February 13, 2025 • 28 mins
Former Real Housewife of New York Dorinda Medley hosts an episode of Let's Be Clear that will have you smiling and crying at the same time.She shares her deepest thoughts on being by her husband's side until the day he lost his battle with cancer.Find out why she says grief is a gift, what the loss of a loved one teaches you, and the poem that helped her through the toughest time of her life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Dorny.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi, Let's be clear listeners. I am so honored to
be here today. My name is Drenda medlady, and you
probably know me from the Bravo World, The Real Health
Face in New York City, Ultimate Girls Trip, and of
course now Traders, and I feel very honored to be
hosting this episode of Let's Be Clear. I never had
(00:29):
the opportunity to meet Shannon Dorty, but I know that
she was an incredible actress. I was a huge fan,
as was many and I thought it was amazing the
way she was able to talk about her journey with
the battling cancer and share it and help other people
that are going through something similar, any sort of you know,
(00:50):
death or grief or battling any kind of illness. And
I thought, like so many people that have gone through this,
it was important for me to come on and talk
about my journey with dealing with the loss of someone
you love through sickness and just talk about grief a
little bit, and how do we manage grief and is
(01:13):
grief something that we should talk about?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Is grief? Is grief a dirty word?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I felt a little bit like that after Richard passed,
I felt like I was embarrassed or ashamed or kind
of had to keep it to myself. And I really
love the fact that when I was able to have
a moment with Carol on the show and we both
had this similar experience of losing a partner and a husband,
that it just opened up such a beautiful conversation with
(01:41):
the world, and I just thought the response was incredible.
So for me, I believe grief is something that you
sadly have to become friends with. It's one friend that
you're going to visit at some point in your life.
No one gets away from it, the loss of a
family member, were a partner, a pet, any loved ones.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Grief is gonna come to.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
You one day and you're gonna have to deal take
that journey and learn how to deal with it and
talk about it and get comfortable with it and try
to understand it, and if you're lucky, find others that
you can share the experience with.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So I think that it's important.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
In psychology, they talk about the five stages of briefing, denial, angle, bargaining, depression,
and acceptance. And I really do think, you know, I
didn't do a ton of therapy after Richard passed. I
did a lot of my therapy on the journey. While
he was passing. I had a lot of very honest
(02:47):
conversations with Richard, which I think is very important. I
think the best thing you can do when you are
in the midst of being and shepherding someone to the
end of their life is that you have to be
uncomfortably honest with each other. You know, you can't let
fear take over, and you can't let and you can't
(03:08):
be in denial over the inevitable, because it gives both
parties peace and being Richard's caretaker till the end, you know,
I felt like I had a lot of closure and
I did a lot of the work that I needed
to do to then prepare myself for the grieving part
of him no longer being part of me. So I
(03:30):
do think that when you are dealing with someone that's
ill and go, you know, not going to make it,
that you have to have some very honest conversations and
it puts both parties at peace. And it really is
a beautiful thing. Because I once told someone that I think,
(03:50):
beside you know, being intimate with Richard physically, the most
intimate thing I had with Richard was our conversations doing
his journey, you know, to the other side. So they
were just so one on one, so intense, so real,
with no outdoor outside noise. So I would urge anybody
(04:10):
that is going through this process of dealing with someone
or being with someone that's ill, and to converse with them,
ask questions, talk about their wants and needs, talk about
your wants and needs, you know, the caretaker. I would say,
when someone's dying, you're kind of you know, when someone's
sick and dying, you get sick too. Because it's very intense.
(04:33):
It's very intense, and not to be underrated. I think
the most challenging stage was the not knowing when it
was going to happen, knowing it was going to happen,
understanding that my husband wasn't going to get better, but
there was no timeline, so days and nights and weeks
(04:55):
just kind of ran into each other. And what happens
is because you're going through this, you don't have any
time for the outside world because it's all consuming.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So your world gets very.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Small, gets very organized, gets very focused, and the only
things I could focus on, we're getting up getting to Richard,
taking care of him and getting back home and taking
care of my daughter. And you know, I didn't have
time for frivolity. I really didn't have time for fun.
Not that it wasn't there, and not that people didn't
reach out, but you get into such a mindset and
(05:30):
such a focus to make sure that you can because
you never know when it's gonna happen. So that's very frustrating,
I think for a caretaker, because each day is on repeat,
rinch wash repeat, rinch wash repeat. So I thought this
the journeying with him, you know, everybody gets very tired,
and I don't think you should be embarrassed as a
(05:51):
caretaker say I'm tired and I don't want to do
this anymore, and and like when is this.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Going to happen? And I know that sounds terrible, but
it's part of it.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
You know, we want caretakers and we want people in
grief to be one certain way. There's sort of a
description about how you must be or what it must
look like, or how you must react and when you
must start dating, and there's not there's no rule book
for this. You don't understand it till you're in it
(06:21):
and you don't know how to deal with it till
you're in it. And for each person it's an individual experience.
