Transforming Grief & the Power of Storytelling | Dr. Marianne Bette

00:00
I mean, we were just so, at that point, felt we were made for each other. And he had a plane. We had gone back to Connecticut and announced our engagement. We came home. He was gonna sell his plane to this guy. He was gonna buy it. And we were going to pick up our wedding rings. And he died in the plane crash that same day. And so I really, that's when I lost my mind. I mean, that was my, when I was thinking about the pivotal shift.

00:29
That was the big one right there because when he died, I irrationally now looking back, I wanted to commit suicide. Today's guest is Dr. Marianne Bette. Marianne's a retired family physician who spent more than 40 years serving her community in Connecticut. But Mary Ann is not just a physician. She's also a storyteller, a healer, and a guide for those navigating the challenging journey of grief and loss.

00:58
Throughout her life, she faced significant losses, including the tragic passing of her fiance in a plane accident and losing loved ones to cancer. These experiences have shaped her understanding of grief. And in today's episode, she opens up about that personal journey, sharing her insights on the therapeutic nature of storytelling, the depths of despair grief can lead us to, and the long and challenging journey towards acceptance and ultimately healing. In our conversation, Marianne underscores the importance of sharing personal experiences of loss and grief.

01:27
It can provide comfort and understanding and help reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness. One particularly powerful part of our discussion is when Marianne recounts her experience of losing her fiance. It was a pivotal moment that really led her to contemplate suicide. Her story's a testament to the depths of despair that grief can lead us to and the challenging journey towards healing and acceptance. Today's episode is not just about grief and loss though. It's about resilience, about the power of sharing our stories.

01:56
and the transformative journey from heartbreak to gratitude. It's about the importance of living and embracing life after loss. Before I jump into today's episode, I wanna thank my Patreon supporters, Nic, Gale, and Sari for supporting one episode every month. It's really helpful to cover the hosting costs and the production costs and the different pieces of software that I use and the hardware updates. So thank you so much for supporting the show, getting some episodes early, getting those bonus episodes.

02:24
And if any of that sounds interesting to you and you want to directly support the show, please head to patreon.com slash the life shift podcast and you can learn all about the different tiers that are there. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Dr. Marianne Bette. I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the life shift. Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

02:58
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Life Shift Podcast. I am here with Marianne. Hello, Marianne. Hello, Matt. Where are you from, or where are you right now? Right now, I'm in my home in Southbury, Connecticut. That's where I live now, that I'm retired. Awesome. I was born in New England, so I understand what that's like up there. So, thank you for being a part of the LifeShift Podcast. We were talking a little bit before recording on how important it is to share our stories and share...

03:28
You know, the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-betweens, because there are so many people that might be listening now that are experiencing things in which they kind of feel really alone in their circumstances. And so I know you know the power of story, but thank you for being a part of this. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this. No pressure. You have to be amazing. So good luck. Okay.

03:53
I'm ready. So just for anyone new listening, this show started as a school project. I was doing a second master's degree during the pandemic. And I took a podcasting class. And I took this class on and thinking, OK, this is going to be hard. I don't know if I really want to do this, but I'm going to challenge myself. And when I was coming up with the ideas, I was like, I want to do something that fits my life and the experiences that I've had. And so.

04:20
When I was eight, my mom was killed in an accident. And from one day to the next, everything was different. My parents lived a thousand miles away from each other. I lived with my mom mostly. I was visiting my dad at the time. And it was from one day to the next, it was like no longer lived in the same house, no longer went to the same school, no longer had both parents, no longer had my primary parent. And I really struggled grieving for about two decades.

04:50
But throughout that grief journey, I felt so alone. I was the only kid who had a dead parent. I knew I wasn't, but I felt that way. And so when I wanted to create this podcast, I wanted to have the opportunity to have conversations with people about these sometimes really tiny, specific moments that have changed our lives, sometimes huge moments. But seeing how we as humans can move through that, move with it, change from those moments.

05:17
if we're allowed to, if we have the space to. So just for context, that's where this whole journey started. And I just really never realized how much of that eight-year-old in me still needed this healing part of the journey. So there you have it. It's huge. And I'm so glad you got that picture, that understanding, because I say we're all in it alone together, because people...

05:46
don't spill their guts, they get three days of bereavement time, and then they're told to suck it up and get on with life. And that's not the way it works, not at all, especially if you're a kid. It was really hard. And I think, you know, the people around me did the best they knew how. And we just, as a society, we don't really talk about these things enough and how to move through it and understand that.

06:12
As a little boy, I was allowed to have all of those feelings, but growing up, I knew I wasn't allowed because in my mind, I had to show everyone I was going to be okay or I was happy. And that was what I was kind of absorbing from the universe around me so that other people could be happy and not uncomfortable. Yeah, and that idea of keeping busy, that's what adults say, but then adults look at children and they say, well, see, they're playing, they're okay.

06:42
That's not the reality of the situation, for sure, as you know. Yeah, there's a lot more layers to us as humans. And we were talking before recording about the performative nature of so much of the human life and social media and all the things that play along with it. And so I just love having these conversations, even if they are hard conversations, because...

