The Love Is Still Here, Even When the Grief Changes

Sharmane Fury  00:38

Welcome to Stay at Home Widow, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about rebuilding ourselves after the sudden and unexpected deaths of our husbands and maneuvering the fuckery of grief. I am Sharmane Fury, and this is...

 

LaVonna  00:52

LaVonna.

 

Sharmane Fury  00:54

And as always, I'm going to drop this disclaimer at the top. We are two widows speaking from our own lived experiences. We are not therapists, life coaches, medical professionals, or grief experts. Anything that sounds like advice is simply us sharing what has worked for us and what has not worked for us, and what we are still learning. Everyone's grief is different, and nothing we say is meant to be absolute fact for every grief experience. And episode three.

 

LaVonna  01:23

Look what we did.

 

Sharmane Fury  01:25

We're at episode three already. We, you know, we're starting from scratch, building a new type of audience and everything like that. But we have been getting some response from different types of grievers, not necessarily partner loss, but a lot of different grievers have reached out or made comments. And today we decided to build our episode kind of off of one of the questions that we received from the audience. So we're going to go ahead and do that today. But before we get into that, do you want to do a little bit of the debrief widow check in from how you feel from the last, you know, between last episode and this episode.

 

LaVonna  02:08

Yeah, I like the debriefing. It helps me. The debrief for me, where I'm at right now, I'm kind of in, I'm approaching anniversary, so I'm three about three or four weeks away from anniversary, so it's just funky.

 

Sharmane Fury  02:26

Yeah,

 

LaVonna  02:27

everything's funky. This would be the month of like you know the last date, the last dinner, the last movie, the last party, the last all of that. Yeah, leading up to it's also the eeriest part because much of the things that happened after he died kind of made the month of September like an eerie month of foreshadowing.

 

Sharmane Fury  02:55

Right.

 

LaVonna  02:55

I know it's confirmation bias on the reverse end, but it's just everything he said in that last month just landed harder.

 

Sharmane Fury  03:04

Yeah, after, and it's one of those things where it's sort of like, you know, routine relationship stuff, but whatever. And then all of a sudden, in that insight, it's like, oh shit, that was this. You know that was it was coming, and we didn't whether or not we felt like we knew it was coming or not, we didn't. But you know, there's little moments where you're just like, oh wow, that felt like...

 

LaVonna  03:31

Eerie

 

Sharmane Fury  03:32

I felt like we knew it was coming. Yeah, I I've gone through that twice now, and I'm approaching my third deathaversary. I remember. as you were creeping up to your first anniversary, I was, you know, not wanting to put thoughts in your head, but at the same time, you know, wanting to try to prepare, like, you know, this shit's going to be weird, you know, because it it both feels like I just want to get past this milestone, just get it off my back, and at the same time, like dreading. Because if you cross that year, that means it's real. I mean, there's so many things that I I think I still feel, but were more intense that first year anniversary that were like, "it's real if," even though it had been real that whole time. It's just like it's actually real this whole time, you know. If this, if we cross this date, if I cross this thing. But you're right. A lot of the this was our *last date. This was the *last movie we watched together. This was the, you know, that was kind of happening. That September for us was the last time we were in the U.S. We had gone back to try to get our residency stuff squared away in Mexico, and we we were gone from September 1 to September 12, and then we were back in Mexico from that point on, and. So yeah, like the last friends that we saw, all that kind of stuff happened in that September month too. So our dates are about 40 something days apart in terms of our anniversary dates, but and and a year. But yeah, we're both closing into that same period at the same time,

 

LaVonna  05:26

Right? And it's it's weird because it's like it's happening around you know the autumn, the fall leaves are dropping, you know it's getting colder, you know what I mean? I'm just like oh how fitting, you know it is. Yeah, what a crummy time of year for him to leave!

 

Sharmane Fury  05:44

It's so funny because, like, this has always been my favorite, like, like seasonal type of year when I live in a place that's seasonal. Because I'm, you know, I'm a gloomy, I'm a gloomy gal. You know, I like the, I like the gray skies and the rain and all that kind of stuff. But all of our stuff is crammed into this period. It's his death anniversary, just November 30. My birthday, December 3. Then we got Christmas, and then his birthday, January 2. Our anniversary, February 2. And then the cat deaths start happening. You know, like also your loss of your father is in December as well. So like it's just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, and it doesn't clear, you know, quote fingers doesn't clear for me until April is the last like death, yeah, and then yeah, and then it's springtime. It's like this fucking beast of a portion of the year that is both mixed with what used to be some of my favorite things, and then also like all this horror off off of last episode where we talked about... (hmm) there goes that widow fog. What did we talk about last episode?

 

LaVonna  07:06

That's a challenge.

 

Sharmane Fury  07:08

Okay, first episode was the introduction slash fuckery grief. The second episode

 

LaVonna  07:15

Whats weird is the only thing that's coming to mind was my smoke detector chirping. Like I am clear on our side.

 

Sharmane Fury  07:22

I remember that too. That's right.

 

LaVonna  07:24

But the topic, I would have to go into some notes.

 

Sharmane Fury  07:30

Goodness gracious! You would think so.

 

LaVonna  07:33

Widow fog is real.

 

Sharmane Fury  07:34

Widow fog. Oh, that's what it was about! It was a widow fog.

 

LaVonna  07:37

It was about widow fog!

 

Sharmane Fury  07:39

Jesus, like that's real time, legit how this shit happens. Cause I felt like I was going into the sentence knowing what I was gonna say, and then just boom, gone.

 

LaVonna  07:50

It was about Widow Fog,

 

Sharmane Fury  07:53

And I've been sick everybody too. So yeah, welcome back. We're back on track now. Widow Fog. The questions that we got weren't necessarily related to Widow Fog itself, but did you have any conversations with anybody, or did anything pop up that?

 

LaVonna  08:12

Not really, actually, this go round. But I also feel like between the last episode and now, I I've sort of started hibernating myself in a way.

 

Sharmane Fury  08:23

Okay

 

LaVonna  08:24

I know that I'm I'm like pulling back from even asking people about it.

 

Sharmane Fury  08:29

Okay, I had another one of those encountering a widow in the wild moments. You know, last time I talked about when I was at this Seattle Reign game, you know, the lady next to me had asked me why I was at the game by myself, and and she turned out to be a widow too. This last week, last weekend, I went to San Diego to speak at Mixed Asian Day, which is this annual event put on by Mixed Asian Media, and the last two years I've spoke at, and on my flight there, I got the bump to first class. I love getting that bump, that last minute bump. But it was like the very first seats, you know, the very first front row seat or whatever. But that's fine. Sitting next to an older woman next to me, and I had been knitting throughout the flight, and then I like passed out for a period of time, and then I woke back up and I started knitting again. And so near the end of the flight, she had started to comment about like how fast I was knitting or something, and the pattern was relatively memorized by that point, so I could kind of do it without looking. So we started to chit chat, and as we started to chit chat, it kind of came out, you know, that we were both widows, although she was nearing 80, and you know, here I am nearing 50, and we had the conversation that like it's the widow conversation that you know non Wids don't get, where you're just like, my life is so peaceful now, even though I'm. Sad, you know, like even though I'm sad and I wouldn't have chosen it at the same time, like since I have to have the life I have now, I've never had more peace in my life. She's like, if I wake up at 3o'clock in the morning, I turn that TV up to 100 and no one can stop me, you know, like that kind of stuff. And you know, she was very encouraging about like "living a life."  You know, you know, even like so. It doesn't matter if it happens in your 40s, it happens in your 70s, or your 60s, or whatever. It's just like you got to still do stuff. So she likes her quiet time. She likes waking up at 3o'clock in the morning, turning that TV up to 100 because no one else is there to tell her to turn it down. She was doing a lot of solo travel, like to visit her grandkids and stuff, and she's just realized now that she's too tired to do it as often as she's been doing it. So, she laid a boundary once a year, Christmas. You guys get me, but other than that, you better come to me because I ain't going nowhere.

