I’m writing this brief blog the last day of 2023 as it becomes history. I can’t let the year fade without expressing my gratitude toward those of you who have been faithful followers of this blog and have taken time to let me know when my words are helpful. Unlike actors who reap immediate applause or boos, writers can only hope their words resonate with readers.
The blog before this one, for instance, about building bridges across our differences, drew one of the largest responses. I was moved by those who told me that my account of reaching out to the sister I’ve since lost inspired them to reach out to their own siblings or parents or children or friends. Being “inspired,” as many of you put it, works two ways. You, in turn, inspire me to continue sharing candidly.
By the time you read this it may already be a new year and I hope it’s one that gives each of you a renewed sense of purpose. I find there’s nothing so motivating as having something to look forward to, whether a new career step or simply Zoom with an old friend. So I’m happy to announce that I will be embarking on the year with a new venture! My blog series will be under the umbrella of Substack. Since you’re on my mailing list you will automatically become subscribers at no fee. I assure you that my messages will continue to be about the challenges we all face and ways we can triumph over them. More details to follow next year, which is only hours away.
It’s hard to feel optimistic with the world and our country in such troubled shape. But belief in a brighter future is the only view worth having. So with all my heart I wish each of you Health and Hope in the New Year.
ANNE

PRIVATE MIRACLES

If there’s one word that gets ample use in December it’s ”miracle”- ¬ from the Chanukah phenomenon of oil to the litany of events leading to Christmas. We also tend to apply that label to miscellaneous things .(?My gift arrived in time – a miracle!”) But what does that word really mean? Turning to Webster I discovered that miracle is defined as “an extraordinary event,” usually with Divine assistance.
We overlook the fact that these phenomenal events may also occur with some help from us. “Make a miracle and marry me,” runs the lovelorn refrain in the old musical “Where’s Charley?”” This plea assumes that the object of affection has the power to make a miracle occur. But what are the limits? We can’t bring a loved one back to life, but what about resuscitating a seemingly dead relationship ? For personal ties don’t necessarily end with our mortality, but often in a burst of pent-up anger or the fog of misunderstanding, or they simply expire from neglect. “Some of my losses are still walking around,” a woman told me. She wasn’t referring to ghostly figures, but her divorced husband and estranged daughter. Losses that may be beyond our ability to repair.
Or are they?
A teacher I interviewed spoke about her prickly relationship with her sister. For most of their lives they tried to avoid each other. But when they were older they not only got together more often, but even managed to vacation together successfully. “We both love going to the mountains and we’re both vegetarians,” she told me. “ So I learned to maximize our overlap and let the rest go.”
That’s what I learned to do with my own sister. We had a close relationship, but it was as up-and-down as a roller-coaster.. We had grown up in a family where we competed for every scrap of affection or attention. As adults our love always had the static of competitiveness. Yet as we aged and were both widowed I faced the reality that she was my sole sibling, and the two of us were the only ones left of our original family. There was no one else I shared certain memories with or could ask,”Remember when…?” Swallowing my pride ,(why do I have to be the one to reach out?) I sent her a holiday card, and wote on it “I miss you.” I waited for sarcasm or ,worse, silence. But what arrived two days later was a simple Email: “I miss you, too.” It wasn’t perfect – what is? ¬¬¬¬¬- but we reclaimed the closeness we’d lost, with the wisdom to hold it gently. I’m grateful that we did, for my sister died three years ago. Her birthday is coming soon. (Ironically, she’ll never know the birthdate is now historic -¬January 6..)
I’m aware that reconciliation isn’t always possible and that it take two to navigate the shoals. Bringing any relationship back to life requires the strength to reach out without probing every wound., the willingness to see beyond the fog of accumulated resentments, and the wisdom to value what remains. Developing the ability to do this can be our personal miracle.
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WEBSITE: WWW.annehosansky.com

My sister and I used to alternate hosting the Thanksgiving feast. We shared the same habit of asking guests to say one thing they were thankful for. On occasions when she was the host I’d say, “I’m thankful that I didn’t have to cook the dinner.” That always got a laugh, but I wouldn’t say the same thing now. My sister, my husband, and too many friends are missing. It’s difficult to feel very thankful. It’s even harder these days when we’re haunted by the suffering of relatives and strangers on both sides of the war in the Middle East.