07:05
They're so valuable. I think that even for us as storytellers, even for you telling your story, I'm sure there's some healing component to it every time you tell it. And I feel like I connect with people. I've retired now three years from over 40 years of being a family physician. And when you're a family physician, you really get...

07:31
to know everybody in the family. You're not just looking at their heart or their ear or their hand. You connect and usually I would see generations of the same family. So I would know, you know, when someone was sick, the whole family was sick and you know, someone's dying. The rest of the family is coming in and telling me, oh gee, you know, I don't feel good. I can't get out of bed. I don't.

08:00
eating, I'm eating too much, you know, all those things. And I would have a context that I think specialists don't get at all. That's, I think, extremely interesting. And I get what you're saying, the pressures to, from the rest of the family or people around you, they don't want to see you suffer. And they put that energy out there. And especially as a little kid, when you ate.

08:29
That's how old my youngest was when her dad died. And she still suffers, still suffers today. Yeah, it's quite a journey. And I think it's great that people are, I think now people are maybe a little bit more in tune with sharing their feelings and sharing how they are and talking about mental health and not as a stigma, but just as it's just part of you. It's part of your health. It's part of your body's journey.

08:58
And I think we're getting there a little bit, but maybe not fully. Oh, I think we're for sure getting there. And just as an example, and I'm in a second marriage now, my husband was a widow. I was a widower and then we got married when we were 70. This isn't a pivotal moment, but this is one of the many pivotal moments I've had.

09:22
And he, one of the reasons I finally decided to go out with him was because he was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. And I was one of the protesters about that awful war. And so we had a connection, we had dead spouses, we made it through that, we did this and that. So recently, I've diagnosed his PTSD and he thought he was fine. Like he never, I don't know how anybody can go to war and come back fine. I mean, they bring the darn war home.

09:53
He goes, we go to his primary care provider who's in the VA system and she says, you're right on target. She said, it's the 70 year olds that come in and they're like, you know, something's not right. I'm not good. You know, my wife is saying I'm not a good partner. And she says, the guys that come back from Iraq and Afghanistan get back. And in about a month, they're in here saying, I am F.

10:21
There's something really wrong with me. She said, but you guys, you stuffed it. You know, it wasn't a good war. It wasn't okay for you. You had to, from like second world war, they were still that idea, you know, pull up your bootstraps, get it behind you, forget it, get on with life. And as you and I know, that doesn't work that way really. You can deny it, you can push it down, you can pretend it's not there, but it's going to come up and grab your attention at some point.

10:51
Yeah, I mean, you're still stuffing it down. It's still in there somewhere. So it's, you know, you haven't let it out. But I mean, that's such a fascinating story, and I think it's important. And so, again, thank you for being here. Maybe you can kind of like let's get into your story. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about who you are right now, like you're in this retired life of yours. Well, I'm in this retired life. I retired right about the pandemic. Actually, before the pandemic, my first husband died of brain cancer.

11:21
And so, and he was a death and dying therapist. So we went through this whole process. I have a stepdaughter who lives in California and I had two daughters with my husband. One was 13, one was eight when their dad died. And so, but he was a death and dying therapist and I was a family doc and I saw these incredible connections going on. And he was a recovered alcoholic. So then we had this whole.

11:50
AA family, we had the community family, we had my work family, we had my patients, I moved back to Connecticut, I went to medical school in California, but I came back to Connecticut and I have a big family. So we went through this incredible thing and I said to him, someone has to write a story about this. He's looking at me. He said, don't ask me. I'm working full time.

12:16
I'm the griever. You're dying. I know I'm going to have two kids. I'm going to suddenly be a single mom. I can't type. I'm a terrible speller. And I had my boyfriends write all my college papers. I can't write. So anyway, I did write a book about his death because it was an example of how great a death can be and what the choices are. And that was maybe 10 years before I retired.

12:46
I retire and before I retire, one of my patients says to me, I want you to write a book on grieving. She said, because my mom died three years ago, your book helped me. She said, but she was my rock and she's gone now and I'm still suffering. So I need your book on grieving. And I was like, oh my God, I'm not done. So when the pandemic came and we were all stuffed in the house and ordering.

13:14
food and people were dropping it on the doorstep and then running away so you know we wouldn't confine one another. I said well I have some great stories about grieving and although I'm not a writer, I'm a good storyteller and I believe the best way to learn is through stories. So I wrote a book about that kind of parallels how it hits you and what you go through and

13:43
what it's like going through and trying to get to the other side, and very encouraging, and so forth. So the local library said to me, would you come and talk about your book? We'd like to put you on the schedule. So I said, okay. So they put me on a Tuesday at two o'clock in the afternoon. So I said to my husband, nobody's going to, you know, there'll be 10 people there, it'll be a little thing, let's go. So we go. It's in a big hall, 50 people show.