So that's what I would say about that. Here is
the good news and the bad news about a major
loss in your life. The bad news is very clear
what it is. You lose someone you love it and
for me it was really the first time besides grandparents
(06:45):
and things that were sort of a natural step of
a journey of becoming an adult. You know, you lose
your grandparents, it's very sad, but you'd understand it and
you move on.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
But when you lose someone suddenly, and you lose someone
you very deeply, you love, very deeply, it changes you forever.
It's a scar, it's a definite scar, and you are like, wow,
the world looks different now, like this really does happen.
And you don't get a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
You know, they if they pass on a Thursday, your
Thursday night is when your new life starts, your new
world starts. And there's a lot of first after someone
dies that you just are so jarring. Like when you
wake up it's the first time you know that you
wake up alone.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It's the first.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Time you realize you're not gonna have coffee with them again.
It's the first time where you look at their clothes
in the closet and realize they're never going to be
warned again. It's the first time you're thinking about paying bills.
Everything becomes a first because now it's just you. So
I think that is really an amazing thing. I mean,
(07:57):
and it takes a long time. Grief takes a long time.
I was to someone yesterday they said, you know, one
of the biggest questions I get about grief is how
long does it take?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Like when will I feel better? And my answer to
that always is is that grief never goes away. It
just doesn't. It's you know, it's so big.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
In the beginning, it's so overwhelming, and it just like
blocks out everything else. But over time, as you kind
of do the obvious things of you know, rearranging how
your living space and get start to go out more
and meet new people. And I think a lot of
times I found this that a lot of times people
(08:41):
don't end up hanging around with the same people they
did before. Sometimes it's just too painful. You know, when
you were once a couple, you're now as single and
it's easier to just go out and sort of recreate yourself.
You know, not that your family and your really close
friends don't stay close, but you sort of create a
new world and you start to slow. You have to
go inward before you go outward. It's almost like you
(09:03):
have to become a plant that has to you know,
recede themselves back in the soil, and you come out
a different flower a little bit, and you you know,
you start to have new experiences, new first new, first
time going on a holiday together, and you start to
realize it's not so bad, and you start to have
big all kinds of people around you. And you know,
(09:25):
for me, I started doing television and that opened up
a big world.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
So it's not that the grief went away.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's that I started to get bigger and bigger, so
the grief became a little less. But there are always
trick rea moments, and you know, I have them a
lot because I feel like I'm very connected. I mean,
of course the holidays.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You always feel these trickery moments when you visit them
where you think they're resting, you know, in the rest place.
For me, I go visit Richard at his gravesite, or
when you just have a moment with a smell or
a song or something comes in there, the immediate hensity
waves back into you for a moment. But each time
that happens, it gets it goes from being overwhelmingly terrible
(10:08):
to a gift. And I did say to someone that,
you know, grief is kind of a gift because you
until you experienced grief and go through it, you know,
you don't realize that you really were so connected to
someone and you had this love so much for this
person and this devotion, and you watched him journey through
(10:32):
his whole life. You were privy to that moment in
his life when.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
He left this earth that you know, it's a beautiful
gift to have to have had that, because without that
much love and without that much devotion, and with that
much knowledge of knowing that you know, things do come
to an end, you can't be so appreciative. I'm so appreciative,
(10:58):
I'm more. I'm not more, or I'm just as much
appreciative of the life that I had with Richard and
the love I had with Richard.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Like it was, it just was. It was an amazing thing.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So to experience this grief and to know it's because
a byproduct of something incredibly beautiful, wouldn't I wouldn't trade
it again. I was someone said you could do it
all over again, but it wasn't Richard. You married someone else,
but they lived. I'll be honest with you, I don't know.
I'd probably do it all over again with Richard because
he lives with me forever. Going back to like I said,
(11:35):
the grief, I don't think ever really goes away. You know,
it doesn't work like that. It's a it's like love
doesn't ever go away. Love is just forever, right, So
grief doesn't go away. But I think, you know, there's
a lot of weirdness around grief. There's a lot of
(11:55):
uncomfortableness for people. I don't know if it's if it
taps into their mortality. So you know, a lot of
people try to just work through it. They try to
just like not deal with it by dealing with it.
And what I mean by that talking about it, feeling it,
(12:16):
sharing it, and the people around you that aren't willing
to journey with you, to do that as much as
they would journey with you in a love affair, they
have to journey with you here, and it's a really
great time in your life to realize who really is
part of your tribe, who really loves you, who really
is going to stick by you, because you do have
(12:38):
to journey through it.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You don't get over it.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
It's not like a you know, a headache or a
broken ankle.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It's part of the fabric of your life.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now. If your life is a quilt and there's all
kinds of different patches in the quilt, you know, there's
a happy patch in the patch where you had a daughter,
and then the pature you got married about you got divorced,
the patch for this happened in this patch of good
colors and bad colors and happy colors and sad colors.
This becomes one of the patches. And you have to
(13:09):
honor that part of your quilt because it's going to
be there forever and it makes up who you are now.
