the end, smiling-through-the-pain kind of way, but in a way that was genuine and full of love. In the end, she was sick often and honest about her struggles. She knew joy was essential to her survival and any tiny chance of healing.

So, at lunch after the funeral, we raised our glasses to grandma. We smiled and made a couple of jokes. Jokes she would have made. We deserve joy, even if it is at times tinged with grief. Experiencing joy, even in hard times, is one of the many ways I continue to love her. Remembering the good times as much as the bad times.

I hope people get to live a life with purpose and joy. Part of that purpose and even part of that joy is to allow yourself to contemplate the end of your life. I hope people use this article as an opportunity to talk about their worries and hopes and decisions for their end of life and not just feel that this is so terrible to contemplate that the best solution is to not talk about it at all. Facing the end of life together is hard, and nobody does it perfectly; elegance and ease are not required. Being honest is what’s needed.

I miss her. Her noise and the energy and the fun. And the love. She was a very loving person. This was not a cold character; this was a very warm, engaged person. I still feel her presence, but I miss her being in the world.