‘This is what grief has looked like for me’—ISL editor opens up about spouse’s death

I am writing about grief, because right now it is the only thing I can write about.

And fair warning—particularly if you’ve lost someone to suicide—this may be difficult to read. (Out of respect for our families and for readers, I will not discuss specific details below. If you or a loved one is looking for crisis resources, call Your Life Iowa at (855) 581-8111, text (855) 895-8398, or live chat at yourlifeiowa.org. You can also call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.)

We lost Shenae in December. She was a beloved daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, and friend. And she was my wife of nearly six years.

I want to tell you first about what I loved about Shenae, because sharing the wonderful parts of someone should always come first in something like this: 

The way she looked at me with her deep brown, penetrating eyes, ringed by constellations of freckles that only increased in the sunlight. 

Her curly hair, which I loved to run my fingers through while sitting next to her on the couch. 

Her laugh, which kept me on my toes, seeking clever jokes or puns to inspire a chuckle (or, at least, a satisfying eye roll). 

And her intellect and open mind that never left us bereft of weighty conversational topics.

But there was one topic Shenae never liked to talk about: Herself.

….

Shenae was a private person, and also generally private about those struggles. She didn’t want anyone, even me, prying—or worrying about her.

“I hide all the stress from you because I didn’t want to stress you out,” she texted me in November. “I realized how much you worry already.”

She made many attempts at dealing with her struggles: She medicated. She meditated. She busied herself with household projects. She threw herself into a variety of ambitious endeavors, including starting a nonprofit helping children learn to code—which she taught herself during the pandemic—and painting. She found solace in nature, both in our hikes through the woods around Northeast Iowa, and in our own front yard, which she began to landscape and build into a wildlife sanctuary, of sorts.

I want to remember this about her, and not about how it all ended in December.

Shenae and Amie Rivers. Photo Courtesy Amie Rivers

….

This is what grief has looked like for me: Horror, shock, sadness, guilt, regret. 

Was she upset? Was she at peace? Is her consciousness still with us? And, always: Why? Why? Why?

“Unanswerable. Unknowable,” said the preacher who gave her memorial. Many of us ask this after a death from suicide, it turns out.

Pema Chödrön, in her book “When Things Fall Apart”, calls us to sit with this groundlessness, this uncertainty, this not-knowing. She also says understanding that your pain is not unique can be helpful. Around 500 Iowans die by suicide per year, and are part of more than 720,000 people who do so around the world, per the World Health Organization. So literally millions of people feel the things I feel.

This all makes sense to me in an abstract way. But, as someone who can’t yet put on real pants in the morning, I’m still working on letting people in.

Some of the first to reach out to me were those who have also lost a spouse, and even a few who have lost a spouse to suicide. I also found a monthly support group for this very thing in Waterloo, and encourage others to look for these things as well. 

My pain is, indeed, not unique, which is somehow both horrifying and comforting to contemplate.

….

All of the tasks of wrapping up her life fall to me, which has been both helpfully distracting and occasionally overwhelming. But I am extremely fortunate that support has poured in from many places. 

An online fundraiser paid for her memorial and cremation, which I was so grateful for. My neighbor started up a meal train, which has kept me regularly eating—something I know from past grief-based depression episodes is a struggle for me. A tsunami of cards, messages, and calls has kept me tethered to family and friends, and there’s been a steady trickle of follow-ups, which I appreciate. 

Some have allowed me to lean very heavily on them emotionally. Others have been better at distracting me. All are invaluable.

As the grief continues to worm its way through my body and brain, it opens me up in surprising ways. I am more vulnerable now, more irritable, more distracted and scattered. But maybe I’m also becoming more compassionate, each new experience shifting my perspective in how I approach others.

I am back at work now; slowly, haltingly. I will go back to writing about the news, about politics, about community happenings, about labor. I wrote this first, because I know this experience has changed me, will continue to change me, and I want you to know, and to understand. 

Maybe you already understand, and you will write to me and tell me what you have learned from your grief. And I will read what you have written and maybe nod along, and maybe cry, and maybe learn something, and maybe write something else. 

The grief will continue to bore painful, aerating holes in my soul, I know. I will try to breathe through it, remembering I am one of many.

If you or a loved one is looking for crisis resources, call Your Life Iowa at (855) 581-8111, text (855) 895-8398, or live chat at yourlifeiowa.org. You can also call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.