So if people don't accept that, and people won't journey
with you through it and listen and let you talk
about it as many times as you want to, and
they really aren't part of your quilt. I can tell
you that for a fact. When somebody said to me once,
(13:31):
I'm so sick and tired of herring about Richard, and
I chose to never speak to that person again, not
just for the reason that they said it and it
really pissed me off, but because I just thought it
was the most horrifically insensitive thing, because it almost was
said to shame the person, and you're already sensitive to
(13:53):
it because you're now in this unique group called the
grievers Club that you know, the secret society that I
thought it was very very cool when they said this,
So if anyone doesn't feel like they will sit and
chat with you and help you with the healing process
where you get through it and you really.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Can't have them in your life.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I think that the grieving process changes everybody for the better,
and I think that's because you realize that so few
things are important, so few things are worth you getting
upset about, that life is really precious, and that you
(14:47):
get to really when you have suffered loss, you really
get to understand that it's real, like everybody is going
to pass away one day. There's there gonna be a
day you wake up with one you love is not
going to be there. And if you know this, you
tend to be more compassionate forgiving understanding. It's very humanizing
(15:13):
to go through loss and go through grief, and you
just don't waste your time dealing with a lot of
bullshit because in that split second when that person leaves you,
there's no going back, so.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You better make sure all that. I always say.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
That's why every single day I try to call my parents,
ever redebting, because if I did call them and the
next morning something happened, because I know that could happen.
I always leave things on a good note with people.
I try to always leave things on a good note
with it. I love you, I try to acknowledge people.
I try to see people and see the world because
(15:52):
you never know, and grief lets you know that you
are on a timeline and everybody around you is on
a timeline. So I think there's a much bigger appreciation
for life and love and things and experiences and seasons.
I mean, every time a season comes, I think, oh,
I'm so lucky to see this fall.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Look at that another Christmas. Oh my god, spring is
here again, and the flowers are coming up, the rebirth
of the flowers. So I think you get that bit
of appreciativeness being a caretaker. I think I'm a natural
candidate for being a caretaker, So when I took down
the rule of being the caretaker came very naturally. But
(16:34):
what it did in the situation of being a caretaker
for Richard was that now that my parents are older,
or now that there's situations where I have to deal
with my parents who are elderly, once you've gone through it,
the panic is gone, because the fear is the fear
of the unknown is gone. And I think it's made
me more calm about dealing with situations and not being
(16:57):
afraid to deal with the situations, being very honest about them.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I think that a lot of people go into situations
and they only want to hear the positiveness of it.
But I think when you've gone, you've journeyed with someone
until they move on to the next world, is that
you you get very realistic very fast, because you're put
in a position to make decisions that are sometimes difficult,
(17:28):
to witness things that are very difficult, and you know,
I think when you're once you've been a caretaker, you
become much more realistic about life and realistic about expectations.
So and I just think it makes you a little
more sensitive, you know, makes you much more sensitive to
(17:50):
and that's everyone at the end of the day is
the same. Like we go through life thinking, you know,
this one's this and this one's that, but that at
the end of the day, when it really comes to
the end, we're really just all the same. And usually
it's a you know, I thought, I remember thinking about
Richard at the end.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
You know, he's in that backless pair of pajamas. And
I said to the person before they after he'd passed,
I said, can we just keep his ring on for
the night, and they said, nope, you can't even keep
your wedding ring on. I thought, that's really it. We
come in one way and we leave the same way, So,
you know, makes you very real, right I say, I
(18:31):
would say one hundred percent that I appreciate life more
because of what I went through. It's made me less fearful.
It's made me much more aware of what this body
really is, that it's just a body.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I'm not afraid. I'm not even so afraid of my
I used to think when I was younger a person,
Oh my god, I could never deal with my parents leeping.
I could never deal with it. But now I know
that they don't leave. I know that this is just
a like a plant, like I'm I'm in love with
my parents' soul.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I'm in love with their hearts. They have instilled such
love in me. I'm in love with Richard and his soul.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Richard is just with me now in a different form,
and I have access to them all the time now,
So yes, it has has changed me. I don't I
don't think that they are stuck in some graveyard. I
don't think that they are stuck. I think they're everywhere now.
And you have this incredible ability to cumulatively call on them.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You can call on them. I call them my great grandparents.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I call them, you know, I can call it anyone
now because I know that I this is the body
just leaves, so we forever, forever more have their love
and you know, and their.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Soul is around me somewhere.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
So and also I know it sounds corny, but I
know one day that they'll come get me, like all
that fear will happen. I'm gonna feel it's gonna I
know someone's gonna come get me. If it's Richard, my parents,
my grandparents, all of them together, my past dogs. I'm
sure they'll all come, I'm sure. Like in life where
I'm surrounded by people, I really believe it will be
(20:14):
the same with death. They'll just come and get me
and say, come on and join the party. You know,
cocktails a seven. You gotta come with us now. And
that makes me. That puts me at ease.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
See, lots of people can't let go of material things
because they have a sentimental attachment. I don't struggle with that.
