Like a rollercoaster that you just can’t get off, grief comes with spasmodic dive drops, half-twist turns, sudden jolts and a scream escaping from the hollowed depths of your soul.

Grief moves in and out of stages from disbelief and denial, to anger and guilt, to finding a source of comfort, to eventually adjusting to the loss. It is normal for both the dying person and the survivors to experience grief.

For survivors, the grieving process can take months, even years. The challenge of accepting death and dying as the end stage of life is what the grieving process is all about. (source: John Hopkins Medicine)

Anticipatory Grief is perhaps the most difficult. Knowing that you’re on borrowed time is a crushing experience. For the dying, such as those diagnosed with chronic or terminal illness, accepting death is just as agonising as for those who will be left behind.

So, how to spend my very limited time?

It was the question Randy Pausch asked himself when diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in 2006. What was more devastating was when he was told he had 3-6 months to live after a failed treatment.

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand,” wrote Randy in his autobiographical book The Last Lecture that he co-authored with Jeffrey Zaslow. 

 The computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon could have easily felt sorry for himself, his three young kids (then ages 6, 3 and 1) and wife.

“That wouldn’t do them, or me, any good. So, how to spend my very limited time? The most obvious part is being with, and taking care of, my family. While I still can, I embrace every moment with them, and do logistical things to ease their path into life without me. The least obvious part is how to teach my children what I would have taught them over the next twenty years,” he wrote.

When leaving or retiring from the university, many Carnegie Mellon professors are asked to give a talk for its ‘The Last Lecture’ series, where they’re asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. What wisdom would they impart to the world if they knew it was their last chance? 

Randy didn’t have to imagine it was his last chance. He already knew his days were numbered. He delivered his last lecture titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” in September 2007. He turned his last lecture into a book titled The Last Lecture, which was released in April 2008. It stayed for more than 85 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. He passed away on July 25, 2008 at the age of 47.

“I want the kids to know who I am, what I’ve always believed in, and all the ways in which I’ve come to love them. Given their ages, so much of this would be over their heads,” he ruminated.

Randy filled his lecture and book with stories about his childhood, his dreams as well as the dreams he had for his children and the many things he wanted to tell them.

“It pains me to think that when they’re older, they won’t have a father. When I cry in the shower […] I’m focused more on what they’re going to lose than what I’m going to lose […] The bigger part of me grieves for them.”

In his limited time, he built a separate list of his memories of each of them while he could still spend time with them. He took his eldest Dylan on a mini-vacation to swim with the dolphins and took lots of photos, did a trip to Disney World with Logan, a place Randy knew his middle child would love as much as he did.

“I’m aware that Chloe [who was just a baby then] may have no memory of me at all. She’s too young. But I want her to grow up knowing that I was the first man ever to fall in love with her.”

On his 47th birthday, his wife, Jai, wrestled with the question: “What do you get the one you love for his last birthday?”

“Cancer has given me the time to have vital conversations with Jai that wouldn’t be possible if my fate were a heart attack or a car accident […] We’ve cried together in bed, fallen back asleep, woken up and cried some more. We’ve gotten through in part by focusing on the tasks at hand. We can’t fall to pieces. We’ve got to get some sleep, because one of us has to get up in the morning and give the kids breakfast. That person, for the record, is always Jai,” he narrated.

“Many cancer patients say their illness gives them a new and deeper appreciation for life. Some say they are grateful for their disease. I have no such gratitude although I’m grateful for having advance notice of my death. In addition to allowing me to prepare my family for the future, that time gave me the chance to go to Carnegie Mellon and give my last lecture. In a sense, it allowed me to leave the field under my own power.”

Winding down his last lecture, he told his audience, “The talk wasn’t just for those in the room. It was for my kids.”  

His last slide was a photo of him standing by their swing set, holding a smiling Logan with his right arm and sweet Chloe with his left, Dylan sitting happily on his shoulder.

Where do I go from here?

Nicol and Tom* had been life partners for 20 years. A typical DINKS (double income no kids) couple, they were the perfect Ying-Yang match, two halves that mutually formed the wholeness of Qi. Their relatively quiet life in their charming apartment in San Francisco (California) shattered when Tom, suffering from an debilitating stomach ache, was rushed to the emergency room on 21 December 2021. He never left the hospital. Diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer, he passed away two weeks later. He was 54.

