You catch more flies with honey
by Kaitlin Gleason
What is the name of your lost one and what was your relationship?
My beautiful sister, Shannon, who died almost 4 years ago. Also, an honorable mention to my dad, Paul, who died when I was 12.
When did you find out, where were you?
My brother-in-law called me at like 5 a.m. and said I needed to come over. They asked if I wanted to go to the hospital and be there while she died. I had already said goodbye to her and I got an overwhelming feeling that she would want me to stay and be with her kids, so that's what I did. We sat on the couch for hours until someone called and delivered the news.
What surprised you about your own response?
I was surprised that it affected me so physically, so intensely, and so immediately. Right after she died, I got lightheaded and almost literally passed out. It was bizarre. I was nauseous and faint all day. For the next year or so I had a constant splitting headache and couldn’t sleep at all.
Where do you think they went? How do you feel about the concept of a legacy? Reincarnation? Spirits/souls?
After my dad died, I felt like he was sending me winks and nods all the time from beyond. I haven’t felt my sister around so much, which is hard. My psychic friend told me she saw my sister being shielded by my dad, who said she’s still processing what happened to her and isn't ready to talk yet. That helped me a lot. Just recently however, I asked my sister for help and she actually sent me a sign, so that was really nice. I think I believe in reincarnation; it makes the most sense. As for a legacy, I used to think it was all about the work you did. My dad was an actor so I can see him in movies and stuff whenever I want and that is a pretty cool legacy. But my sister’s legacy is the love she gave to people. When my mom was pregnant with me, my sister was in her early 20s. She was supposed to go do a year abroad in Europe, but she cancelled to stay home with me. She said Europe would always be there but she only had one chance to get to know her baby sister. She was there in the hospital room with my mom when I was born and she stayed with me while my mom went back to work. She showed me what unconditional love looks like and gave it to her own two amazing kids. They are the best people I know. She once said they are her “gift to the world” and she was so right. So, now I feel like the only legacy that matters is how people are affected and changed by your love.
How did you/your family mark the death? Was there a traditional or untraditional ceremony etc and what do you remember most?
We had a small funeral for my sister but it was rough. Everyone was too devastated and it all happened so quickly. I don't remember anything. For my dad, we had a funeral that was very him. All his friends were there, people spoke beautifully about him, one of them read a very graphic erotic poem that my dad wrote in the 70's. It was horrifying but in retrospect, pretty hilarious.
What’s the most annoying or unhelpful thing someone told you when you lost someone? What was the best / most useful / most comforting?
When I was a teenager, the dean of women at my high school told me I "had to get over it eventually” — “it” being the death of my father. I hope life has since humbled her. The most helpful thing anyone told me is, of course, something my sister said after our dad died. I was embarrassed to cry and she told me that crying is really the best thing to do since it releases actual chemicals in your body that make you feel better.
How do you feel grief today? Where does it manifest in your body?
I am still working on processing the deep emotions of grief (and have been for 20 years to be honest) but since my sister's death I have been really raw in general and my emotions are right at the surface all the time. I’m constantly weeping, sometimes at the most embarrassing shit. A video of Snoopy on Instagram made me cry today.
Humiliating! In my body, it manifested as physical pain and insomnia for a long time and I’ve had to do a lot of work to process all of it and get to a place where I feel relatively normal. It's always lurking in the shadows!
What is one logistic related to death that surprised you?
It's always so shocking how all the infuriating logistical minutiae continues on around you while you're dealing with actual life and death. I got a ticket from the Malibu police while my sister was dying and I had a total meltdown. A jury duty summons sent me absolutely over the edge. I got pulled over for talking on the phone and threatened with a ticket and I burst into tears so hysterically that the cop became actually concerned and just let me go. The fact that I had to deal with logistics and bureaucracy while mourning the untimely and horrific death of my sister was absolutely unconscionable to me.
Do you have any rituals for your lost one? Can you share a photo?
I used to sneak into a movie every year on my dad’s birthday because he loved sneaking into movies. I don’t have any rituals for Shannon but I think about her constantly. After she died, I became obsessed with finding monarch caterpillars in my garden and raising them to be butterflies and releasing them into the world. My nephew and I even built a whole butterfly house for them to safely cocoon. I later learned that my sister always thought our dad would come visit her as a monarch butterfly. So I guess that’s my ritual, obsessively caring for monarch butterflies for half the year. I think in an effort to not get bogged down by grief and death, I try to be a nurturer of new life, no matter how small. To that end, gardening has been huge.
Has grief changed your being, your overall point of view?
Grief has changed my entire life twice now. You can tell immediately when someone hasn’t been through it (yet) and when someone has. I can immediately tell if someone has had to grapple with their own mortality or not. It really gives you such depth of feeling that goes both ways. It increases your capacity for sadness but also your capacity for love and joy and awe, so that’s pretty cool. It’s kind of amazing that in grief we’re all moving through life completely raw and vulnerable and reactive and so connected to death and so aware of the fragility of life. It’s kind of mental. It has also vastly diminished my capacity to suffer fools or censor myself or hide my expressions on my face, which I think is pretty cool too. The bummer is that I feel like every accomplishment I’ve celebrated in the past few years is just totally incomplete without my sister and my dad here to see it. Everything painful that happens is just more salt in the wound that my sister isn’t here to help me through it, because she was the best at that. I doubt that will ever go away.
What advice would you give someone who just lost someone important to them?
My advice is to just do whatever you want for a year or two. Like, whatever you need to do to get by, moment to moment. Hopefully you won’t remember that much of it. My memory after my dad died totally blacked out for like 10 years and I don’t remember much from the past few years either. I think our brains do that to protect us and it used to scare me but now I’m grateful for it. So, just do whatever you need to do to get through every day and hopefully you won’t remember too much of this horrible time. Crying helps and laughing helps. Anything that allows you to process and alchemize the horrors is good, I think.
If you're ready to talk about it, my friend Izzy and I host a death support group called, Death Club. You can look us up on Instagram and join us (@deathclub.deathclub). It’s been surprisingly helpful and I wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true. :~)
Do you want to share something from your lost one? A song, a recipe, a saying, etc.
My dad’s best and favorite piece of advice was, “Just act like you belong and you can get in anywhere", which has never failed me. My sister’s last words apparently were to her mom who was arguing with a nurse— “you catch more flies with honey.” That does sum up my sister’s wisdom pretty well I think.