I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I'm not a person that really gets overly attached to
sentimental things. You know, maybe a few specific things, like
I have a picture of Richard that I keep in
my bedroom here in New York. And but I don't
believe that if God forbid something happen like the la
fires and all that, you wouldn't I would feel bad.
But I think all you need is right here, is
(20:58):
in your heart. It's great to have sentimental things. They
serve as reminders. But I'm not someone that gets really
stuck on all that stuff. I don't get beholden to them.
You know, I just lost something recently, very important, and
I just one day woke up and said, it's just
a thing, you know, I can't get to There's so
(21:20):
much more that I could lose that's so much more important.
And I always think when you lose something, you should
always say, you know, I hope someone really fantastic found
it and has it and needs it more than I
needed it, because.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
I have to. I do believe in that. I think
that life.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I do believe that you should jump into life like
a swimming pool, like my swimming pool in the Berkshires.
I think that it's very important that you should take
on life, jump in feet first, experience it. Don't say no,
because when you've been through this and you when you
do lose someone you love and you do go through
(21:58):
this period of brief and stuff, you realize the old
saying's true, life is short and you should be be
open and not fearful. You should be open to new
experiences and new people and just jump into that cold
water feet first. Come from a place of yes, you
(22:18):
never know who you're gonna meet. Don't be too hung
up about what happened yesterday. Certainly, don't get too hung
up of what was going to happen tomorrow, because God
knows that could all change in a second, and just
embrace this beautiful short time that we have on earth.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, like jumping into too a cold pool feet first.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So I want to just say a couple other things
that I want to read, something that I send to
everybody that.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Stuff yourself. I just want to say, give yourself for
those of you that are.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Going through the process and of battling with an illness,
for those of you taking care of someone that's battling,
for those of you that have lost someone you know,
be very kind to yourself. Surround yourself with really good people.
Stay healthy, because I think there's a tendency to get
(23:18):
for the caretaker, it's a tendency to get sick and
get tired out.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Make sure you take care of yourself. Make still sure
you still do stuff for yourself, Make sure you get sleep,
Try to be engaged with your family. For those that
have suffered lost and are going through grief, be gentle
with yourself because it takes a minute and there's no
(23:44):
right or wrong way. You know, feel free to cry,
Feel free to talk to them, Feel free to be
angry if you need to, if you want to, if
you feel it's important for you, go speak to a professional.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I always think that's great. Surround yourself by loving people.
Keep your life. You know, it's kind of simple for
a while while you're refiguring out this new thing called
a life without this person. But most of all, be
kind to yourself and allow yourself to go through the process.
(24:23):
And I promise you, I promise you it does. It's
like it's a wild thing. You know, it's like a
wild storm that's so crazy, and you just can't see
through the storm and you don't know which way to turn,
and you can't see life behind it. And then you know,
you wake up and the storm is stopped, and maybe
it's still raining. But then you wake up and then
(24:44):
there's no rain, and then you wake up and you
know it's a little bit sunny. And then you wake
up and it's maybe even a lot of bit sunny,
and you find yourself. I remember about six four months
after Richard passed, I was somewhere I would say this
to someone, allow yourself to do this. I was somewhere
and I ran into someone on the street and they
(25:05):
told me something and I started laughing, and I remember thinking,
you can't bus like that's not part of the thing anymore,
Like you've got to and you can you can start
laughing and loving and dating and doing whatever you want
to do or need to do to get through this grief.
(25:25):
And I don't care if it's a day later, a
week later, a month later, a year later. This is
your journey. It's no one else's business. No one should
have an opinion about it unless they are there to
shepherd you through the whole thing. They can't make decisions
about who you want to see, who you want to date.
Just do whatever it takes to make you happy and
(25:48):
get through it because people will have a lot of
opinion with very little application.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
So that's don't want to say about that. But I
just want to read this poem now.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
I this palm I haven't actually laminated up in the
Berkshire in cards, and I send it to people and
you can use it or not use it. But let's
let me just say that it's one of my favorite
poems ever. Someone gave it to me after Richard passed,
actually one of Richard's friend's oldest friends in Washington. It's
by Henry Scott holland was written in eighteen forty seven.
(26:22):
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I
have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and
you are you, and the old life that we live
so fondly together is untouched and unchanged. Whatever we were
to each other that we are still are. Call me
(26:46):
by my old familiar name. Speak of me in the
easy way which you always used. Put no difference in
your tone, where no furforced air, solemnity or sorrow, as
we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile,
(27:06):
think of me, Pray for me. Let it be spoken
without an effort, without the ghost of the shadow upon it.
Life means all it is ever meant to each of us.
It is the same as it ever was. There is
absolute and unspoken continuity. What is this death but a
(27:29):
negligible accident.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Why should I be out of your mind because I
am out of your sight. I am but here waiting
for you for an interval, somewhere very now near, just
round the corner in the other room, and all as well.
So that's what I think.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Everyone I loved, everyone I lost, They're just around the
corner in the other room. And that's all I want
to say about that. Thank you for having me today.