Yet, what about the people who are with us? The first holiday after my husband died our grieving son told me, “I’m glad you’re still here.” I sai’SO am  I.” But when I remember that moment I find myself putting the emphasis on a single word: HERE. Being physically present doesn’t always mean being present with our mind and heart. I’m easily distracted by trivial details, as well as the inner undercurrent of “What if…?” (My husband were still here, my best friend wasn’t gone, etc.)

IN ThorntonWilder’s pognant play “OUR TOWN, the heroine dies but is given a chance to relive one day of her life. She chooses her 12thbirthday, a time when her parents and brither were still wit  her. Reaching out to her mother Emily is shoicked to see her too busy with her chores to pay attention to her daughter. When the same thing happens with her father Emily cries out, ”It all goes so fast…why didn’t we really look at one another?”

This Thanksgiving I will be a host again.  After any social evening I frequently feel as though I hadn’t been there. This year I’ill try to be aware of the sound of my friends’voices, the expressions on their faces, he look of pain or joy in their eyes – and to carry this within me through lonely winters.

Giving thanks isn’t limited to a special time, of course, That evening I’llL say my daily Gratitude Prayer, giving thanks for the major gifts in my life – and the smaller  blessings that too often slip by unnoticed.

A meanngful Holiday to all.

These are dark days, with death and destruction ravaging the Middle East and threatening to spread. So many people feel helpless and hopeless. But often it helps to know how someone in another horrific era managed to survive and even grow. Weeks ago I reached for a book I’d never gotten around to reading. It was a random choice, for I didn’t know what headlines were about to explode, but I couldn’t have found a more apt and inspiring book. It was Viktor Frankl’s classic, ”Man’s Search For Meaning.”

A Holocaust survivor, Frankl endured three years in concentration camps, suffering starvation, beatings, and – hardest – no way of knowing if his family was still alive. When he was finally liiberated he learned that his wife, parents and brother had been killed by the Nazis. (A sister escaped to Australia.)

What kept Frankl from being defeated by despair? How do any of us go on when the loss of even one beloved person can be unbearable? For him, the answer was the book he’d been writing before he was captured. The guards had destroyed his only manuscript, but Frankl refused to accept the loss of his work. In the darkened camp at night, he secretly scribbled notes on scraps of paper, that might enable him to reconstruct his book if he survived. Years later he was convinced that writing those notes saved him, for it gave “meaning” to his life. Frankl managed to rewrite his book and go on to write many others, spreading his belief in the necessity for everyone to create a personal meaning.

His story reminded me of a woman I’d interviewed whose sole remaining siiblling had died. Depressed, she wanted to hide under the blankets. Then she decided to plan  a commitment for each day that would include something or someone important to her. “Having a purpose enabled me to get out of bed each morning,”

I discovered this for myself after my husband died. At first the empty evenings and weekends were like black holes in the universe. But after several months I began to write about my husband’s valiant fight, our joint struggle to keep some hope, and at last my faltering steps toward a new life as a single woman. I wrote this as a journal, with no belief it would ever be read. What saved me wasn’t the ultimate publication of “Widow’s Walk,” but the hours writing it when I was so involved I forgot how lonely I was. There was something I needed to do.

Of course, meaning doesn’t have to be writing a book or creating something huge. Frankl stressed that what’s meaningful is different for each person. It varies not only from one individual to another, but from one day to the next! These turbulent times there are countless choices, from becoming involved in a global cause, to helping an elderly neighbor. What they have in common is the ability to direct your life. It’s what Frankl called “the last of the human freedoms.”

When everything else has been taken from us, he said, we still have the right to choose our “attitude” toward the circumstances nd “the right to choose our own way.”