14:11
50 people in our little town show up and some of them are crying, they're on all different stages of the process and they're asking me questions. And so I was stunned and I thought, well, okay, so my healing work isn't over, I better get on it with this grief because once I started researching it and as a physician, I knew how awful it was.

14:38
COVID. You drop them off at the emergency room and the next thing you'd see them in a funeral home. So it was just, you know, it was devastating. And then this research that I did between the COVID and the overdoses, you know, over half the country's grieving at the same time, nobody's talking about it, nobody's sharing it. And so...

15:01
I started talking at libraries all over the place, and then senior centers, and then hospice places. And then I started teaching. I was a teacher, a clinical teacher at the UConn Medical School for 25 years. And so I said, well, I better get to the medical students and the residents. And so I started going to them, getting on Zoom, giving stories. So then I started perfecting.

15:30
effecting, but getting better at writing down what were the important points. I wanted to teach the students and the residents how to counsel grievers in short bursts because doctors, you know, they only have 15-20 minutes with you, if you're lucky. And so I broke it down in a way that they could counsel people because I thought...

15:58
I have this wisdom now, I'm 40 plus years in practice, and I've got things to share, and now I've got a way to do it. So now I'm also going around the country talking to the state academies of family physicians. And I really, I like the live presentation very close to what we're doing, because when you tell your story, I can see sometimes people shaking their head like you are.

16:27
I got that, I got this. So I make sure I connect with those people and either help them along in their grief or teach them how to help people better in their grieving. It's so important. Sounds like, you know, retired is not the right word to use because you're just so busy doing your.

16:49
live in a new version of your life. And I said to my husband, I had no, I had no, you go into retirement. My parents never retired. They never went to college. They never had a white collar job, so there was no retirement. But so I didn't have any real models or mentors on what this was gonna be. I just figured, you know, I was gonna travel. I did some traveling and now I said, this is it. This is.

17:19
It's so important what you're doing though, because I think even if someone doesn't take your advice or whatever you're sharing in those stories, you may have planted a seed. You may have planted an idea that when they get to that place, something they get reminded of that idea and they can move through it, because the fear is like the scariest part. It's like, what now? Like, what do I do now? You got it, you got it. Am I gonna be?

17:48
people would come to me, and when my first husband died, I was in the practice maybe five years, so over 20 years, people would come to me, and they'd say, I think I'm going crazy. And I would say, it's okay, I've been there. You're gonna come back. What you're feeling is normal. It's hard to see that. Yeah, yeah, it's hard to see that in the moment. I'm curious, maybe we can kind of...

18:17
come back to how this now plays from your own experience in this shift, because I think it will probably make a lot of sense, even in the small, though not small, I used the wrong word, but in the moments that you've shared briefly about losing your husband and going through that journey, but you had your own journey too that really shifted things for you too, right? Yes, so it seems like all my pivotal shifts have to do with death and dying and grieving.

18:48
It's a big one. It is. So when I was a resident, you know, you go to medical school, you do one year of what they call internship, and then you do more years after that called residency. So I was finishing all of that. And when I was going through this 40 plus years ago, it was brutal. It was sexist, it was harassment, it was excessive hours, 80, 100 hours a week.

19:17
You know, it was just ridiculous. So when it was over, I said, I don't even know who I am anymore, but I know some things I wanna do. And as I mentioned, I was in California. I was hiking the high Sierras. I always wanted to be a pilot, so I took some flying lessons. I was playing racquetball. I was like blooming, you know, I was so happy. And then I met this guy in the hospital.

19:45
who ran the heart-lung machine during the open heart surgeries. And we fell in love and got engaged. He was a pilot. He played racquetball. I mean, we were just so, at that point, felt we were made for each other. And he had a plane. We had gone back to Connecticut and announced our engagement. We came home. He was going to sell his plane to this guy. He was going to buy it, and we were going to pick up our wedding rings. And he died in the plane crash that same day.

20:16
And so I really, that's when I lost my mind. I mean, that was my, when I was thinking about the pivotal shift, that was the big one right there. Because when he died, I, irrationally now, looking back, I wanted to commit suicide. I felt I could not live. I could not have gone through everything I went through to get to this moment where everything was perfect.

20:45
and then have it taken away from me in a flash. My family came, my parents came out from Connecticut, my sister who lived in California came up and they stayed with me. And if they didn't stay with me, I'm pretty sure I would have committed suicide. But after a few days, maybe three or four or five, my sister who would not let me go to the bathroom without her.

21:14
put me in a hot bathtub and said, your body's a mess, get in there, sit down, and I'm gonna sit here and we're just gonna talk. So she's sitting outside the tub and I'm in there. And so I'm asking her about, you know, what if somebody does commit suicide? What happens to them? And she said, well, I don't think they get to go to the same place that somebody dies naturally. So I was like stunned. I said, you mean if I kill myself?

21:43
I'm still not going to be able to catch up with Carrie. And she said, no. I said, oh shit, I got to go through this. That was my pivotal, my first pivotal moment because I couldn't. That was my first pivotal moment. And I was like, okay, well, that took me a good three years to get my head back together.