It was such an honor to be here to all
the let's be clear listeners, stay strong and stay healthy
and stay loving.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I'm during the methi and that's what I have to
say about that. M M
This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Dorny.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi, Let's be clear listeners. I am so honored to
be here today. My name is Drenda medlady, and you
probably know me from the Bravo World, The Real Health
Face in New York City, Ultimate Girls Trip, and of
course now Traders, and I feel very honored to be
hosting this episode of Let's Be Clear. I never had
(00:29):
the opportunity to meet Shannon Dorty, but I know that
she was an incredible actress. I was a huge fan,
as was many and I thought it was amazing the
way she was able to talk about her journey with
the battling cancer and share it and help other people
that are going through something similar, any sort of you know,
(00:50):
death or grief or battling any kind of illness. And
I thought, like so many people that have gone through this,
it was important for me to come on and talk
about my journey with dealing with the loss of someone
you love through sickness and just talk about grief a
little bit, and how do we manage grief and is
(01:13):
grief something that we should talk about?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Is grief? Is grief a dirty word?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I felt a little bit like that after Richard passed,
I felt like I was embarrassed or ashamed or kind
of had to keep it to myself. And I really
love the fact that when I was able to have
a moment with Carol on the show and we both
had this similar experience of losing a partner and a husband,
that it just opened up such a beautiful conversation with
(01:41):
the world, and I just thought the response was incredible.
So for me, I believe grief is something that you
sadly have to become friends with. It's one friend that
you're going to visit at some point in your life.
No one gets away from it, the loss of a
family member, were a partner, a pet, any loved ones.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Grief is gonna come to.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
You one day and you're gonna have to deal take
that journey and learn how to deal with it and
talk about it and get comfortable with it and try
to understand it, and if you're lucky, find others that
you can share the experience with.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So I think that it's important.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
In psychology, they talk about the five stages of briefing, denial, angle, bargaining, depression,
and acceptance. And I really do think, you know, I
didn't do a ton of therapy after Richard passed. I
did a lot of my therapy on the journey. While
he was passing. I had a lot of very honest
(02:47):
conversations with Richard, which I think is very important. I
think the best thing you can do when you are
in the midst of being and shepherding someone to the
end of their life is that you have to be
uncomfortably honest with each other. You know, you can't let
fear take over, and you can't let and you can't
(03:08):
be in denial over the inevitable, because it gives both
parties peace and being Richard's caretaker till the end, you know,
I felt like I had a lot of closure and
I did a lot of the work that I needed
to do to then prepare myself for the grieving part
of him no longer being part of me. So I
(03:30):
do think that when you are dealing with someone that's
ill and go, you know, not going to make it,
that you have to have some very honest conversations and
it puts both parties at peace. And it really is
a beautiful thing. Because I once told someone that I think,
(03:50):
beside you know, being intimate with Richard physically, the most
intimate thing I had with Richard was our conversations doing
his journey, you know, to the other side. So they
were just so one on one, so intense, so real,
with no outdoor outside noise. So I would urge anybody
(04:10):
that is going through this process of dealing with someone
or being with someone that's ill, and to converse with them,
ask questions, talk about their wants and needs, talk about
your wants and needs, you know, the caretaker. I would say,
when someone's dying, you're kind of you know, when someone's
sick and dying, you get sick too. Because it's very intense.
(04:33):
It's very intense, and not to be underrated. I think
the most challenging stage was the not knowing when it
was going to happen, knowing it was going to happen,
understanding that my husband wasn't going to get better, but
there was no timeline, so days and nights and weeks
(04:55):
just kind of ran into each other. And what happens
is because you're going through this, you don't have any
time for the outside world because it's all consuming.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So your world gets very.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Small, gets very organized, gets very focused, and the only
things I could focus on, we're getting up getting to Richard,
taking care of him and getting back home and taking
care of my daughter. And you know, I didn't have
time for frivolity. I really didn't have time for fun.
Not that it wasn't there, and not that people didn't
reach out, but you get into such a mindset and
(05:30):
such a focus to make sure that you can because
you never know when it's gonna happen. So that's very frustrating,
I think for a caretaker, because each day is on repeat,
rinch wash repeat, rinch wash repeat. So I thought this
the journeying with him, you know, everybody gets very tired,
and I don't think you should be embarrassed as a
(05:51):
caretaker say I'm tired and I don't want to do
this anymore, and and like when is this.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Going to happen? And I know that sounds terrible, but
it's part of it.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
You know, we want caretakers and we want people in
grief to be one certain way. There's sort of a
description about how you must be or what it must
look like, or how you must react and when you
must start dating, and there's not there's no rule book
for this. You don't understand it till you're in it
(06:21):
and you don't know how to deal with it till
you're in it. And for each person it's an individual experience.
So that's what I would say about that. Here is
the good news and the bad news about a major
loss in your life. The bad news is very clear
what it is. You lose someone you love it and
for me it was really the first time besides grandparents
(06:45):
and things that were sort of a natural step of
a journey of becoming an adult. You know, you lose
your grandparents, it's very sad, but you'd understand it and
you move on.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
But when you lose someone suddenly, and you lose someone
you very deeply, you love, very deeply, it changes you forever.