Website: www.annehosansky.com
LATEST BOOK: “ARISING”, available at BookBaby.com and Amazon.

For months after my husband died the phone was unusually silent. Even the friend I had chatted with several times a week didn’t call. When I  asked her if there was anything wrong she said, “Frankly, I’m afraid of your pain.”
I was angry at what I felt was abandonment, but I understood when a bereavement counselor explained that “someone’s death reminds people of their own mortality.”

Henry, a widower I interviewed, said bluntly, “We shouldn’t be bastards throwing our problems at friends or using them as therapists.” Wary of being seen as intrusive he always begins a call with, “Do you have time to chat?”

That’s sage advice but it assumes you  have your  old friends. Many of us find our social circle dwindling ,especially if it involves couples. The norm has been”two by two’ ever since Noah chose the pairs for his ark.” So often when we suggest an evening our friends dodge with, “Why don’t we have lunch instead?”. This may cover subterranean issues. As a candid widow told me, “Wives know that many men see widows as fair game.” She, herself, she added wryly,  ” keep my necklines and my fantasies discreet.”
It’s easier for widowers,since a single man is usually welcome, whereas a single woman isn;’t .We may even encounter this when our spouse is still alive.  I remember the time a ineighbor nvited Mel and me to a dinner party .I told her I would come but Mel was  ona business trip.”That’s too bad,” she said.”Another time.”
Fortunately not everyone has that conventional view. I bless the memory of Dorothy, a married friend, who invited me for every occasion.. The first tinme she did I told her I didn’t think Icshould come.”Theylre alll couoles and I’m on;ly half of one now,”I said,.
“Arenn’;tyou a whole person?” she shot back.
,But it takes time to feel whole again. It’s a skilll we have to practice.
We also have to learn that accepting offers of helip is not a sign of sweakness. During the first months I refused cliché offers asuch as,”Is there anything I can do to help?” I’d just murmur “Nothing” or lie that I was doing “fine.” (Me Big Strong Woman).But I realized that most people want to help and that they feel better when theylre allowed to. So I began accepting routine offers, such as “Need anything at the supermarket?” But the most appreciated gift was the offer to take the children for the day, freeing me for the wonders of the Metropolitan Museum! Yes it was a gift gjven to me, but it was also a gift I gave myself by not letting pride get in the way
There’s an even more valuable gift that friends can guive– and that we, in tiurn, can give to them. It doesn’t cost any money or take much effort. It’s the willingness to listen – with empathy and jwithgout judgment. It isn’tnecessary to reply or to come up with answers (aret here anyy?) Just knowing that someone really hears s us is the greatest gift and the truest friendship.
Websitte: http://annehosansky.com
New book! “ARISING” available in print and E-version
at BookBaby and Amazon

I feel as if I’ve found treasure when I learn a new word, so I was  delighted to discover sisu (pronounced see-su).  It’a  a word  that’s so important in Finland it’s become part of the national culture.  I don’t know Finnish,  but I do understand – and desire – the qualities the word embodies:  determination, perseverance, courage . That doesn’t mean momentary bravery, but the ability to remain courageous in the face of overwhelming odds.

            This brings  me to my husband.  When he was given a stark diagnosis Mel said , “I don’t like the cards I’ve been dealt but I’ll  play the hand the best I can.” That’s not only courage, it’s what Hemingway famously called “grace under pressure.”

            Is there anyone who doesn’t have to cope with pressure of one kind or another? Some of us fold up under it. I confess that my original reaction to my husband’s illness was a tearful, “Why us?”  He said, ”Why not us?”

            The Finnish soldiers revere the concept of sisu and believe it gave them the fortitude  to  fight the powerful Soviet  army in 1939 and perseverance during months of  dangerous sub-zero weather.

But challenges don’t have to be historic or life-threatening, they can be wrapped in any ordinary moment.  How about the sngle mother coming home from a long day in the office,­­­ ­“too tired toto do anything but crawl into bed,” as a friend put it,  yet summoning strength  to give  her children the undivided attention they need? The Finns understand that as “calling on your sisu.”