22:07
Well, it's because you said you had worked through so much, like, you worked so hard and you fought against all the systems and all the things that were kind of pushing against you. And then you finally found this, like, I don't know, bliss or some kind of feeling of, like, Ecstasy. Oh, there's hope. Like, I can actually enjoy my life now. And you found someone that liked the similar things. And you felt like this is how it's supposed to be. And then life was unfair. Yes. And. Yes.

22:37
which we unfortunately find out that it's not often fair, but I can understand how this feeling of bliss going from that to now, what is there that I live for? Devastation, right. Exactly, what do I live for? Before that in your life, were there times in which you would associate a feeling of depression or anything like that that...

23:03
this was a similar feeling or was this so foreign, this feeling of like, I just don't want to be here anymore? Oh yeah, no, I'm one of those happy type A, ADD people. I'm always on the go. I've got lots of fingers in lots of different pots and enjoying it. People like to hang out with me because they think I'm fun. I'm always seeing the fun in things. And this just devastated me. I didn't think that would ever come back.

23:33
It's such a strange feeling to feel so empty and so hopeless and... Exactly. What's the point kind of feeling of why? Why do I have to do this? And then, like you say, a week later or a month later or whatever that time period looks like for every individual, you look back and you're like, wow, how did I get here? Yeah, yeah. Wow, that was... Is that when your sister was sitting there with you and...

24:02
and kind of talking some sense into you in some way that could get to you. Because I'm sure there was some kind of navigating that, like if she was just gonna say, no, you can't do this for X, Y, Z. But I'm sure going into this conversation and being like, look, you're not gonna catch up with him if you do what you're planning on doing or what you're thinking of doing. Do you think if she started the conversation in a different way or approached it differently, that things would have unfolded in a different way?

24:29
They would have unfolded. I probably wouldn't have killed myself because they were there for two weeks. And we know as physicians, we know that when you get a drop dead scenario, that's what I call that kind of thing. It's like you've had your fingers in the socket and it thrives and frays and disrupts so many neurochemical pathways that...

24:58
and you burn off all these neurotransmitters that are in there between all these nerves. I was in the airport waiting and they told me that. When I realized what they were saying to me, I went in the bathroom, I was throwing up, I had diarrhea. My whole body just went ape. We do know now though that it takes at least 72 hours for those neurotransmitters to try to reboot.

25:27
I often say to people, if someone's thinking about suicide, just call 911. They'll drag their butt over to the emergency room and they'll put them in the psych ward for three days. By that time, things will change somewhat, hopefully significantly for the better. I think I was a living example of that situation. Yeah. You're also in a fascinating situation in which you have all of the book knowledge and

25:56
medicine knowledge and the anatomy and all these things, yet I'm imagining that in those moments, none of that connected. Like you said, you're like burning those neurotransmitters off. Okay. They're gone. You logically know what's happening, but at the same time, you're like, no, I'm feeling. Yeah. There were times when I could get into my doctor head and...

26:19
and see myself and think, oh, okay, if you were my patient, I would say thus and so, you're experiencing such and so. But initially, it was just full on devastation. Sometimes I couldn't drive, I couldn't find my way home, I would go out of my body. It was all bizarre things. But there was also a part of me that I remember because I

26:48
I wasn't a drinker, but I started drinking beer and I thought, hmm, you know, this is helpful. It kind of numbs me up. I could go down this road. And I'm looking down the road and I'm thinking, well, shoot, I'm going to be somewhere pushing one of those carriages out in the street. And I said, I can't go that way, you know. And the drugs, that wasn't my stick anyway. So I just decided just one foot in front of the other and I would just...

27:16
do one foot in front of the other. And I was lucky. I, unfortunately we had moved, you know, I'd left my residency, so I left my cadre of, of support. And I was in a new situation. I had moved into the house with him. So I was in a real new living, you know, it was kind of like what you were talking about, all these other insults that happen to you when you need to be a little more on secure footing. So there are times I, you know.

27:45
I'd be driving around, I couldn't figure out how to get home. I'd have to look around and think, oh, there's that, there's the mountain. That's where I live, I gotta go ahead and act direct. I'll be driving like that. It just took a long time and I had some good friends. They gave me some good hints and I did everything everybody who loved me told me. At least I tried it. It wasn't that it always worked for me, but if someone said.

28:12
go take a hot bath or go get a massage or go to an exercise class. Or, you know, I inherited a couple of Alaskan Malmutes from him and they were big dogs and I would go for a walk. If I felt down, they would just drag me along. So I was like, oh, this isn't, I got to go to dog obedience school. So I'd go to dog obedience school, you know, and then I was able to work one 24 hour shift.

28:42
at the emergency room. And that's all I could do. The rest of the week was just repair. People would say, oh, what are you doing the rest of the week? I said, what do you mean? To me, there is no rest of the week. I work and then I go to dog obedience and I walk and exercise and then I go to work again. But I worked at a hospital where they had, it was run by Seventh Day Adventists and back then they were all.

