This is Chapter 9 in the Grief Memoir. Catch up with previous chapters here.
My dad, Stanley Lubin, died April 6, 2022, exactly 15 months after my mom died. He was one month shy of turning 81. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, he left home to attend the University of Michigan for undergrad and law school. He was a lifelong Michigan fan, watching every football game he could and eventually getting season tickets despite living states away. He moved to Arizona in 1972 and never looked back. A labor and employment lawyer, he represented unions and fought for working people to be treated fairly and have a better life. He loved his Arizona Diamondbacks, sharing season tickets with friends and was an active member in his community.
He donated his body to science and then was cremated, his wishes for many years. In Phoenix following his death, James and I met with a funeral home, wrote his obituary, and made tentative plans for a celebration in life to occur the following month. We worked with the assisted living facility, friends, and the company who helped sell things from my parents’ home to clear out his room. We did all of this with stops to feed the baby, change diapers, and sneak in some date nights (with the baby as a cute third wheel).
We returned in late May with all of the kids to celebrate Dad with family, friends, and colleagues. At this celebration, we all shared stories about Dad’s love of sports, his long legal career and his love of community.
It wasn’t until after Dad’s death that I fully grieved both of my parents. I had jumped from Mom’s care to Dad’s care and I hadn’t had the space or time to just be with my grief. All of my grief.
For three years I held every ounce of tension in my body. Every bit of stress about caring for and losing my parents could finally be released. I felt lighter in many ways. I was still so sad, but I could finally move forward through and with my grief.
There was new stress in settling my parent’s estate – transferring things to my name, claiming life insurance policies, selling a timeshare and more. There was filing taxes and ensuring all the bills were paid. I hired an attorney to do as much of the heavy lifting as possible but there was still a lot on my plate.
But besides a few things that were pressing, I could take my time. When I was up for it, I’d look through the paperwork and my to-do list, not doing too many things in one day. I was lucky that I was still on maternity leave, but my goal was minimal, sometimes it was to do a specific thing in one day or do multiple things by the end of the week. I did that between taking care of the baby during the day and big kids at night. It fortunately was just an hour or two here and there. Otherwise, I spent the remaining time of my maternity leave watching just about every rom-com on Netflix or British competition show I could find as they were predictable and heartfelt.
After 12 weeks of maternity leave, I returned to work. The baby started daycare and I eased back into all the things. I felt lighter in many ways and sad in so many others. Therapy continued to help me move through postpartum and grief.
As time has passed some things have gotten “easier” but my grief still will sneak up and surprise me. I removed Mom and Dad from the favorites on my phone, but not from my contacts. I saved every voicemail, even though I don’t know when I’ll want to listen to those again. James eventually flew to Phoenix to clear out the storage unit and drive it all back to California before our move to Maryland the following year. Boxes and boxes of memories. Treasured furniture. And loads of paperwork.
For nearly a year I didn’t touch the boxes. It was too hard. But eventually I started going through them. I found greeting cards from my parents’ wedding, notes of congratulations after my birth, and birthday cards from the last 30+ years. There were all my papers and art from school. There were frames and favorite dishes; I saved my favorite mugs that I now enjoy coffee from regularly. There are still boxes left, with the things that I don’t know what to do with, but not as many.
I worked with a local company to digitize my family’s vast photo and video collection. There were letters from my grandparents from WWII and the Korean War that I can’t wait to dive into and read. There are photos of family vacations. There are home movies. When I opened the file of the first one, my mom’s voice came clearly out of my computer, I broke down and cried. When you don’t expect to hear a voice again and you finally do, it hits you hard, in every single one of the feels. The videos are so simple, not unlike the ones I take today of my kids. One is before Halloween, my mom interviewing me about my costume. Another is Thanksgiving with my grandparents – my mom asking my dad to hurry up, just like she always did.
I couldn’t have survived 2019 through today without the help and support of so many people. If you’re going through grief, caregiving or anything in between, or know someone who is here are things that helped me:
- Family who helped at a moment’s notice and kept me abreast of the situation. They also were great sounding boards to talk about what could be, what we loved about the person, and how we could help them.
- Friends who opened their hearts and homes to us, even when we flew in in the middle of the night. They made time to help us and my parents by driving them places, sitting with them, talking with them and helping them live their lives as normally as they could given the circumstances.
- Friends who called or texted, sometimes to ask for updates, or who I could ask questions to, who gave advice because they’d been there, but more often than not to distract me with a funny meme, new Instagram account to follow or cute pictures of kids and pets.
- Work which gave me distractions when I needed it, but more importantly the flexibility and support to let me work when I could, keep the important work moving forward, and picking up my slack time and time again. Flexible, remote work with supportive managers and colleagues is something that I wish for everyone, no matter the circumstances.
- Our communities who embraced us and came to our side to watch kids, drop off meals, pick us up from the airport, and love us in the ways that they knew how.
- The doctors, nurses, caregivers and social workers who cared for all of us, helped find resources to improve situations, and kept us all going.
- Books for being an escape and journals to help me dump my feelings out on paper.
- My kids, Abigail, Elizabeth and Andrew, for always knowing just when to hug me or doing the cutest things to make me laugh and smile. They kept me humble and focus on the fact that there is so much of life to live even amongst the darkest of times. They each embody so many aspects of my parents that it brings me joy as I see those traits come out as they grow older.
- My husband, James, for literally dropping everything time and again for us. He gave me the space to do exactly what I needed to do, was a sounding board, and the first person I ran everything by as it happened, holding me as we went through what was the hardest years of our lives.
As time goes by, my life grows around the grief. It has become easier to talk about my loss and what I’ve been through. Throughout the year we remember my parents by sharing stories, eating their favorite foods, and carrying on their traditions. Their photos are all over our house. Not a day goes on that I don’t think about them or want to call them to talk.
Andrew Garfield shared in an interview with Stephen Colbert that he is glad to have his grief for his mom as it means he had that much love.
“I hope this grief stays with me because it’s the unexpressed love that I never go to tell (them),” he said.
That is how I feel. I have been able to read books, such as Grief is Love, about how grief is not something that we get over, it is always part of us but like Garfield said, it is our love for that person and that will never go away.
My parents’ love continues to this day and I am who I am because of them. I feel their love every single day, in myself, our family, and our friends. For their love, I am forever grateful.
In honor of Barbara and Stanley Lubin.