“I was lost. I felt numbed. It was surreal. Suddenly, I was alone. My body shut down and went on autopilot. I vaguely remember going home from the hospital the day he died. I opened the fridge to get water and the first thing I saw was his leftover food from his breakfast the day I rushed him to the ER,” Nicol recalled. “I absentmindedly picked up Buji, our cat, and told her daddy Tom passed away, that he’s with God and his angels, that he’ll be watching us from up there. I think Buji understood because she didn’t leave my side that night.”

Someone once said, “Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.”

When Tom was moved from the ER to the ICU, Nicol instinctively knew he was on borrowed time. The sight of Tom wired to the dialysis machine and four IVs was excruciating during Nicol’s daily 12-hour vigil.

“I would have stayed 24/7 if not for the hospital’s strict 8:00 am-8:00 pm visiting hours policy,” Nicol said. “What I regret most is not being by his side at the time of his death… not seeing him catch his last breath. I regret not being around him enough... not doing things with him like travelling to my hometown to show him the place where I grew up. There is so much regret that I don’t think I’ll move on from it.”

Grief changes you. It forces you to re-examine what is important to you and your sense of identity as you navigate through the maze of your new reality.

Nicol continued: “It was more difficult after he passed away. Tom was the one planning everything. He knew exactly when to retire, where to go after retirement, how much money he needed to save to enjoy our retirement, etc. I would tell him I’d just go with his plans.

“So within the first month after his death I wasn’t grieving that much yet because I was trying to figure out what’s next for me, and if I’ll ever be normal again. A big part of me was taken. To this date I am not sure what the future would look like for me.

“Where do I go from here? Do I leave the job that I really love and move to my mom’s place in Sacramento (California)?  Go back to my hometown Manila? What should I do?

“There was no chance for me to really grieve right away. I had to put my grieving on hold. I had tasks to do. While I grappled with the endless questions, I had to find legal documents to file for insurance, office benefits, banks, corporate stocks etc. I didn’t know his passwords to his computer and bank accounts. The paperwork alone was so nerve-wracking.”

“To be honest I cried more when Tom was in the hospital than after he died. To this day I never had a good cry and I wanted that so bad. Some days are good, and some really bad. There’s not a day that I don’t miss him. There are days when I’d just lie in bed for hours staring blankly at the ceiling. There are also a lot of triggers. Thanksgiving and Christmas were most difficult… I can’t describe the loneliness and emptiness I felt for the first time.”

Survival mode

 It’s only been less than two months since Tom’s demise. Nicol’s been caught in a whirlwind of pain and emotions but somehow manages to get up, dress up and face each day.

“Grief has taught me that everyone around you will feel sad and sorry for you for about two weeks, but they will move on, and you are stuck in the same place.

“It also taught me that you really can't tell how much people are grieving from their physical appearance. People don’t walk with ‘I am grieving’ written on their forehead. So it’s important when you know someone who lost a loved one to reach out to them. Ask them how they’re coping. Take them to dinner or happy hour drinks. I’m lucky to have good friends and family who are checking on me constantly up to this day. It helps me feel that I am not alone and that people around me care.

“It’s important that we grieve in our own way. Just go with it. Cry when you feel like crying. There is no right or wrong way to grieve.

“Having a routine helps. Going to work and keeping myself busy are good distractions. I also talk to Tom everyday like he’s just around the house. I have conversations with him, feeling his presence and knowing that he can hear me give me comfort. That’s my way of staying connected with him.

“Have friends and family that you can call whenever you feel like talking. I’m lucky that I have people on my speed dial who are ready to listen to me no matter what the time of the day is. Having our cat Buji around is comforting.

“Talking to a therapist and watching some TED series where people talk about their experiences somehow helps me, knowing that the grief I’m feeling is ‘normal’ and that at some point I will move on from grief… and move forward with it.”

 Debbie | ws

*Names changed as requested for privacy reasons

 Resources: Randy Pausch Last Lecture | Grief and Loss | Grieving The Loss Of A Person Still Living | 8 Coping Mechanisms To Heal From Grief | How your brain copes with grief, and why it takes time to heal