29:11
vegetarians and the food was so good. I would just go eat at the hospital. So I didn't have to cook at all. You know, I'd just go to the hospital for lunch and then I'd sometimes go back for dinner. So I was, thank God I had that. That was rough. You had to find your system. Was this the first time in your life where you experienced a loss that great? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And how old were you? I was in my early thirties.

29:39
And you know, here I am a physician. I've been around a lot of death even by then. You think you know what you're doing, but you don't know. No. No. I don't think you can know until you've experienced it, until you've walked through it, until you've found what works for you. I mean, like I told you earlier, losing my mom, my grief journey was like literally decades. I think I was early 30s in which I was finally like...

30:09
Because it had transformed. There were parts that I had let go of. And then there were parts where this is a weird experience. I don't know if other people experience this, but I used her death as like a crutch or an excuse to a lot of things in my life in which like, if something went wrong, it was like, oh, cause my mom is dead. If something went right, it was because like, oh, my mom is dead and so people feel bad for me. And so in my thirties, I was finally able to find a therapist in which I was like, okay, I'm ready.

30:36
And it took like five therapists. Like, you got to find it, right? You got to find the right one. And really what helped me and what kind of where the clouds parted and everything. And I started on this journey of healing was she was just like, after lots of talking, she was like, you realize that every decision you've made since was with that eight-year-old brain, afraid of abandonment, afraid of disappointing people because they might leave or whatever that might be. And I was like, oh, you're right. This is...

31:05
This is a mess and I need to figure it out. But you know, it's a journey that I'm glad that I took in that way. Yes. Because when my grandmother, who kind of became like the mother figure in my life, when she was diagnosed with cancer, I was like, let's go. Kind of like when you spoke about your husband and like kind of intentional passing in this way. I was just like, we know it's happening. So this is what we're gonna do. And I sat down with her and like a month before she died and I was like,

31:35
We don't know how much longer we have. So let's say everything. Right, good for you. Let's say every single thing. Oh, good for you. You know? And it was hard, but it was beautiful, you know? People can't get there unless they have had the experience or they have somebody who's coaching them with the experience. I've even fantasized about being the death coach, but I mean, you know, because I know, I know what it's like. I know how it goes. Not...

32:04
Not every detail for every person, but I know that the important things are just what you said. We don't know how much we time. Let's say all the important things to one another that we want. Yeah. Why wait? Exactly. Why wait until you're at the funeral and say all these nice things? Say it to their face. I told her everything that she meant to me and how she essentially saved my life in a way by being that mother figure. The last 96 hours of her life, I sat by her bedside and

32:33
was there until the last breath. She was there when I was born, so I was there for her when she needed me. And I think if I hadn't lost my mom and kind of failed in the grief journey for myself in the way that I did, I don't think I would have been able to do that. And so it became this like blessing in disguise. And I think it's so valuable for me. And I wouldn't say you failed in your grief journey. I would say you learned the hard way.

33:02
like so many of us do by making it, making the mistakes and the positive things that somehow get you through. And this is what I'm learning a lot about death and trauma and stuff is you do what you need to do to get through. Later on, you can look back and say, you know, that was then and this is now and that thinking, that idea, that way that I'm dealing with it, it's not working now. I need to.

33:30
I need to let it go or I need to repair it or I need to try something else. And those are powerful. That's, I think, mostly what happens in therapy. A good therapist will work you through that and give you the insight and give you the suggestions. And it's so valuable, so valuable. Yeah, I'm so grateful that I was able to do what I did because I felt like...

33:57
I felt like a grief champion after, because when she passed, it was like, there was nothing left unsaid. I was there for every moment that I needed to be there. And that grief period was very short in comparison to the people around me, in which I look at my uncle or my father and seeing their mother die. They experienced my mom dying, but it was a different relationship, right? And so I was just like, I'm done.

34:26
And they're still, you know, kind of going through their process and it's just different. I'm really grateful that I was able to find a space that worked for me. And it sounds like you now, if we fast forward that many years, you're kind of doing that. You're helping other people kind of find that space, too. So like this really tough journey in your earlier life probably informed so much of what you're doing now, helping others. And and and when I give my talks and when I in my book, I talk about.

34:55
how I was so angry and it was beyond anger. It was rage. It was real rage and how it came out in weird things and I almost killed somebody. And I was like, oh no, there's so much here that's on, on, on dealt list. And I called my girlfriend and I said, I don't know what to do. She said, honey, you need therapy. She said, that is rage.

35:22
I said, well, oh God, I'm so glad it has a name because now I can deal with it. I just didn't know what it was, you know? And I think especially if you've never had it before, if you're a little kid, if this is like, you know, one of the few people when you have so few other people, when those people die or you're traumatized in that way, rage is part of it. And...

35:50
It's nasty. You can't really talk about it to everybody, and it doesn't always come out in the right way. That's a tough one. I think having experienced what I've experienced in the death in two ways of a mom figure, people often come to me when someone passes in their life, and they're like, what do I do? And I'm like, I can't tell you what to do. So my only advice, because I've done it multiple ways now.