It's a scar, it's a definite scar, and you are like, wow,
the world looks different now, like this really does happen.
And you don't get a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
You know, they if they pass on a Thursday, your
Thursday night is when your new life starts, your new
world starts. And there's a lot of first after someone
dies that you just are so jarring. Like when you
wake up it's the first time you know that you
wake up alone.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It's the first.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Time you realize you're not gonna have coffee with them again.
It's the first time where you look at their clothes
in the closet and realize they're never going to be
warned again. It's the first time you're thinking about paying bills.
Everything becomes a first because now it's just you. So
I think that is really an amazing thing. I mean,
(07:57):
and it takes a long time. Grief takes a long time.
I was to someone yesterday they said, you know, one
of the biggest questions I get about grief is how
long does it take?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Like when will I feel better? And my answer to
that always is is that grief never goes away. It
just doesn't. It's you know, it's so big.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
In the beginning, it's so overwhelming, and it just like
blocks out everything else. But over time, as you kind
of do the obvious things of you know, rearranging how
your living space and get start to go out more
and meet new people. And I think a lot of
times I found this that a lot of times people
(08:41):
don't end up hanging around with the same people they
did before. Sometimes it's just too painful. You know, when
you were once a couple, you're now as single and
it's easier to just go out and sort of recreate yourself.
You know, not that your family and your really close
friends don't stay close, but you sort of create a
new world and you start to slow. You have to
go inward before you go outward. It's almost like you
(09:03):
have to become a plant that has to you know,
recede themselves back in the soil, and you come out
a different flower a little bit, and you you know,
you start to have new experiences, new first new, first
time going on a holiday together, and you start to
realize it's not so bad, and you start to have
big all kinds of people around you. And you know,
(09:25):
for me, I started doing television and that opened up
a big world.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
So it's not that the grief went away.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's that I started to get bigger and bigger, so
the grief became a little less. But there are always
trick rea moments, and you know, I have them a
lot because I feel like I'm very connected. I mean,
of course the holidays.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You always feel these trickery moments when you visit them
where you think they're resting, you know, in the rest place.
For me, I go visit Richard at his gravesite, or
when you just have a moment with a smell or
a song or something comes in there, the immediate hensity
waves back into you for a moment. But each time
that happens, it gets it goes from being overwhelmingly terrible
(10:08):
to a gift. And I did say to someone that,
you know, grief is kind of a gift because you
until you experienced grief and go through it, you know,
you don't realize that you really were so connected to
someone and you had this love so much for this
person and this devotion, and you watched him journey through
(10:32):
his whole life. You were privy to that moment in
his life when.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
He left this earth that you know, it's a beautiful
gift to have to have had that, because without that
much love and without that much devotion, and with that
much knowledge of knowing that you know, things do come
to an end, you can't be so appreciative. I'm so appreciative,
(10:58):
I'm more. I'm not more, or I'm just as much
appreciative of the life that I had with Richard and
the love I had with Richard.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Like it was, it just was. It was an amazing thing.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So to experience this grief and to know it's because
a byproduct of something incredibly beautiful, wouldn't I wouldn't trade
it again. I was someone said you could do it
all over again, but it wasn't Richard. You married someone else,
but they lived. I'll be honest with you, I don't know.
I'd probably do it all over again with Richard because
he lives with me forever. Going back to like I said,
(11:35):
the grief, I don't think ever really goes away. You know,
it doesn't work like that. It's a it's like love
doesn't ever go away. Love is just forever, right, So
grief doesn't go away. But I think, you know, there's
a lot of weirdness around grief. There's a lot of
(11:55):
uncomfortableness for people. I don't know if it's if it
taps into their mortality. So you know, a lot of
people try to just work through it. They try to
just like not deal with it by dealing with it.
And what I mean by that talking about it, feeling it,
(12:16):
sharing it, and the people around you that aren't willing
to journey with you, to do that as much as
they would journey with you in a love affair, they
have to journey with you here, and it's a really
great time in your life to realize who really is
part of your tribe, who really loves you, who really
is going to stick by you, because you do have
(12:38):
to journey through it.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You don't get over it.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
It's not like a you know, a headache or a
broken ankle.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It's part of the fabric of your life.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now. If your life is a quilt and there's all
kinds of different patches in the quilt, you know, there's
a happy patch in the patch where you had a daughter,
and then the pature you got married about you got divorced,
the patch for this happened in this patch of good
colors and bad colors and happy colors and sad colors.
This becomes one of the patches. And you have to
(13:09):
honor that part of your quilt because it's going to
be there forever and it makes up who you are now.