 

LaVonna  08:29

And she's in her 80s, so that's

 

Sharmane Fury  09:18

Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, definitely fair. But she, but you know, so it's just one of those like bonding in the wild with a fellow widow where you can kind of say the things that like other people who don't get it will be just like I can't believe you said that. Yeah, but at the same time, it's like you don't fucking know. You don't know what this is like, and so it was. It was a nice encounter. She also wrote down what the name of our show was in case she gets a chance to watch it on YouTube.

 

LaVonna  11:40

Nice.

 

Sharmane Fury  11:40

So, if I pronounce it correctly, Rosio, Rosio was the nice lady that I I chatted with, and and yeah, we just rode our little flight together, and and then we we both had wheelchair assistance because you know I got that bum knee and stuff, and so travel days are easier for me, especially when I don't know the airport that I'm flying into, like how big it is, and Seattle's airport is huge, so it takes me a while if I'm going to walk it when I have to when I have to use the cane, and so we're both on wheelchair assistants, so we're just you know front row seat sus on our little on our little wheelchair assistants. We got parked next to each other for a while. You know, that's the second time I've actually bonded with a widow in wheelchair assistance. It happened in Scotland too. Another older lady, and we exchanged WhatsApp phone. Me and that lady exchanged WhatsApp phone numbers, and she was like, "If you ever find yourself in Scotland, and you want to come over for a cup of tea?

 

LaVonna  12:39

You know, I think I need more of that widow, "Widows in the Wild" moment.

 

Sharmane Fury  12:44

Widows in the wild.

 

LaVonna  12:44

What I will do is the three widows that kind of came forth after the first episode. I think I'm gonna make an active gesture towards them. That's that's my challenge between now and then, especially as I'm coming up on my year two,

 

Sharmane Fury  13:01

I'm

 

LaVonna  13:02

going to actively engage in this new community that I'm a part of.

 

Sharmane Fury  13:07

Yeah, you know,

 

LaVonna  13:08

purpose.

 

Sharmane Fury  13:09

Just do it on purpose because it's not all like woe is me and stuff like that. Like it's it's just like anything else. I think of like representation matters or like needing the community around it, it's a this is an uncensored conversation that you can have with somebody that is the context is there, and in terms of like judgmentalness, not to say that there's not. I mean, I'm in this online group, and you'll see someone post about how they found their chapter two, which is a term I don't like, but it's if it's someone's term, their next love after.

 

LaVonna  13:48

Oh,

 

Sharmane Fury  13:49

so they'll refer to it as a chapter two. I I also don't like when people refer to like this is a chapter two as like my next life after Tristan, whether or not I'm partnered. I don't like it as a chapter thing. It seems weird, but anyways, the term is not important. It's like when someone posts about how they found somebody, and you know they they're expressing their feelings of both happiness, but also discomfort, and you know like grief and guilt and all that kind of stuff, and inevitably someone will say "it couldn't be me, but like I hope it works out for you" type of thing, which is never necessary. Never necessary to say, because like the way you grieve and the way someone else grieves is different.

 

LaVonna  14:13

So different. Everyone's different.

 

Sharmane Fury  14:34

Yeah, and it doesn't mean that a person loves their partner any less because they decided to partner. Even if they partner quickly, you know. That's actually a really common story about wids partnering quickly because they're lonely quickly, and it doesn't mean that that relationship is going to work out. It just means that like immediately they need to attach to somebody because they're lonely, and not everybody is like that, but. There's always someone that'll be like, you know, oh, I just loved my person so much I could never. But like, I hope your thing works out for you, like real shitty passive aggressive stuff. So there is judgment in the community, but in the ways that there are not, there's just some context-free stuff that you can get into that other people won't get that you can just say and it and someone just like yeah I know say you know or like you know we've talked a couple times about the anger the unresolved anger towards your partner you know that ends up being a tough thing but if I try to talk to somebody that's that just like cared about Tristan. You can see like a little moment of resentment of ...

 

LaVonna  15:46

Like how could you say that?

 

Sharmane Fury  15:48

How could you say that or whatever? But it's like you know we we had we were married. We had unresolved stuff. You you don't die after a clean oh we resolved this you know conflict.

 

LaVonna  15:59

Gone everything is fine, and it was just yeah, hunky dory and rosie.

 

Sharmane Fury  16:03

And you can't erase it, and you can't angelify your partner, and and stuff like that. And so it's like that's the benefit, I think, of finding wid community.

 

LaVonna  16:15

I think I'm ready for that. Yeah. I'm ready for it.

 

Sharmane Fury  16:18

As long as your mindset isn't just like, let's just get together so we can cry about our spouses all the time. You know, I mean,

 

LaVonna  16:24

Mine's right now is more the question, like you said, like what what are the things that are more yours now? Like the woman being able to wake up at three a.m. That's actually something that's true for me. It started like I started waking up three months before he about three months before he died, I started waking up at like three a.m. on some weird eerie thing.

 

Sharmane Fury  16:47

Oh, that's the perimenopause.

 

LaVonna  16:50

Right?

 

Sharmane Fury  16:51

Yes, the cortisol.

 

LaVonna  16:52

Right? So I started waking up anyway, but now I actually incorporated into my schedule when I wake up at three, I work from three to six creatively. You know, no bills, no whatever. I just constructed it into my life. But

 

Sharmane Fury  17:08

Oh, okay.

 

LaVonna  17:09

I would like to know other things. You know, other women are like, what's yours now? I'm kind of curious about like for me right now, what's mine is my room. It's mine, the whole thing, end to end. Yeah, my space is mine. You know what I buy for groceries is is mine. The food is mine. You know. Oh

 

Sharmane Fury  17:27

Yeah, for me, I buy all of the cereals. See, he's to judge me. Well, because this is like childhood baggage too. Like, because when I lived with my dad, he he didn't he controlled a lot of stuff, so we couldn't eat like cereal. We couldn't drink soda and all that other kind of stuff. So as an adult, it became like a fixation, you know, like really miss it, like you know, Capn Crunch Berries and shit like that or whatever. And so I would get them every so often, and Tristan be just like, you know,

 

LaVonna  17:58

You're eating cereal?

 

Sharmane Fury  18:00

Yeah, he was really judgmental about stuff like that, about my sugar intake and things. And you know, I understand that part of it is best interest, wanted me to be healthy, but the other part is like, you know, trying to make me fit into my 22-year-old body instead of my 30/40, you know, body. And so we we had issues related to that kind of stuff, and so now it's just like I got corn pops, I got crunchberries, I got Lucky Charms, I got Fruit Loops, and I'll pour a bowl sometimes, and I'll be like, and you know, and literally, you know, I don't believe in anything, I don't think it goes or anything like that, but it's just my residual like "I'm grown," you know. You're not the boss of me type of conversation, but you know I'm just there by myself. That that was a big one for me of just like not feeling bad about enjoying food, and of course, like you know I'm not happy with my body and stuff right now. I put on a lot of grief weight and things, but you know, if I'm sad, I'm gonna eat some Fruit Loops.