            And what about writers who get a discouraging series of rejections? Their sisu isn’t the ultimate publication, but the detrmination to keep going to the computer each day. For sisu doesn’t mean the goal, but what you do to reach it.

            On a far more major scale, what about those of us who have to endure the loss of a loved one? Do we see ourselves as helpless (and hopeless)  victims ­– or do we find  the strength within ourselves to move on?

            Another personal note: Six weeks after Mel lost his valiant battle I heard that one of our favorite poets, Stanley Kunitz, was giving a reading in the public library. In a wrenching struggle I decided to go to the reading for both Mel and myself.  I was numb, could barely hear a word Kunitz read.  But without realizing it,  I was taking a sisu step toward a necessary new life.

            For ultimately sisu means refusing to accept your limits, then willing yourself  to go beyond them.

Website: www.annehosansky.com

Latest book: ARISING, available at BookBaby.com and Amazon.

There’s a popular cliche that preaches, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” Easier to say than to do, I’ve always thought. But an Ohio woman seems to have found the recipe.
Now in her nineties, Judy was given the lemon of widowhood when she was only 55. Her husband had kidney disease and for eight years they’d lived with a “time bomb,” she says. Afterward she saw a “long dark road” ahead of her. “But I learned I could handle day to day what would horrify me if I thought it was the rest of my life.”
Fast forward to this year. Judy recently decided to sell the house she’s lived in all these years and move into an assisted living facility. “There was no choice,” she says. ”My daughter had been living with me and constantly worrying. I didn’t want to limit her life.” What happened next has been a test of her ability to convert lemons! She describes the experience, frequent laughter punctuating her words.
“The first evening I was assigned to a table in the dining room,” she says. “Two women seated across from me were obviously unhappy to have me join them. They put napkins over their mouths so I wouldn’t hear their conversation. A third woman, sitting beside me, didn’t speak at all. ‘Don’t bother with her,’ I was told. ‘She’s a silent one.’”
But Judy believes that “everyone’s available if you hit them right.” Aware that the woman always got to the dining room ahead of time Judy deliberately arrived ten minutes early one day. Sure enough, the “silent one” was the only one at the table. Judy began talking to her, but at first the woman just stared at her. “Then she began to open up. She told me she was from Tennessee and had played the guitar since she was a child. I think she felt more comfortable with no one else listening to us. Later someone told me that the guitar story was a lie. But so what?”
The greater problem was that Judy didn’t feel welcome. “Maybe it had something to do with my being the only Jewish person,” she says. “There’s one woman who won’t even look at me.” Although nothing was said directly a religious tract was left in her room.
“I had to make sure I didn’t close in on myself.” So Judy devised a strategy she’s continued every day. “I make a point of stopping at every table as I come into the dining room and greeting each person . I also try to say something personal to at least one person at each table. I do the same thing again on my way out. ‘I hope you enjoyed your meal…Have a nice evening.’” She was amused to overhear murmurs of,”What a nice lady!” She also started a trend she says proudly. “Two of the women are now doing my greeting routine.”
Advised to join in activities such as Bingo Judy refused. ‘ I studiously avoid being part of a group.” She prefers reading in her room. “But I keep my bedroom door open so everyone knows they’re welcome.” By now she knows everyone’s story.” I wish I were a writer, because their stories are so interesting.” She particularly relishes watching the romantic relationship between two of the residents. ”He’s a sweet man, but she turns into a witch if he even looks at another woman,” Judy says indignantly.
Still , she’s no Polyanna (the fictitious child who was forever optimistic ). She worries about the health of her son, who’s in a different assisted living facility. And as a former English teacher, Judy frets about the grammatical errors in the facility’s fliers. ”I offered to edit them but they’re done by an outside company and I don’t want to seem pushy.”
Although Judy’s realistic about how much time remains at her age she refuses to dwell on it. She does admit she gets a sudden surge of grief when familiar words or a tune on the radio brings up memories. “I get teary but I let it pass. After a while life begins again.”
I tell her about the lemon quote and her exuberant laugh breaks out again. “Lemonade is on the menu today!”