So if people don't accept that, and people won't journey
with you through it and listen and let you talk
about it as many times as you want to, and
they really aren't part of your quilt. I can tell
you that for a fact. When somebody said to me once,
(13:31):
I'm so sick and tired of herring about Richard, and
I chose to never speak to that person again, not
just for the reason that they said it and it
really pissed me off, but because I just thought it
was the most horrifically insensitive thing, because it almost was
said to shame the person, and you're already sensitive to
(13:53):
it because you're now in this unique group called the
grievers Club that you know, the secret society that I
thought it was very very cool when they said this,
So if anyone doesn't feel like they will sit and
chat with you and help you with the healing process
where you get through it and you really.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Can't have them in your life.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I think that the grieving process changes everybody for the better,
and I think that's because you realize that so few
things are important, so few things are worth you getting
upset about, that life is really precious, and that you
(14:47):
get to really when you have suffered loss, you really
get to understand that it's real, like everybody is going
to pass away one day. There's there gonna be a
day you wake up with one you love is not
going to be there. And if you know this, you
tend to be more compassionate forgiving understanding. It's very humanizing
(15:13):
to go through loss and go through grief, and you
just don't waste your time dealing with a lot of
bullshit because in that split second when that person leaves you,
there's no going back, so.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You better make sure all that. I always say.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
That's why every single day I try to call my parents,
ever redebting, because if I did call them and the
next morning something happened, because I know that could happen.
I always leave things on a good note with people.
I try to always leave things on a good note
with it. I love you, I try to acknowledge people.
I try to see people and see the world because
(15:52):
you never know, and grief lets you know that you
are on a timeline and everybody around you is on
a timeline. So I think there's a much bigger appreciation
for life and love and things and experiences and seasons.
I mean, every time a season comes, I think, oh,
I'm so lucky to see this fall.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Look at that another Christmas. Oh my god, spring is
here again, and the flowers are coming up, the rebirth
of the flowers. So I think you get that bit
of appreciativeness being a caretaker. I think I'm a natural
candidate for being a caretaker, So when I took down
the rule of being the caretaker came very naturally. But
(16:34):
what it did in the situation of being a caretaker
for Richard was that now that my parents are older,
or now that there's situations where I have to deal
with my parents who are elderly, once you've gone through it,
the panic is gone, because the fear is the fear
of the unknown is gone. And I think it's made
me more calm about dealing with situations and not being
(16:57):
afraid to deal with the situations, being very honest about them.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I think that a lot of people go into situations
and they only want to hear the positiveness of it.
But I think when you've gone, you've journeyed with someone
until they move on to the next world, is that
you you get very realistic very fast, because you're put
in a position to make decisions that are sometimes difficult,
(17:28):
to witness things that are very difficult, and you know,
I think when you're once you've been a caretaker, you
become much more realistic about life and realistic about expectations.
So and I just think it makes you a little
more sensitive, you know, makes you much more sensitive to
(17:50):
and that's everyone at the end of the day is
the same. Like we go through life thinking, you know,
this one's this and this one's that, but that at
the end of the day, when it really comes to
the end, we're really just all the same. And usually
it's a you know, I thought, I remember thinking about
Richard at the end.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
You know, he's in that backless pair of pajamas. And
I said to the person before they after he'd passed,
I said, can we just keep his ring on for
the night, and they said, nope, you can't even keep
your wedding ring on. I thought, that's really it. We
come in one way and we leave the same way, So,
you know, makes you very real, right I say, I
(18:31):
would say one hundred percent that I appreciate life more
because of what I went through. It's made me less fearful.
It's made me much more aware of what this body
really is, that it's just a body.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I'm not afraid. I'm not even so afraid of my
I used to think when I was younger a person,
Oh my god, I could never deal with my parents leeping.
I could never deal with it. But now I know
that they don't leave. I know that this is just
a like a plant, like I'm I'm in love with
my parents' soul.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I'm in love with their hearts. They have instilled such
love in me. I'm in love with Richard and his soul.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Richard is just with me now in a different form,
and I have access to them all the time now,
So yes, it has has changed me. I don't I
don't think that they are stuck in some graveyard. I
don't think that they are stuck. I think they're everywhere now.
And you have this incredible ability to cumulatively call on them.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You can call on them. I call them my great grandparents.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I call them, you know, I can call it anyone
now because I know that I this is the body
just leaves, so we forever, forever more have their love
and you know, and their.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Soul is around me somewhere.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
So and also I know it sounds corny, but I
know one day that they'll come get me, like all
that fear will happen. I'm gonna feel it's gonna I
know someone's gonna come get me. If it's Richard, my parents,
my grandparents, all of them together, my past dogs. I'm
sure they'll all come, I'm sure. Like in life where
I'm surrounded by people, I really believe it will be
(20:14):
the same with death. They'll just come and get me
and say, come on and join the party. You know,
cocktails a seven. You gotta come with us now. And
that makes me. That puts me at ease.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
See, lots of people can't let go of material things
because they have a sentimental attachment. I don't struggle with that.
I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I'm not a person that really gets overly attached to
sentimental things. You know, maybe a few specific things, like
I have a picture of Richard that I keep in
my bedroom here in New York. And but I don't
believe that if God forbid something happen like the la
fires and all that, you wouldn't I would feel bad.