 

LaVonna  19:09

Or some crunchberries.

 

Sharmane Fury  19:11

Or some crunchberries. That was a big one for me. Is just starting to get all of the all of the series instead of one at a time or something like that,

 

LaVonna  19:20

Right? Right. Yeah, being able to have three boxes of cereal open at once for your choosing. Yeah.

 

Sharmane Fury  19:28

Yep. I got those airtight containers. I know what I'm doing. So I, I feel like the community thing is also part of why wanting to do a show like this, you know, it's it's not unlike when I started militantly mixed when I was looking for mixed community, you know, and when when I was at the event this weekend too, I I had even said that, you know, like the militantly mixed thing was sort of a selfish way for me to meet mixed people and. This doesn't feel like selfish in the way that the military mixed thing did. Probably because I've already gone through a successful loop with the podcast. It's more of just like this is the gap in my life at the moment of having a place to process the widow stuff in community because I isolate so much more now than I ever have before. So this is the best way for me in my current state to be able to do this, connect with other people, and we've had some outreach. We connected with somebody that was a guest on my other show, who is a grief counselor. You know, who will come on eventually. There's other wids or grief-related people that have reached out that will will invite eventually here as well. So yeah, the community thing. I think that's.

 

LaVonna  20:53

I'm ready for it.

 

Sharmane Fury  20:54

Going to be another step thing for you. So

 

LaVonna  20:57

I think so.

 

Sharmane Fury  20:58

Prompted by a question that we got on last last month's episode. This comes from Grim Rheaper. A great episode, ladies. Question: Do you worry that letting go of the pain, or when you feel yourself moving through a certain steps of grief, means letting go of the person? And could you put into words how your relationship with grief has changed over time. So that is the question that we got. We did both kind of separately answer a little bit in the chat, but I thought that might be a good thing for us to talk about, like the way grief changes over time, especially as we're coming into now. I think you made the point when we were talking about of just like you entering year two, the close of year two, and me entering the close of year three, which mathematically I don't understand how I'm about to enter close year three right now. It doesn't make any sense the timing that that's happening, but I thought we could talk a little bit about the change, like how how grief changes. Do you want to start with the the question itself, the first question?

 

LaVonna  22:18

Oh the first part for sure. Yes, for me, I I feel like there's two parts that I'm afraid of letting go. A lot of my love for Bret was connected to sadness after he died, and there is a part of me that's oh, if I'm less sad, does that mean I'm cool and I'm okay, and I'm moving forward, you know, and I let go. But more strong than that, or what's more impactful for me with that is the person I'm becoming is someone he never knew.

 

Sharmane Fury  22:57

Yes!

 

LaVonna  22:58

I and I struggle with that because things are falling in place creatively for me. I've got an avenue for all of my creative outlets, things that I've talked with him about and I shared with doing voiceover work and getting into art school. All of these things that were dreams of of mine that he supported. Like he sent me a paint set, he sent me a canvas, he sent me a paint book, you know. And now I'm doing it, but I don't get to talk to him about doing it. And so now that I'm, I'm, I've got an artist brain, I've got a podcast brain, I've got this expansion, and he's just like it's almost like he's just foundational to it. He's he's just he's here, but he's not a part of the the fruit. He's not a part of the the branches. He's just part of the roots, and and that's that's hard for me.

 

Sharmane Fury  23:55

Yeah it's tough.

 

LaVonna  23:56

That's hard for me. I I want to tell my buddy about it.

 

Sharmane Fury  23:59

Yeah.

 

LaVonna  24:00

You know, I want to say, look what I did. You know, but at the same time, too, we talk about our our space and how I can do things without his input or involvement. I wonder how much of what I'm doing now I would have been able to do without resistance. You know, the people that I'm talking to, the people that I'm working with, you know, the fact that I can just up and go and be somewhere or fly somewhere, you know what I mean, to handle my creative business, it there would have been more feedback or resistance or collaboration or how do we work this out or I have this going on. You can't do that now, like the timing and all of that, I'm kind of free as a bird.

 

Sharmane Fury  24:44

Yeah,

 

LaVonna  24:44

But I'm also free to become someone he he didn't know.

 

Sharmane Fury  24:48

Yeah and...

 

LaVonna  24:49

o can that person be sad? You know what I mean? Like how much how much sadness can the person I'm becoming be over the person that I was? Like it's it's not I'm not too. Different entities, right? I'm still me, but it just I feel that split right now.

 

Sharmane Fury  25:06

I think the sad, the sad is the sad. You know, I don't think it's necessarily holding. I know a lot of people who care about us have may have said, and I'm basing this off of actual things people have said, like they just don't want to see us suffer, or they don't, you know, they don't want to see us wallow. And mistaking that, like being sad in general is wallowing, is not the same thing, you know. Because if I'm not sad that I lost the person that I spent most of my adult life with all of my adult life with up until this point. Then what was it for? You know, like of course I'm gonna be sad. I think the sad can live alongside the joy, or the change, or the difference. I think all of that is fine, but there is a trouble. There is a difficulty accepting that there is a point at which you become the person that your person doesn't know, would not have known, will never know.

 

LaVonna  26:14

Never know.

 

Sharmane Fury  26:16

That is tough.

 

LaVonna  26:17

And for me its really, it's really drastic. You know, these are literally our our relationship was new. I knew them since I was 17, but I didn't get my chance with him until I was in my 40s, and and we took off like we were. Oh my god!

 

Sharmane Fury  26:32

Yeah you were fast, yeah. You were like no lost time.

 

LaVonna  26:36

Milestone. Oh my gosh, we were just taking off, and my dreams were becoming realities, and his dreams were becoming possibilities. And so it's like you take off and then crash.

 

Sharmane Fury  26:50

Yeah,

 

LaVonna  26:51

I'm. Yeah, I I I agree that I have to I have to take a. If I try to take the sad out of the equation, I get depressed. There's no other

 

Sharmane Fury  27:01

Yeah its worse.

 

LaVonna  27:02

It's it's 100% worse. I have to take the sad. So the sadness has to be there. I have to. I have to be sad that he's not here.

 

Sharmane Fury  27:12

Yeah.

 

LaVonna  27:12

And at the same time, have joy in my life for what I'm doing because of his support and encouragement.

 

Sharmane Fury  27:18

Yeah. One of the best lines from, well, I guess it was in the WandaVision show from you know the Marvel, you know I'm Marvel Maney. I'm I'm gonna make a lot of comic book references from time to time, but one of the saddest characters really is the the Scarlet Witch. She's lost so much, and it's a big part of like the kind of character she develops is because you know she loses her parents and she loses her brother, and then she loses her love or whatever. But in a flashback sequence, and WandaVision, Wanda and Vision are sitting talking, and she's it's right after she loses her brother, so she's watching old sitcoms because that was like a comfort thing that her and her family used to do together, and she's trying to express like you know where can this go? All this feeling, I just don't want to feel this anymore. And Vision says to her, "What is grief with besides love persevering? You know, like if love doesn't have a place to go, the grief is what replaces it, right?

 

LaVonna  28:26

That's proper.

 

Sharmane Fury  28:27

I fucking love that line. I mean,

 

LaVonna  28:28

it's yeah.