36:17
But my only advice to them really is kind of along this line of this understanding rage, but be okay with however you're feeling or honor the feelings in whatever you're feeling. If some days you're mad, say, okay, I'm mad and this is okay and I won't always be mad. Exactly. Or if you're crying uncontrollably, don't stop it. Go for it. Just let it come out. If you laugh watching TV, don't feel bad about laughing. Exactly. You know, like you're a human, you need to go through these motions. And so people ask me, I'm like, that's it.

36:47
feel all your feelings and be okay with it and understand that you're a human with very complex emotions and things that are gonna go through your body. Like you said, those first 72 hours, you probably don't even know you have a body. You know, like it's a lot of things change. And I say to people, just because it hurts doesn't mean it's wrong. It means it's important. It's important. Well, you point out, you point out that, you know, in society, there's this like...

37:14
at work, you have three days of bereavement, and then you gotta come back and be normal. And so I think we automatically, because of that, might assume shame if we're not over it within three days, or if we're not past a certain point, you know, like, oh, I haven't met this threshold, or I haven't met this milestone yet. And then we assume the shame, because, oh, we should be over this by now. And you know, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross is the...

37:42
the psychiatrist who first dealt with people that were dying and she described these stages. And so people who don't know will go on the internet, they'll look up these stages and then they try to figure out where their friend is in this stage and they try to help them through it. And as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross herself has said, these stages were never meant to tie up in needy bundles the messy feelings that we have.

38:12
And it doesn't go like you go through each stage and then you graduate and voila, it's over, no. You can go through them all in the process of maybe one minute and then you could start over again at a different level or you can be fine until you hear something or you smell something that brings you back there. And you know, it's a big process. It's a big process and it's not something.

38:40
I think the average person can relate to, but I wish there was more about it. I wish, like what we're doing I think is so important so that people get a feel for it, what you're talking about, what I'm talking about. The important thing to remember about these stages of grief is that those were for the person that was dying. Those were not for those of us who are left behind. There are, there's a guy called Warden who was a...

39:08
He's a death and dying specialist, psychiatrist or psychologist, and he gives very similar stages for the mourners. And so I think it's important to remember there's a difference between the person that's dealing with their own death and the person who's dealing with their death. As you've said, people say, you know, I don't know what to do. There isn't anything to do.

39:38
And as you said, you spent those 96 hours with your grandmother. And when the truth of it is when you sit at the bedside of a dying person, you realize there is no place else in the world that's better than that. That is the place to be at that time for reasons you can't even describe.

40:03
Yeah, it was, I describe it, or I describe the end as devastatingly beautiful. Yes. Because I think, in one piece I felt like my whole world crumble into like dust, but also like, found it a really beautiful experience that I got to be there, and I got to see the last moment, you know, of someone that I held so dear. So, I can look back at that and be like, it was a really beautiful moment, of course, my world crumbled a little bit, but.

40:32
at the same time, it felt right. It felt like I was in the right place at the right time. It's perfect. And when you said she was there for your birth, I was thinking, oh, you were there for her rebirth. Because if no one knows what's on the other side, but I mean, that's a fascinating subject in and of itself. I believe there's so much more. And when you have a gentle...

41:01
transition like my husband had, like your grandmother had, those are so peaceful. And then that last breath, I don't know, there's a piece to it that's kind of indescribable also, but if you've been there, you get it. And it's a letting go in a nice way. It's a good way to do it. Yeah, it's, I think...

41:30
You can't appreciate, I don't know, maybe you can. I feel like I probably wouldn't have been able to appreciate it unless I had experienced death before in a different way. Exactly. I don't know, I felt like it was so intentional and I felt like every decision that I made made sense because of the things that I felt I didn't appreciate about the journey that I was on before that. It's that learning process, it's that tough learning process, but.

41:58
once you get it at whatever you get it, if you can not avoid it and not feel broken and beat up too badly by it and synthesize the lessons that you learn with that, there's some power, there's some real power and magic that come out of that. And then, I don't know if you've had this feeling, but I felt like whatever I have to face now...

42:27
It's in a perspective where I'm, you know, I'm not gonna freak out. I was like, OK, I'm not dying. If the other person isn't dying, hey, I can deal with it, whatever, whatever it is. And it'll be all right. And if I make a mistake, I'll fix it or I'll say, I'm sorry, I didn't know what I was doing. I was trying to do my best because of love or whatever. And you just go on. You just go on. Small potatoes, you know. Exactly. Yeah.

42:55
So if you look back on that moment in which you were in deep despair and you were trying to find life again, if you will, do you recall a moment in which you kind of like had this awareness? Like you were getting too okay? I did not feel like I was getting too okay, but I thought that I was going to have to get there. And so I...

43:23
I knew I had some good support systems and, you know, there were times in between when I didn't feel okay and didn't think I was okay, but I had people to call. I had, sometimes I would just, I would lay down and I would do like a yoga breathing exercise and say, oh, I'm thinking of, you know, Kuflui because I need to lay down, let my body rest and let my body heal.