Website: www.annehosansky.com
Just published: “ARISING” – Available in print and E-book at BookBaby.com and Amzon.com..

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I’m afflicted with an unfortunate tendency to associate places with people. So my personal geography shrinks when sites I’ve enjoyed become haunted by the absence of someone I loved .

My husband virtually worshipped  the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had hundreds of wonderful times there. But after he died I was not  only unable to go near the  building, I couldn’t go into any museum. Obviously this limited my life. Then during a visit to my sister in Colorado she suggested we see the Denver Art Museum’s new Rembrandt exhibit. “I can’t…,”I   began , but I knew I had to revise “can’t” to “must.” Reluctantly I went,  but when my sister  wandered to the next galllery I stood in front of an exquisite etching, tears running down my cheeks. Visitors must have thought this was an emotional reaction to Rembrandt, but it was that a museum brought up more memories of my husband than I could handle. Stilll it dented the barrier I’d erected  and allowed me to start enjoying art again – for both of us.

Ir  wasn’t only art that paralyzed me. I couldn’t listen to any song we had danced to, or read any poet we had both loved, or go to any plays although Mel and I loved the theatre. But short of moving to another planet, we have to learn to transform memories so they don’t wound us. My son taught me a lesson about this. After his father died, David went to the office and visited his father’s former staff.  I asked him how he could bear to go into those rooms, He said, “I go to old places and put new experiences into them.”

That’s what a widow I interviewed did. Isabel had been married to a  Frenchman and they vacationed in Paris every year .She  loved that beautiful city, but after Henri died she couldn’t imagine traveling without him. Then her daughter showed her an ad for a budget trip to Paris. “It was only four days so I thought  it might be doable.” Isabel said. Still, she was so uncertain that she went to the airport  unable to believe  she’d  really get on the plane. I asked her when she realized she would. ”When I saw my luggage going down the chute,” she said.

But Isabel also armed herself  with a list of sites that she and Henri had never gone to. “I went to an agricultural fair and a music museum that were interesting,” she .said. The trip wasn’t easy but she came home with a reignited love of travel. She choses locales she’s always wanted to see but that don’t have memories, like her recent trip to Iceland

Traveling isn’t a panacea for everyone. Noah, an elderly widower, wasn’t interested in going beyond his zip code. Although he’d always been a loner, he talked himself into joining a local political discussion group. “Each week we solve the world’s problems,” he jokes.  But he’s serious when he adds: “It’s important to do anything that gets you out of the rut.”

There are so many factors that narrow life  beyond our control, let’s not  make memory one of them.

Website:www.annehosansky.com

New book! “ARISING” available through BookBaby and Amazon

Guilt is the common cold of the bereaved. I haven’t found one person (including myself) who doesn’t reach for myriad ¬– often baseless ¬¬– things to feel guilty about after a loved one dies. I was plagued by the certainty that death had come for the wrong one. It should have been me, Mel was the better person. Like so many survivors I kept berating myself for the times I’d been short-tempered with him, secretly resentful of the demands on me. “I caused Mel’s cancer,” I told his oncologist. “You must be very powerful,” he said. But even his well-meant sarcasm failed to release me.

I’m hardly unique. The field is overcrowded with those of us who insist we failed the person we loved. I spoke with Martha, a Baptist minister whose faith wasn’t enough to enable her to forgive herself. She had given her bed–ridden husband a bell he could ring when he needed her. She’s haunted now by the times she told him, “Stop ringing every minute, I have other things to do.” She lovingly cared for him for years, but it’s the times anger got the better of her that she keeps reliving.