 

Sharmane Fury  28:30

When I first watched it...

 

LaVonna  28:31

The persevering part is that's what it is every day. Yeah, just perseverance.

 

Sharmane Fury  28:35

Yeah, when I first watched it, I was just like, yeah. I mean, from what I understood of grief to that point, I was like, you know, that's a good line. That's a solid line.

 

LaVonna  28:44

That's a solid line.

 

Sharmane Fury  28:46

After Tristan died, I remember a friend sending it to me as sort of a reminder thing of a fellow comic book nerd friend, and I just recently rewatched that series again too, and that fucking section just fuck you know just it just fucks me up because it's true, right? Like the grief is the symbol is a sign that you had something that you loved, and and while it's not physically here anymore, you're still impacted by it, you're still affected by it, and it doesn't It doesn't mean that there's like you know no hope or no joy or anything like that. It just means that like it's the it's the mark that there was somebody that I I love a lot that's not here anymore, and I don't really have a a past tense there. You know, I can't say that I used to love them. I I'm in the active feeling of loving them. It's just that they're not physically here. I never understood how people could talk past tense so quickly. It bothers me in TV and movies too. But I realize real life people do this, where they're like, people will say to me like you loved him a lot, and I'm like,...loved?

 

LaVonna  29:59

Thats right now,

 

Sharmane Fury  30:01

take that D away because that doesn't make any sense, right there. You know, that feeling of of Tristan not knowing, you know, Tristan was really supportive about my my podcast stuff, and he always was excited when he saw me do something well or whatever. Like when he saw me in my like "Professionally Mixed" capacity, my you know on stage or wherever he got to see me or whatever, he he was you could see that he was excited about it for me. But it also kind of made him a little sad too because he hadn't he was never really an ambition us person. Like he had, he had the the dream ambition, but not the motivation to fulfill.

 

LaVonna  30:49

The execution

 

Sharmane Fury  30:50

Yeah, not the execution. And so he would sometimes mark any successful milestone that I would make up against what he hadn't accomplished himself. Which you know, I don't know if that's just a very human thing to do or whatever, but you know, my thing was I just did it. I didn't even know if it was going to mean anything. It was just going to be important to me, and he struggled to get there until until he started doing those apostate cartoon things that he would do on TikTok, where he was-it was actually really helpful to other people that were in apostate periods of their life as well. And one of his his first ones got like million followers within a or million views within a few like within a day, and he was starting to get a lot of notes from people, like how healing it was. These, these rewritings of the the terrible Bible stories that ended with like an actual loving, caring God response, and

 

LaVonna  31:53

It was a delivery though because it looked like a playbook. It looked like a football, basketball playbook. So this is real easy to follow

 

Sharmane Fury  32:01

The  stick figure drawings and just like you know what would have been nice if instead of this this is what happened and um and they were so loving and everything that people were really sending him message of like healing and I was like this is the thing I'm like you know I know you had a dream of this other thing but this is the thing you're actually impacting people on, and with me, he was excited when he saw me doing that because I also resisted when I was impacting people. You know, I was like, no, they got there, and he's like, no, you know, you were-they're sending you a message. They're saying you're the person that got them there, and so he wasn't really quite, I think satisfied with what the thing ultimately was that he might be remembered by some folks for, and then of course he couldn't produce them fast enough for him to feel like he was making an impact. He was he was a slow thinker, a slow reader, and not in a a down way, but in just a very thoughtful way. Like he wasn't, he didn't just fast and casually throw stuff out. He had to really build it, which is why it took him longer to put them together. Which is why I think he doesn't realize he had the impact that he was having on those things. And you know, I wonder what he would have, you know, where that would have developed for him. But also, like, he doesn't know that his death made it really hard for me to keep going with my old show. Like, it changed my perspective of what was important in my life at the time. And and while I still think I have done something great within that world of of Militantly Mixed and everything. It also felt done, and I don't know what he would react to of being like, "Oh, I didn't mean for my death to make you stop," right? But, but it for me, it does feel like a shift. It's it's you know, it it ran its course. It did its thing. I can still do work in that area, but now I have a different focus, and he's not going to see this part. You know, there's times when I'm just like, "Oh, there's this new talent I have that I learned since you died, and you don't know that I have this new talent, or I finished this, you know, blanket that I've been knitting that you're not gonna see. You know, all these kinds of things.

 

LaVonna  34:27

Dude I'm in art school.

 

Sharmane Fury  34:29

Yeah, you're in art school. I went to fucking law school! Like, how how would I have expressed that to him if I had just come up with it at the time? You know, it's a very weird thing because you know, the older we get, the more things like that is going to happen. The more things that we, you know, like when Tristan died, I had only been to Mexico, England, Canada, and the Bahamas. Since he's died, I've been to Japan and Korea and Scotland and Ireland and Amsterdam, and you know I started to prioritize travel

 

LaVonna  35:11

and your travel business.

 

Sharmane Fury  35:13

and I started a travel business. Yeah, like these are things I always wanted to do that we always talked about. I would try to do eventually, and now I'm doing those things. And part of that motivation is because he died. You know, part of it was stuff I might not have done.

 

LaVonna  35:31

 Right?

 

Sharmane Fury  35:32

Because it wouldn't have been as urgent. You know, where you always feel like it wouldn't have been...

 

LaVonna  35:37

I feel like it wouldn't have been as urgent. Like, yeah, with the my me going to art school, like I said, he provided me with paints and a canvas and things like that. But once I got with him, he was he was my new shiny object. So I focused a lot on our experiences together, and I did paint less, I did draw less, you know, than I did when we first started talking because we were living, living our lives together, and then with that vacuum, like I let's I gotta go see.

 

Sharmane Fury  36:08

Yeah, like I mean, I honestly think that like the law school thing was me trying to cork the space. You know, like I needed something to plug up the space, and you know, it did turn out that it wasn't really something I wanted to do long term. But while I was doing it, it was a good distraction for a period of time.

 

LaVonna  36:32

Even with me being in school now, and I've told people, I don't even know if I'm going to finish. I'm not sure if it's worth the full degree. But for what I'm learning this semester, this time to go here, yeah, it's filling the space properly. And then,

 

Sharmane Fury  36:47

yeah,

 

LaVonna  36:47

as time goes on, we'll see what the it will lead me to.

 

Sharmane Fury  36:52

Yeah, yeah, and then having to learn to be okay with things differently than you would have been okay with things before. You know, like I probably would have been really hard on myself for coming to the place where I was like, I actually don't like this,

 

LaVonna  37:06

right?

 

Sharmane Fury  37:06

You know, it was a dream, but just because it was it was a dream doesn't mean that it is the dream, you know.

 

LaVonna  37:14

I've gotten feedback like that too, where people I'll say, I don't know if I'm going to get the whole degree. Whoa, don't be a quitter.

 

Sharmane Fury  37:21

Oh yeah, I got.

 

LaVonna  37:21

It's not quitting.

 

Sharmane Fury  37:23

They're like you'll never regret it, and I was like, well, I was already regretting doing something that made me unhappy because life is short. I realize now how short life can be. Tristan was eating dinner, and then an hour later he was dead. So if I'm finding that this law school thing

 

LaVonna  37:44

Ain't it.

 

Sharmane Fury  37:44

Ain't it, then you know,

 

LaVonna  37:46

then it won't.