43:53
And then whenever you have those good moments, like you said, when you find something that either makes you laugh or you look at something, a sunset or the stars, and you think, this is so beautiful and just one little speck here, you get a different perspective, it gives you that respite. And then eventually you get to, okay. You know, and I've been okay for so many years. Thank God I didn't kill myself because I just had so many wonderful more experiences after that.

44:24
It's, you know, I think you made a really strong point of that, that 72 hour period in which your body is just burnt every end of every nerve ending and, and you're just, you need a reset almost. You needed everything needs to start firing again. And lucky that your, your family was around to help you pause, help you wait, help you sit that part out so that you could.

44:51
start to re-fire again and realize that your life was also worth continuing because the people around you wanted you to be there, and then eventually you wanted to be there again. I know, and I told people, they said, "'Oh my God, what am I gonna do?' I said, "'You're gonna come out here and be with me. I'm not going through this by myself.'" You know? So I just, and I didn't, that wasn't a conscious thing that just came out of me, you know, out of that core survival area, like, you know, I need...

45:20
I need support, I need you to be here physically. And my mother, who is not the soft, fuzzy, warm, giving mother, caregiving mother, she said, what could I do? And I said, I wanna put my head on your lap and I want you to pet it. I want you to pet my hair and my face because I just need that connection now. And that wasn't that easy for that woman to do, but she did it, you know? And so...

45:50
If you can ever find a thing that you want or need, and then you can find somebody to do it, you're gonna be better. And say it out loud. You said you've been okay for a while. Like how long was that period until you felt okay to like live your best life again? I would say probably with Kerry, it was about three years. And then, because he was my fiance, and when my husband Tom died,

46:18
It was so different because like you, we got to say our goodbyes. We got to say, thank you for this, forgive me for that, or I forgive you for whatever you did that I'm still carrying these hurts. I'm going to unburden all this stuff. And then you wrote. And then you wrote a book. And then I wrote a book. So that was probably also healing. Yeah, that was helpful too. So after Tom died, I was...

46:45
Probably I went back to work a few months later. I was able to go to work, get in a work group and stay there and be really good. But I'd say it probably took close to a year when I was, I myself was feeling good. I held myself up because I had two young children that were grieving also. And I just would make sure that we would do things. We did things like I took them to.

47:13
I still had a full practice, so I was going to nursing homes and they were small and I wasn't going to leave them at home alone, so I said, well, you're coming too. And so my youngest one took a little deck of cards and she played go fish with some of the old people. And my older daughter took a bunch of nail polish and stuff and did the nails of everybody and hearing them laugh and seeing what they could do. My youngest daughter said, I love this nursing home.

47:41
like who little kid goes into a smelly nursing home and says she loves it there, you know, but that they got healing that way with giving and making a difference in other people's lives. And that was really huge. Yeah, you know, and it's nice that you had some more tools in your tool belt to help those two grieving children as well, because I think that probably also helped your healing journey.

48:10
in a way, like it was like probably all intertwined in some way of like big responsibility, but helping them, which then feeds into you, I feel like there's probably this natural ball of yarn that happens. Well, I remember one time it was my husband and I with the kids, we always went camping every summer and we at this place we went, I tried to go camping there, but I just couldn't do all the things that he did and I was doing and Adam all together. So I said to the kids, okay, listen up.

48:39
They're both like, okay. I said, your dad's dead. We're not dead. We're gonna have some fun. I said, we are going down the Grand Canyon and I booked us on a camping tour down the Grand Canyon where someone else did all the work, you know, the cooking, but we were camping and we were on the river and we were having a great time. That was so healing for me just floating down that river and someone else was cooking and my kids were like screaming, yay, look at this.

49:08
swimming and people were there that were interacting with them. It was very, very helpful. Yeah, nature has this way too of just like making us realize how big everything else is and how, how, I don't want to say tiny, but like how, I don't know, the things that we worry about don't matter as much when you see how, you know, how big.

49:34
the universes and the things that are around us. It puts it into a perspective. And of course, if you're dealing with death, it's a little bit harder to get that perspective, but it's still there. And when my husband was dying, the death and dying therapist, he said, and he was kind of going in and out at the end there, and he said, he said, we're so big, we're so big, but we make ourselves small with our thoughts.

50:04
Oh, wow, you know, some of these profound things he would say. You know, I can still think about him and think, wow, that was, that was great. And I can think back on both Carrie and Tom and not think, oh, you know, no, no, you know, no, I don't, I just don't think that way because that was then and this is now. And, and for reasons I don't understand and I may never understand, but hopefully when I die, I will understand.

50:32
why those things happened to me and in my life the way they did. Perhaps at some time before I came to this earth I picked some of these experiences to have for my own spiritual growth. I'm not sure. I choose to believe that but I know that it's helped me tremendously to connect with other people and understand as best I can.

50:59
what another person's thinking and dealing with and helping them. And that gives me great joy. I think I discovered not only being a doctor was my calling in this life, but that this thing about the death and dying. Because I could be in the—I was in the grocery store the other day and somebody came up to me and they said, you're Dr. Betty, right? And I said, yes. I'm in Bite of Tomatoes. She says, I went to your talk at the library. I want to tell you. That really helped.