Sometimes memory is imbedded in a tragic event. Janet said she and her husband usually did the week’s grocery shopping together. But one Saturday when they were expecting guests for dinner, she told him to shop without her, she had too much preparation to do. Hours later he still hadn’t returned, when the police callled. A truck driver had shot through the red light and rammed her husband’s car head-on. When she got to the hospital he was already on life support. Afterward she was submerged in a litany of “if only” she had gone with him, “if only” she hadn’t invited guests, “if only” and so on– and on. Everyone reminded her she wasn’t responsible for the accident, but she clung to guilt as if she needed it. Perhaps she did.

Often we find adroit ways to punish ourselves. Guilt is often termed the “crippler,” and in Bob’s case that was literally true. A former athlete, he began suffering crippling spasms after his partner died. The doctor couldn’t find a medical cause for the sudden onset, but told him, “You seem to have developed the same symptoms Marvin had.” Bob was actually relieved about the diagnosis. “What right did I have to be healthy if I hadn’t kept Marvin alive?”

These are only a few of the many people I interviewed who went the guilt route. But why do we do this to ourselves?
“Guilt is a way of remaining connected to the one who died.” That stunning answer was told to me by a Cancer Care bereavement counselor.
He added,: “As long as you think you could have done things differently there won’t be closure. You have the illusion you could have controlled fate.”

When I began to believe this– and to finally accept it – I was able to resume my life. Janet, the woman whose husband died in the car crash, went through the same struggle. After months of talking to friends who revealed how they had been able to get past similar feelings, Janet finally accepted the fact that even if she’d been in the car she couldn’t have saved her husband. “The reality is that I probably would have been killed, too. Then our children would have lost both parents.”

Ironically, letting go of guilt may feel like another loss. But it can free us to move on.
[Adapted from “Turning Toward Tomorrow.”]

When I left the editor job I’d had for 18 years, my departure was voluntary. I no longer found any pleasure in the work and I knew it was more than time to move on. Fortunately, finances were not an anxiety since my husband made a good salary. All positive, right?

So why did retirement bring a daily case of the blues – dark blue, at best? Why did I feel for months as if there was no solid ground beneath my feet? I had a pervasive sense of loss similar to grief.
I was hardly unique. Many retirees find themselves floundering when their days are no longer defined by a job. Felice, an Ohio school counselor, voluntarily retired after 43 years. Then she discovered that more than work was missing from her life. “I had lost schedule, purpose, and a sense of community,” she says. That trio of losses doesn’t match the idealized images of having time for ourselves to lie in the sun, go on a cruise, be with the grandchildren. Yet the grandkids are busy with their own lives and cruises eventually dock. So many of us ponder, what’s next?
That next step depends on accepting what kind of person you are. “I’m not good at doing nothing,” Felice admits. After months of soul–searching, she found her way back to a school setting – but in a very different format. Every morning she’s a volunteer aide in a preschool center. But these mornings aren’t enough for this energetic woman. Afternoons and even many evenings she’s a volunteer for numerous academic organizations. “My kids tell me I’ve flunked retirement,” she laughs..

My brother-in=law, Norman, was the editor of an esteemed science publication. When he was forced to take retirement he realized he wouldn’t be happy unless he was doing something purposeful. He began teaching English to groups of immigrants, led workshops about anger management in prisons, and became instrumental in setting up an organization to foster Jewish-Muslim cooperation in his home town of Columbus.

This doesn’t mean that retirement should be all work and no play. Even workaholic Felice has enrolled in exercise and yoga classes. You might also develop new skills. Norman joined a glass-making group and created exquisite glass objects that his family and friends were delighted to have as gifts. He also discovered he had the talent – and patience – to do intricate crewel embroidery. The Noah’s Ark tapestry he made for the newest baby is now a family heirloom. I, myself, while starting a new career as a freelance writer, made time to bring a longtime dream to life: learning to play the piano. (I hadn’t even known why the keys were two colors!)

Whatever path we decide to venture on, Felice advises asking yourself how that project would help you move forward. Settling for time-killer activities just makes us feel worse. “And don’t lock yourself into any long-term commitment,” she warns.

We could all take heart from the words of author Anne Tyler: “Sometimes you get to what you thought was the end and find it’s a whole new beginning.”
Website: annehosansky.com