 

Sharmane Fury  37:47

I'm gonna take that break, and you know, I I gave myself room to go back if I wanted to, and you know, I'm feeling like I don't think I'm gonna want to. I don't know what's gonna happen, you know, six months from now or whatever. But as of where I'm sitting right now, I was like, I was miserable doing it, so I'm okay.

 

LaVonna  38:07

Yeah,

 

Sharmane Fury  38:07

I don't. I don't feel like I. I feel like the big accomplishment was that at 48, while grieving, I got into fucking law school and a good law school, and I was doing well. I was in the top 6% which is insane because my brain wasn't working, you know, like the same.

 

LaVonna  38:25

Right?

 

Sharmane Fury  38:26

And I just didn't like it, and so pulling out, I now feel like I'm enjoying things that I'm doing now, and I'm enjoying the fact that I'm not driven. Does that make sense? Like

 

LaVonna  38:42

It does.

 

Sharmane Fury  38:43

I'm just letting it kind of come.

 

LaVonna  38:45

It's a different kind of flow.

 

Sharmane Fury  38:47

A different flow, a different pace. And I don't think I would have been able to allow myself to slow down if he hadn't died.

 

LaVonna  38:55

I live more in the day now.

 

Sharmane Fury  38:58

Yeah.

 

LaVonna  38:58

I really try not to cross. Like I have goals and things I want to achieve, but they're so loose in terms of me giving it a lot of attention that takes away from me today.

 

Sharmane Fury  39:09

Yeah.

 

LaVonna  39:10

Like I have goals, but I today I'm dealing with today. I'm dealing today. I'm dealing with today.

 

Sharmane Fury  39:16

Yeah, I agree with that. That that like there's a patience I have with myself that I probably would have never allowed myself to have with myself before. I mean, you know, I've learned the term like I've always said to other people like you got to give yourself grace and da da da da advice I would never take for myself, but would always give to others. But now I'm actually letting myself put, you know, go at the pace I go.

 

LaVonna  39:47

I I I accept micro successes and micro wins every day to keep myself from spiraling into into that because I I am one of the hardest people on myself.

 

Sharmane Fury  39:58

Me too.

 

LaVonna  39:58

Part of that though is me. Hearing is-I don't know. I know it's not him actually verbalizing and talking to me, but I know what he would say in every situation that I'm in. I-I just-I just know it. I just hear it, right? So, I-I give myself grace, but it's supported by this memory of like, don't forget that you've gone through something. Yeah. Don't, don't forget that. In addition to someone dying, I think for me is seeing him go change my perspective on on being a human being. There's like two parts. Yeah, yeah, I lost my my husband, but I also got this completely different perspective on life in general because I had never seen that before.

 

Sharmane Fury  40:39

Yeah, I mean, I growing up like I've seen someone shot and killed before, like, and that is a very jarring thing that still lives with me, even though I've managed to bury it from the day to day. You know, like things will trigger and it'll be "oh shit."

 

LaVonna  40:56

I remember that.

 

Sharmane Fury  40:58

Yeah, yeah, but the way that Tristan dying in front of me sticks with me. I can't control yet, and I don't know when I will or if I will. But I could be driving down the street, and all of a sudden I'm doing CPR, and or I'm watching them push him away for the last time on the gurney. You know, like those things just fucking happen. I could be in the middle of nothing. I could be watching a movie. I could be waiting for the fucking call to get on the plane. You know, like the most benign thing can be happening and not triggering in any way, shape, or form, and yet it will. It'll trigger the thought, or you know, like the guilt I have over the last dinner that Tristan had. You know, we were we we were both sick, and he was actually dealing with an injury. So all I made was these fucking tostadas, you know. And he liked them. He said they were good. He asked me for more. I gave him seconds, and so now, if I see tostadas on a menu, that'll fuck me up because I'm like, what a weak ass last meal, you know, for him to have, or you know, things like that.

 

LaVonna  42:14

That's reminded me, like Bret's Bret's moment of leaving was so eerie because we probably had a good 10 minutes of just looking each other in the eye, without words, without communication, and I get triggered. You know how you see someone's eye and you can see that extra spark or sparkle or that light reflecting in the eye. When I catch that in another person, it fucks me up because it's like, oh, last time I looked in eyes this deeply,

 

Sharmane Fury  42:48

Yeah, yeah.

 

LaVonna  42:48

You know what I mean, was as he was leaving, you know, and

 

Sharmane Fury  42:53

Yeah, yeah.

 

LaVonna  42:56

Like I'll never know what that means, you know what I mean, in our moments, I'll never know what he was thinking in that moment. I'll never know that, but to to even look deeply and then like to look deeply into the eyes of another man, you know, I I find myself like, nah, I'm not not making that bond again.

 

Sharmane Fury  43:17

How many times have you heard me say like, I'm not doing that shit again?

 

LaVonna  43:20

Like I'm like we could be cool, but like that communication without words, eyes alone, um, yeah, that that gets to be you know one of the the triggers for that that moment. I'm curious though, what was the second part of that question?

 

Sharmane Fury  43:36

The second part was, and could you put into words how your relationship with grief has changed over time.

 

LaVonna  43:46

Yeah.

 

Sharmane Fury  43:48

I I would say that like I'm accepting grief as a completely different monster than I thought it was before. You know, like I mean, I think like everybody, I I thought grief was just "your sad." You know, and and for someone who suffers from depression, it has to argue that depression and sadness are not the same thing to many people. The I had to still a similar kind of bias against like what grief would be, but like grief is physical. It's pain. It's literally painful. It actually makes you feel like you can't move, or that your leg is too heavy to step, or you know, like the the things that happen to you in grief, like you think you know sadness until you know it, you know. I I just don't. I can't always. I I can't put into words all the different things that have happened. But I guess now I I respect that it's a different monster than I thought it was before. And that whatever it's gonna do, I'm just gonna have to let it happen and work, you know, work through it on the other side of it. Like if if today becomes a "nope, it's gonna be a stay in bed day," you know, I don't have as many stay in bed days as I used to, but you know, those are kind of transformed into stay on the couch days, you know. I I I think in the past I would have tried to soldier through something, you know, put on my big boy pants and just keep going. But now I'm like, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and let this grind me to the halt. I'm gonna go ahead and let that happen, and you know, whenever I come up for air again, I'll do an activity of some sort. But if it's a big activity or a small activity, I'm just I'm just letting myself be okay with it now, and I I think that it's a it's a weird freedom to have now to just be like you know what I mean I think we talked about this but before like the way I've made decisions or the or bought things or whatever and be like "my husband's dead so I'm gonna buy this Megatron," or you know "my husband's dead, or I'm so I'm gonna go to this fucking season. I'm gonna get season tickets to you know whatever." Like, yeah, that Megatron was my a really big, a really big crazy my husband's dead purchase because he knew that I had spent money like that on a a voice activated toy from the 80s. He probably would be.

 

LaVonna  46:49

You can hear it, huh?

 

Sharmane Fury  46:50

Yeah, I can hear. I can hear him being judgmental, and I'll be like, "Well, don't fucking die then if you don't want me to buy Megatron." Yeah, I have to manufacture shit talking moments because that was such a big part of our our thing. That like you know that's an absence. There's a there's a sense of humor. Absence is a the kind of talk shit you only do to your partner that you know that isn't abusive or bad or anything like that. It's just your relationship. I have to manufacture that with thin air right now because I don't have anybody to do that with. And and if I ever do have someone to do that with, it's never going to be the same. You know, it's not going to be.