But I think all you need is right here, is
(20:58):
in your heart. It's great to have sentimental things. They
serve as reminders. But I'm not someone that gets really
stuck on all that stuff. I don't get beholden to them.
You know, I just lost something recently, very important, and
I just one day woke up and said, it's just
a thing, you know, I can't get to There's so
(21:20):
much more that I could lose that's so much more important.
And I always think when you lose something, you should
always say, you know, I hope someone really fantastic found
it and has it and needs it more than I
needed it, because.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
I have to. I do believe in that. I think
that life.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I do believe that you should jump into life like
a swimming pool, like my swimming pool in the Berkshires.
I think that it's very important that you should take
on life, jump in feet first, experience it. Don't say no,
because when you've been through this and you when you
do lose someone you love and you do go through
(21:58):
this period of brief and stuff, you realize the old
saying's true, life is short and you should be be
open and not fearful. You should be open to new
experiences and new people and just jump into that cold
water feet first. Come from a place of yes, you
(22:18):
never know who you're gonna meet. Don't be too hung
up about what happened yesterday. Certainly, don't get too hung
up of what was going to happen tomorrow, because God
knows that could all change in a second, and just
embrace this beautiful short time that we have on earth.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, like jumping into too a cold pool feet first.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So I want to just say a couple other things
that I want to read, something that I send to
everybody that.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Stuff yourself. I just want to say, give yourself for
those of you that are.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Going through the process and of battling with an illness,
for those of you taking care of someone that's battling,
for those of you that have lost someone you know,
be very kind to yourself. Surround yourself with really good people.
Stay healthy, because I think there's a tendency to get
(23:18):
for the caretaker, it's a tendency to get sick and
get tired out.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Make sure you take care of yourself. Make still sure
you still do stuff for yourself, Make sure you get sleep,
Try to be engaged with your family. For those that
have suffered lost and are going through grief, be gentle
with yourself because it takes a minute and there's no
(23:44):
right or wrong way. You know, feel free to cry,
Feel free to talk to them, Feel free to be
angry if you need to, if you want to, if
you feel it's important for you, go speak to a professional.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I always think that's great. Surround yourself by loving people.
Keep your life. You know, it's kind of simple for
a while while you're refiguring out this new thing called
a life without this person. But most of all, be
kind to yourself and allow yourself to go through the process.
(24:23):
And I promise you, I promise you it does. It's
like it's a wild thing. You know, it's like a
wild storm that's so crazy, and you just can't see
through the storm and you don't know which way to turn,
and you can't see life behind it. And then you know,
you wake up and the storm is stopped, and maybe
it's still raining. But then you wake up and then
(24:44):
there's no rain, and then you wake up and you
know it's a little bit sunny. And then you wake
up and it's maybe even a lot of bit sunny,
and you find yourself. I remember about six four months
after Richard passed, I was somewhere I would say this
to someone, allow yourself to do this. I was somewhere
and I ran into someone on the street and they
(25:05):
told me something and I started laughing, and I remember thinking,
you can't bus like that's not part of the thing anymore,
Like you've got to and you can you can start
laughing and loving and dating and doing whatever you want
to do or need to do to get through this grief.
(25:25):
And I don't care if it's a day later, a
week later, a month later, a year later. This is
your journey. It's no one else's business. No one should
have an opinion about it unless they are there to
shepherd you through the whole thing. They can't make decisions
about who you want to see, who you want to date.
Just do whatever it takes to make you happy and
(25:48):
get through it because people will have a lot of
opinion with very little application.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
So that's don't want to say about that. But I
just want to read this poem now.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
I this palm I haven't actually laminated up in the
Berkshire in cards, and I send it to people and
you can use it or not use it. But let's
let me just say that it's one of my favorite
poems ever. Someone gave it to me after Richard passed,
actually one of Richard's friend's oldest friends in Washington. It's
by Henry Scott holland was written in eighteen forty seven.
(26:22):
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I
have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and
you are you, and the old life that we live
so fondly together is untouched and unchanged. Whatever we were
to each other that we are still are. Call me
(26:46):
by my old familiar name. Speak of me in the
easy way which you always used. Put no difference in
your tone, where no furforced air, solemnity or sorrow, as
we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile,
(27:06):
think of me, Pray for me. Let it be spoken
without an effort, without the ghost of the shadow upon it.
Life means all it is ever meant to each of us.
It is the same as it ever was. There is
absolute and unspoken continuity. What is this death but a
(27:29):
negligible accident.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Why should I be out of your mind because I
am out of your sight. I am but here waiting
for you for an interval, somewhere very now near, just
round the corner in the other room, and all as well.
So that's what I think.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Everyone I loved, everyone I lost, They're just around the
corner in the other room. And that's all I want
to say about that. Thank you for having me today.
It was such an honor to be here to all
the let's be clear listeners, stay strong and stay healthy
and stay loving.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I'm during the methi and that's what I have to
say about that. M M
Host
Shannen Doherty
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