Crying Over Strawberries at the Checkout

So you're in the grocery store on a picturesque Colorado day: warm, bright and filled with summer promise. You're loading your quart of ripe summer strawberries at the checkout and thinking about the possibilities. Sliced strawberries, spongy cake and freshly whipped cream. Smoothies. Icy cold strawberry margaritas. You catch the scent of the berries as they pass into the sales clerk's hands through the scanner and into your canvas bag (cheers to yourself for saving the planet one bag at a time!).

But before you can swipe your card, you're hit with a pang of something you can't place, like a loaf of day-old baguette leveled to the gut.

By the time you home in on your car and place your heavy eco-friendly bag into the back of your car, you're in tears. That is to say, you're beginning to convulse with sobs. One minute you're thinking about strawberry shortcake and drinks on the patio, the next you're bemoaning your lack of a scrap of anything resembling a tissue.

In the words of Marge Gunderson in the movie "Fargo" after she apprehends her depraved suspect, you think, "And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it."

Then, like the ends of a seat belt, it clicks. Picking strawberries on a summer's day. The scent wafting through the air. Father's Day. Your Dad.

Agape bereavement counselor Karrie Filios calls this a trigger, and as confounding as it can seem when it hits, it's a normal part of grief. It can happen weeks, months, or years after losing someone you love.

Life is full of triggers that may remind us of a people we've lost: the smell of fresh-cut grass, Old Spice or a trip to Ace Hardware. Such episodes can be painful and surprising. They can also be a gift, our body's way of remembering and bringing a memory to mind.

Slice those fresh strawberries. Make fruity margaritas and toss those red gems on shortcake with loads of whipped cream. Then toast the person who not only played a significant part in your life, but lives on in your heart and your remembering. And to remember is to honor.

Art Buchwald's Victory Lap: A Case Study in Hospice & Beyond

Alas, the people who come to visit me now look at me with great suspicion. They want to know if the whole thing was a scam. They can’t believe, after I said goodbye, I’m going to Martha’s Vineyard instead of Paradise.

Art Buchwald, The Washington Post, 3/23/2006

When celebrated columnist Art Buchwald checked himself into a residential hospice in February of 2006, he expected to live two or three weeks. His doctors told him he had no kidney function, and Buchwald—who was 80 years old and facing a number of health challenges— decided to forgo dialysis.

Apparently, one of Buchwald’s kidneys didn’t get the memo. It continued functioning, and Buchwald lived to “hold court” in the community room of The Washington Home and Hospice for almost five months.

At the end of this time, he didn’t die. He checked himself out of hospice and went back home to Martha’s Vineyard. He lived another six months, spending time with friends and family, before his kidneys failed and he passed away. (Buchwald said the lesson in this experience was “Don’t trust your kidneys.”)

In the time between being admitted to hospice and dying, Buchwald led a remarkable life. He visited with family and friends (and enemies), hand-picked his eulogizers and wrote a book about his end-of-life experience (“Too Soon to Say Goodbye”). He wrote columns twice a week for the Washington Post, was interviewed by a host of national media icons and, to use his words, “became a poster boy for death.”

In 2006, The National Hospice Foundation honored Buchwald with the Hospice Champion Award. In 2008, in recognition of the positive attention Buchwald brought to hospice care, the National Hospice Foundation created the Buchwald Spirit Award for Public Awareness.

Robin Morton Murray

Taken from the Agape Healthcare  "By Your Side" publication