 

LaVonna  47:34

My year one and year two are different.

 

Sharmane Fury  47:39

Yeah, they're dramatically different.

 

LaVonna  47:40

Year year one was is is coming back as a blur, but I also had a very intense situation with work. I ended up going back to work, and

 

Sharmane Fury  47:50

Yeah, you did right away.

 

LaVonna  47:50

I was like vice principal of a school, and then towards the end of that year, I ended up becoming acting principal of a school for the last three months of that year, and so that was like a lot of a lot I could pour myself into. I can pour into 475 students. That's great. That's easy. Awesome distraction. And then I'd come home and you know do my grief process. There, I think at one point with a teacher who was kind of harassing me or or pressing me, I'm like, "I'm grieving." I had to. I had to break him down.

 

Sharmane Fury  47:51

Like shut the fuck down!

 

LaVonna  47:51

I'm grieving. like whoa what are we doing here but year two is when I think I explained before I I had to change my relationship with substances that I was using to cope things that I did before that was a good time now not a good time, and so I'm still like in the process of of that, which means I've got to feel my grief differently, and I've got to. I'm I'm like more with it,

 

Sharmane Fury  48:08

Like undulled?

 

LaVonna  49:00

Say that again.

 

Sharmane Fury  49:01

Undulled, like dulling from a substance.

 

LaVonna  49:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And so now it's like I'm, I'm, I'm not hiding anything. It's alcohol. I had to, I had to stop alcohol. I had to stop lowering my abilities because I realize for me in the moment, sure, fine, I'm making good decisions. But the recovery from whatever it is that I do, now I I wouldn't say that I was. I'm not even going to judge the kind of alcohol person I was. Not even judge. Sure. I won't even go there. You were in grief. But the the way that I noticed I was using alcohol is just not sustainable. Not sustainable for a person going into art school. Not sustainable for a person who's starting a business, launching a website. I didn't. I didn't want that to cloud my judgment on things. But also, too, you know, COVID didn't help this, but. That 7 a.m. shot, and there's no one here to give me that judgment. Yeah, no, it's easy. It was easy for me to slip, and so now my relationship with grief, having changed my relationship with substances, I'm able to assert certain boundaries with people that I never really could before, or never really did. I didn't realize how I would I would endure someone's flippant comment about my husband, right, or a flippant comment about where I should be, or how I should get over it, or if I'm going to do such and such with so and so. I would did not know I was doing it. I would take the information, take the experience, but then I'd find myself doing something later, not knowing it was connected to I didn't respond in that moment. Whereas now I can respond in the moment and make a decision in the moment and not lean on. Okay, I'm just going to drink that away later.

 

Sharmane Fury  50:56

Yeah,

 

LaVonna  50:57

I don't have to. I don't have to assert a boundary now. I can just drink it away later, and so in in a way, I think grief has helped me because at 49, and I've got grandchildren, they get to go a different person. Isn't that wild?

 

Sharmane Fury  51:13

It's way crazy.

 

LaVonna  51:14

Isn't that wild?

 

Sharmane Fury  51:15

 We to be like 10 and 11 with somebody, and then flash forward, and now you're a grandparent. Like that doesn't make any sense,

 

LaVonna  51:25

right? We were in like elementary school. It's crazy. Like

 

Sharmane Fury  51:29

I'm picturing us at the state fair one year when we're in like that big group, like Dez and all of them. Oh

 

LaVonna  51:35

yeah, yeah.

 

Sharmane Fury  51:36

And we're just

 

LaVonna  51:36

squad,

 

Sharmane Fury  51:37

and those people are parents and grandparents now. That's weird.

 

LaVonna  51:42

Ain't it wild? It's so wild. But like, yeah, it's it's like this new identity. Brett's sister lives nearby, and so grief for me now is is nice because I get to still experience him through his family.

 

Sharmane Fury  52:00

Yeah,

 

LaVonna  52:01

you know it hurts to be in a group chat when I see the anniversary messages go out, but I'm glad that I'm in the group chat. I'm I'm glad that you're still

 

Sharmane Fury  52:10

included.

 

LaVonna  52:10

I'm still included, and I and I really I really like that. I really because there are pleasant surprises. Every now and then I'll get a new story, or I think we talked about this before. His daughter will do something, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that is so bad. You know what I mean? And then for that moment, like he's in the room, I don't always pull her from her con her comment or her thought process to say that's your dad. But those moments are so fulfilling. And then knowing that I'm not gonna numb it or ice it out or diminish it or whatever, I can let the feeling just wash over me and carry me into whatever else it is that I'm doing. But I love that seeing pieces of him through everyone else's experience.

 

Sharmane Fury  52:49

It can just be yours too sometimes. Yeah. So I've gotten. I was already. I already had slightly closer a relationship with Trisan's Palestinian siblings before he died, but we've gotten a lot closer since. Just because they were the ones who stepped in, you know, his other family just dropped. They didn't show up to his memorial. They just weren't there. This side was there, and you know, I live closer to my brother-in-law now, and he's the one who like trusting him resemble quite a bit, and so there are moments you know that hate them will do something, and you know I gotta suck those moments up because sometimes it's nice and sometimes it's jarring, you know. But it's almost like evidence that your person was a family or Matt. Yeah,

 

LaVonna  53:37

that's the best word. I I oh my god, I love the word evidence because sometimes here, as I'm changing things in the room and changing things in the house, I just want that little piece of proof.

 

Sharmane Fury  53:49

Yeah, because sometimes it does feel like he was a figment of your imagination. You're like, was that last 24 years? You know, was I just picturing? You know, was I fantasizing? Was I watching a movie and put my face in there? Was that a dream?

 

LaVonna  54:04

Right,

 

Sharmane Fury  54:05

and that's why when people don't, people who know him don't want to talk about it, or they they're afraid to bring him up because they think they're gonna make me sad. Like, bitch, I'm gonna be sad. Just bring him up because

 

LaVonna  54:17

let's bring yeah. You might you know because you might bring me something I didn't know. I didn't know perspective. Like I get that with you. I love hearing new things about Tristan. You know, he was a very dear friend to me, very dear friend. One of the few people that could, you know, handle and manage my slow mo hope tendencies. You know, I could stem out on you guys with all a wide range of emotions, and you guys would not judge me for it. You know what I mean. With him gone, I don't have that. But I love when I hear new things in your experience with Haytham and and your your your niece and nephew.

 

Sharmane Fury  54:52

Yeah. So there's three of all total. There's two nieces on the sister side and niece. A nephew on the brother's side.

 

LaVonna  55:02

Just I like hearing that. It's it gives me hope. Like when his children start having children, you better believe I'm gonna be looking for pieces.

 

Sharmane Fury  55:10

Right? Yeah, because like you know, Tristan, I didn't have kids because we didn't want them. But to think that like at least you know maybe that sense of humor thing passed because Haythem and Tristan have very similar sense of humor, so hopefully that passes into those kids. Or, you know, one of the one of the nieces, Nura, had said that she looks the most like Tristan when Tristan was a kid, like little. She, I'd sent her pictures of Tristan as a kid, and one of them kind of jarred her because her youngest looks like him a bit, and and that one has a personality that is kind of a combination of Tristan and I. If we were also comic book villains, she's she's got she's got a side to her, and it's hilarious. I mean, it's

 

LaVonna  55:57

See, I like that.