51:30
Thank you. Yeah, so it's nice. That's big on that person too, to even just say it out loud and come up to you and tell you that. So that must be rewarding. No, when you said your husband had some wise words at the end, one thing that sticks out from when my grandmother was passing is she was a war-y wart, and we all kind of just followed suit with that. We worried about everything. And at the end, she was like...

51:56
I wish I hadn't worried so much because all that matters is love in the end, because she was looking around and all the people that loved her were there. And like, so that sticks with me. It's like, you're right. We waste a lot of time worrying about things that may or may not happen. And, you know, maybe we can spend more time with that intention. So I love what you're doing and taking your own personal experiences to help people. I mean, you spent your life helping people on the physical side, right? Yeah. For so long. And now you're helping people.

52:26
really with their emotions and understanding how to move through this really, what we've deemed as scary process of our lives. We're all gonna hit this point at some point. We're not gonna be here forever. So it's important that we talk about it. And some people say, you know, we should live our life backwards. Like if I'm gonna die, okay, what do I wanna do? If I have so many, if I was given, you know, I've got a month to live or three months to live, what would you do?

52:55
Well, pretend that's happening and do it anyway, because you'll get the essential things going. You'll find the love. And when you do stuff like that, other people respond too. And it's just great. And you feel so good. You just connect with something deep in your core and you know, oh, that's right. That was the right thing to do. Not always you'll make some mistakes and be like, oh, that was not the right thing to do. But you know. But you learn.

53:23
You learn and you apologize and you learn how to forgive and ask for forgiveness. And that's really what the whole thing is about. If you, knowing what you know now and all the experiences you've had since, if you could go back to the Mary Ann that was really just in the super dark place, maybe right before that bathtub moment, is there anything that you would wanna tell her?

53:47
just that it's gonna be all right. You don't have to draw it out and you're going to take these lessons because it really is about the lessons and you're going to go forward and I would definitely wanna say you're gonna be a mother, you're gonna have a lot of love in your life. This is not the only love in your life. It may feel like that, but you're gonna have.

54:16
so many other kinds of love. Just keep it going. Just keep going, do the best you can, rest. In those dark moments, it's so hard to believe that there is a future. And I'm just so glad you asked your family to be there. And it brought us to have this conversation and be able to, you travel the country and share your experiences and your stories.

54:44
your helpful knowledge with all these people around the world. I mean, it's because of that moment, because of your sister being like, No, you can't. You can't see him again if you do this. Yeah. Well, the thing that I like about what you're doing and your questions is that you've you have an experience base similar to mine in that way that we both lost somebody very important. Other people who.

55:13
try to talk to me about this who don't have that kind of experience, don't ask the same kind of questions or the same depth as you do. So I really appreciate what you're doing, Matt, and I want to congratulate you and tell you keep going, boy. Give up that other full-time job. Do it full-time. You're doing great. Yeah. I love, I never knew that the eight-year-old in me needed more healing. I really thought, okay, he's good. He's put that down.

55:42
I think the 35-year-old that lost his grandmother, I think he's good, but I think that eight-year-old still needs a little bit of this. And so every little conversation that I have with people that I've never met before this moment is healing a little bit of that eight-year-old that's walking along with me now. So thank you for being a part of that healing. Oh, thank you for this. This has been fabulous.

56:07
If people want to check out your book, see if you're gonna be speaking in their town, connect with you, find you on, if you're on social, what's the best way to get into your orbit? Well, I'm about to make up a website for that. I have an Instagram called Betty Maryann, and I put healing pictures, sayings, a lot of nature, sometimes some funny things. I do have a good sense of humor. And...

56:34
That is a way that people could connect with me. And I think Instagram goes with Facebook. So not that I'm on Facebook much, but there's that. My book is on Amazon and Goodreads, both my books. And then I have a publisher called Emerald Lake Books. And they have a website where you can look stuff up and you can buy the books from them. It's probably better for them than Amazon, but whatever, they're all out there.

57:04
Okay, we'll keep links to those in the show notes so people can easily find you. Great, that's great. Thanks. They won't have to rely on typing it while you're talking. We'll put those links in the show notes for everyone listening so they can easily check out what you have to offer the world and connect with you on social. I think you would probably invite someone reaching out if they were experiencing something and they just wanted to share their story. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's all about the human connection. Isn't it?

57:31
Thank you for being a part of this. It's just, it's really heartwarming and I'm so glad to now know you in this way. Me too, me too. I feel like I've met a friend. I appreciate that. And we will stay in touch. For those of you listening, if something that Mary Ann said throughout her journey really touched you or you think someone you know needs to hear what she has to say, we'd love it if you share this episode with them. As an indie podcaster, any kind of word of mouth is just so helpful. So.

57:59
Thank you for listening and I will be back next week with a brand new episode of the Life Shift Podcast. Thanks again, Marianne. Thank you, darlin', thank you.