This Week Was Tough

Hello, Gentle Reader. (I am Jane Eyre always. Lit-heads will get this reference.)

Instead of my normal topics, this week I’m sharing personally about grief and mental health. Trust me, I know ain’t nobody signed up for this newsletter for that, so truly feel free to just come back next week when we’ll be back to the normal stuff. I debated even sending anything today, because this grief belongs to others more than it does to me. But somehow it felt wrong not to say something, in some stumbling way.

This week I lost a friend of 13 years. He was a shiny, sparkling, brilliant person who had a long, arduous struggle with mental health. His loved ones are grieving a son, a brother, a grandson, an ex, a friend. Many of my friends are grieving his loss, too.

I’ve spent this week ricocheting between overwhelming tears and a numb, distracted fog. I feel the words by artist mxmtoon when she sings: “Every passing minute is a thought of you not in it.” I owe to Rashad so much of what I learned about the world, and it feels like there’s a hole in that world now. Yesterday I dug up some old letters he had written. In one of them, dated January 2010 while I was studying abroad, he wrote: “You are immensely missed. I’ve found myself wanting to tell you about something amazingly funny or just talk to you about life, but to no avail.” It was so strange reading his own words, from over a decade ago, and finding they express exactly the hollowness that I feel right now, magnified exponentially by a now impassable distance.

grieving together.

Certain people over my life have taught me about grief and how to understand it and how to love people in it. I think of my mom, my sister, Lissy, Tina, Laura, Michelle, and yes, Rashad. This week, many friends were kind enough to let me into their own stories of similar past losses, and it made me feel less alone. I am both okay and not okay, and I am grateful for loved ones.

I’ll mention particularly two public figures — one whom I know, one whom I don’t — who have helped me understand grief:

• K.J. Ramsey, author of “This Too Shall Last,” and

• Megan Devine, author of “It’s OK That You’re Not OK”

Both have suffered a lot, and they each have such helpful words on how to experience grief or be there for others when they’re grieving. Both are a good Instagram follow.

I’ll also mention, just because all my life experiences have made this so important to me — we CAN reduce the stigma around mental health. It’s okay to talk to people about what they’re going through. Here are a couple resources I have found helpful.

• 9 Ways to Fight Mental Health Stigma - National Alliance on Mental Illness

• Words Matter: How to Talk About Suicide - Canada’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (page 3 includes a really helpful “instead of this, try this” graphic)

• Mental Health First Aid - Because, yes, mental health is physical health.

love persevering.

I found another letter from Rashad from 2010. (Apparently people stopped writing letters immediately after that year lol.)

He wrote, “Whenever you need rhythmic inspiration, you should listen to the album ‘The Fame Monster’ by Lady Gaga. SHE has rhythm. Peace and blessings.”

He was, among many things, a pop culture fiend, and had a LOT of thoughts on this blog’s take on ev-er-y-thing. (I’ll miss his texts telling me I got Kanye all wrong.)

So, on that note, I bid you all farewell until next week and I am going to go blast “Poker Face” loud enough for the neighbors to hear, and probably cry.