 

Sharmane Fury  55:58

It could also turn out to be dangerous, but at four years old she is diabolical already, and it's

 

LaVonna  56:06

And like Bret's Bret's one of Bret's nieces recently had a baby, and that baby is just a tad more cocoa than the other two, and I'm just like, that's my Bret, you know what I mean? That's that's the genetic part coming through, and I can't wait to meet her. And I'm looking at the baby picture, and I'm like, "Oh, looks like her her upper lip is a little bit like his upper lip was. You know, just yes.

 

Sharmane Fury  56:30

Oh, I'm doing the hair color thing with the Mixed. So two of them are half Palestinian, half white, like Tristan was, and they have a similar. You know how Tristan had kind of a mix of the light brownish hair with the darker hair and the curls and stuff, and that the light, the light side is similar to how those the Mixed kids' hair color is too. So, you know, I mean...

 

LaVonna  56:55

I think that we're noticing more evidence of their existence as it goes along.

 

Sharmane Fury  57:01

Because the thing is, as our life forms, you know, like my house doesn't look like the space that he and I had together, mostly because more of my comic book stuff is present and you know stuff like that or whatever. But also, he didn't keep a whole lot of stuff before we moved to Mexico. He got rid of a lot of his stuff, and so there's certain things that I need to keep because it's you know some of the evidence of us. But at the same time, I'm like I've never had a space that was mine before, so I'm trying to give myself permission for that to be okay, and and things. And it is, it's all okay, whatever it is, it's fine.

 

LaVonna  57:40

It's totally fine.

 

Sharmane Fury  57:41

You know what I'm saying, like. But you know, I'm not gonna lie. There are moments where the guilt sets in, or you feel like, oh, I'm not doing this the right way, or da da da. But you know, one, there's no right way. Two, we're in survival mode. So if it helps us get through. However, we choose to move, then it's the correct thing. By the next time we record for our following episode, you'll have passed your second month.

 

LaVonna  58:21

Second year.

 

Sharmane Fury  58:22

Second year, yeah. Sorry, second year, and I'm sure.

 

LaVonna  58:27

Can I just say it since we're being honest? I hate it. I hate.

 

Sharmane Fury  58:30

Yeah, fucking sucks.

 

LaVonna  58:31

I hate. I hate. I hate this. The 10 days before, especially. You know, I just because when you

 

Sharmane Fury  58:41

when you start thinking about this is the last time we did this is the last time we did that you know and also those things fade too and I didn't realize I posted as much on Facebook about our life but in hindsight kind of thank goodness because it's helping me remember things but also fuck you for posting that shit because now I remember, you know, like it's both those feelings at the same time.

 

LaVonna  59:04

Same time.

 

Sharmane Fury  59:05

Yeah. Yeah.

 

LaVonna  59:07

 And I think that that's probably the best part. I I think I've become because of how close I was. Like I've experienced death with my dad, with my grandma, but this chosen person death has. I don't know. I feel like has made me more human because, okay, yeah, grandma, I was inevitable. You know, parents do things. Here I come, right? The genetic thing, I, I, I'm inevitable to exist, right? But like, I chose a person and got involved all up in his life and all in his fears and wishes and dreams and hopes and stuff, and so like, Yeah, it's. I'm really gonna try to give myself a lot of permission to let it just be what it is. I think that it will be. It'll be. There's no toast to him. You know what I mean. I'm not gonna toast to him this year. I didn't toast to my father this year. I went to two major drinking cities. Recently, Las Vegas and Napa, and so when I had the feeling of dang, I remember the last time Bret and I was here. There's no toast to that. There's no drink to that. There's no numbing, you know. And so I'm I'm in the in the moment fully. So I don't even know. I can't even anticipate what this year is going to be like. Last year I numbed. This year I will not.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:00:20

Okay.

 

LaVonna  1:00:20

And so it's gonna be neat to see.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:00:23

I that might be a good topic to for folks. So the first year, I was in Japan with Jason and Clara, so that I wouldn't be alone on his anniversary, but also so that I would be with people who knew him. At least with Jason, I knew Jason loved him. Clara loves me, and liked Tristan. You know, like she knew us both, but she was my friend. Oh, I hit my mic. She was my friend or whatever. But you know, I knew I was at least with someone who loved him, and we we sprinkled some ashes at the beach, and we had some quiet time together or whatever. And then we talk shit about him, which is, you know, what you need to do when you love somebody. And it was nice to be able to do that with Jason because Jason could remind me of a couple of things.

 

LaVonna  1:01:11

He's got great memories. Oh my gosh! Yeah, Jason's memories are awesome.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:01:14

And you know, he's got that laugh too that when right before he's about to tell you something, he's like, and so you know, I I think that was a smart thing for me to do.

 

LaVonna  1:01:25

Yeah.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:01:26

And then the second time, I just let myself have a a gentle day. A friend came up just so that I wouldn't be alone for part of the day. We we sprinkled some ashes by the lake by my house, and and then the rest of the day, I just kind of stayed mellow and stay quiet or whatever. I I don't have anything planned. Oh wait, no, I do. No, I don't. No, no. It's days before I leave for Thailand, so you know I'm just try to have a quiet day because I'll be prepping for a big trip or whatever. But

 

LaVonna  1:02:07

I do something now that I never did before. Like I never visited cemeteries. Not I. I only I only went and saw my dad, my grandma, my uncle. Like only if someone else wanted to go, but never on my own. Like no, he ain't there. I'm like he ain't there. Why did I go? But I find myself going now.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:02:27

Oh really?

 

LaVonna  1:02:28

Yeah, and and and I've I've gone more than once, which is which is huge, more than twice. And when I go, it's nice because I don't know if you know his mother passed away or died like five months after he did.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:02:42

Yeah.

 

LaVonna  1:02:42

And I never got to meet his father, but his father's was a part of Bret's burial. It was a whole complicated thing with the caskets and it being positioned right. And so I've seen his father's casket. I've seen

 

Sharmane Fury  1:02:57

Oh, is it the upstairs downstairs situation?

 

LaVonna  1:03:00

I've seen and having to rearrange that, and it was a rainy day, and they couldn't, you know. So I've seen all three caskets. So when I'm there, it's like I'm with Bret and his parents, you know what I mean? And it's a it's a beautiful location. I got to give it. If you got to say it's beautiful, it is. But I'm less resistant to that, and and before I was extremely resistant to that, but you know I like incorporating that into our our milestones, the milestones Brett and I had, you know, together his birthday, but just our little anniversaries in between. So, and I think I'll be in town, but again, I won't decide until I get closer to the date. But that is something that's new for me to further answer the question. You know, how has my relationship with grief changed? Is I was an anti-cemetery person completely. Like I didn't see the point. Like no, I was

 

Sharmane Fury  1:03:53

Yeah.

 

LaVonna  1:03:54

That's what am I doing here? You know, type deal. And I don't, I don't have that. I don't have any words for what that means or whatever, but it being there gives me peace where it did not before. It seems silly before.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:04:07

You do kind of feel like I was never a cemetery person, and I I come from a cremation culture anyway, so like the idea of burial is strange to me. But at the same time, I can feel like wanting to have special place, a quiet place to go, because right now he's sitting on my windowsill in a box alongside the boxes of all my cats. You know, like my little shrine is is because I don't have any room. They're on my windowsill, but I take a little bit of ashes with me and a Carmax bottle everywhere I travel, and I wherever there's water, I do a little thing. And so my idea with that is that if I come back to these places, you know, I've both taken him on the trips that we didn't get to go together. But also, if I ever come back, this gets to be a quiet place that I get to be with him or whatever. And I geotag it on my phone so that I can remember.

 

LaVonna  1:05:00

I think that's a good idea for others to use. That's a great idea, Sharmane.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:05:04

Yeah, I think the some people get like keepsake urns and things like that. But for me, if people know, they would understand why the Carmex bottle ends up being the spot, right? Like it's a thing I always have to have. But also, Tristan used to get me these, make me these really elaborate Carmex-based presents he would make, you know, and stuff like that. And so, to stick them in one of these, it just seems appropriate. And they're relatively airtight when I'm, you know, or something like that. I've, I've, I've accidentally dropped one in water and it didn't get inside. So I think that's that's strong. But you know, I open it and sprinkle wherever, so you know he's he's by the Loch Ness in Scotland, and he's he's at the lake in Ireland where the Excalibur movie was shot because that was an accident. I was there and I didn't realize that, but that was one of his favorite movies. So that was one of the first places I put him, and he's by a, or I don't know if that boat's still there, but there was a boat with a Palestinian flag in Amsterdam by the Skinny Bridge. I put him there. You know, there's different places. There's a beach right by Jason's house, and he paced out from the tree to where we put him and stuff, so that Jason had a place to go to be with them and stuff.

 

LaVonna  1:06:20

See , and some of the places you're going to, I want to go to too, and I I like the idea of of that.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:06:27

Tristan, yeah.

 

LaVonna  1:06:28

 I get to I get to think of tree two in those moments, and I like that.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:06:33

I didn't put them in Seoul anywhere, which was I never made it way. I made never made my way to the water. I did bring them. I just didn't think. I didn't manage it, and I didn't put him in the Thames, which I I think he would appreciate because he hated London. And the Thames is kind of a dirty spot, but I would have if I didn't know he hated it so much because he grew up in England. But yeah, so things like that, you know, find a little ways. I don't, I don't, I'm not gonna put pressure on myself this year. I also don't want it to feel like it's a celebration, you know, kind of a thing. Yeah,

 

LaVonna  1:07:12

right. I so I'm like, I'll decide as I get closer because I don't want that roundup, you know, preferably go to sleep. What you know,

 

Sharmane Fury  1:07:19

it feels like a weird thing to mark. It feels like if I don't mark it, it's weird. But if I do mark it, it's weird. Like both ways seem odd. I know in the beginning it feels almost necessary because you're just like...

 

LaVonna  1:07:33

Cclinging, reaching.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:07:34

Clinging to the thing. I feel I will feel like I I'm less clinging to his life now as I approach the end of the third year because I I have accepted he's gone you know I will say that that's a on and off struggle in the beginning but I can officially accept that he is gone now it's um it's learning how to position him in my life and have my solo life without the two competing as a, you know, I'm an independent Mane or I'm a grieving widow versus that's the same person, you know, I think there's times I'm still trying to compartmentalize, and times when it's just like, well, you know, it is what it fucking is, you know. If I were older and I lived in a creepy house, and people called me the Widow Fury and stuff like that, that would be a thing I could get into. But right now, I'm just a regular ass person living in a really airy fucking apartment in Seattle, trying to be sad sometimes.

 

LaVonna  1:08:48

Every now and then, I'll tease myself and say, "I'll whisper "the widow" like to my children or my friends. I'm like, you know, seeing as though I'm a widow. I add some drama to it.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:09:01

I I wonder if people and we're running super long, but I do want to ask about this. Like, I wonder if there's times when outsiders feel like we cling to the word. And

 

LaVonna  1:09:14

I want to have a  change my whole handle to Rad Widow. My daughter was like, I don't think that's what you should do, Mom. I'm like, I mean, I want to, I want to lean into it. Like,

 

Sharmane Fury  1:09:24

I listen. There, there may or may not be a domain that I own that I haven't put a website on of the Widow Fury. So...

 

LaVonna  1:09:40

Rad Widow and the Widow Fury.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:09:42

You know what I'm saying?

 

LaVonna  1:09:43

I like that.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:09:44

You know, a lot of people have you know the Wandering Widow. Like there's all these Instagram handles where people, and it's not that the widow status necessarily defines me when I use it. It's more of just a context so that people. Let's see. How do I say this? It keeps people that are uncomfortable at an arm's distance, and it keeps people that care kind of understanding. Like that's why you're not getting a full, complete person in front of you sometimes because I'm also this thing. But yeah, I don't think there's a problem in leaning into it. As even

 

LaVonna  1:10:26

It's my reality, right?

 

Sharmane Fury  1:10:27

It's your reality, and also like for a period of time, it is what defines us. You know?

 

LaVonna  1:10:34

I can't undo what I what I can't unsee what I've seen. I can't un

 

Sharmane Fury  1:10:38

Right!

 

LaVonna  1:10:38

Unfeel what I felt. You know, it's it's not like it's a 10 year. Oh, for 10 years you're a widow, and then after that, and then you're

 

Sharmane Fury  1:10:47

You're clear. You know, you did your the you did your one year wearing black. You know, you can move on.

 

LaVonna  1:10:51

Singlem divorce. If the widow's not there, then I can be single. But if the widow's there, it's like well, fuck.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:10:57

I don't like when the widow not there because I think of the term single. We might just have to split this into two.

 

LaVonna  1:11:05

 You can, you can, or just move it over and rethink.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:11:07

I think of the term single as I'm on the market, and I don't think I'm on the. I'm not on the market.

 

LaVonna  1:11:14

Or single to me sounds like never have been widowed, and I'm like, or never have been widowed,

 

Sharmane Fury  1:11:18

right? Or like you know, like according to the government, I'm not allowed to click married anymore. So if I'm not married, and you don't give me a box for widow, you actually haven't given me a box because I'm not single.

 

LaVonna  1:11:34

Right.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:11:36

I'm solo. I'm not single. Those are different, and ...

 

LaVonna  1:11:41

Those are different.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:11:42

I think I actually did make one company at it, where I reached out to them, and I was like, "Yeah, I was just in my, you know,

 

LaVonna  1:11:50

together, yeah, I like it.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:11:51

I was in my widow Karen bag, I guess, one day, and I was like, "This is really offensive that you have not included widows in this thing.

 

LaVonna  1:11:58

Make them change it, and they

 

Sharmane Fury  1:12:00

did. They like wrote me back like, "Oh, sorry, none of us have experienced that before, so we never thought about it. It was like a women-run thing, and um, and so they they're like, "If you refresh the page, you'll be able to see it. So they like literally responded within.

 

LaVonna  1:12:14

That's proper.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:12:15

Yeah. So you know, I think it's sort of like you know people being aware of accessibility for you know disabled folks or something like that, like this is a version of that for people that are widowed. Like it is insensitive for us to have to choose something that makes us feel like we've erased our person. You know, if we have to say like as a Mixed person, if you don't give me a a multiracial tab. I'm gonna click every box, so you know.

 

LaVonna  1:12:45

Make it make it right.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:12:46

Make it make it work for for us. If you're gonna record those demographics, record those demographics, and yeah, that's something I do. But anyways,

 

LaVonna  1:12:57

That's a good point. I can always talk to you, Sharmane.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:13:02

I just feel like I guess I'm in a place now where I'm a little lighter because I am able to talk about it more openly now. Now I think some of my Sharmane flair has always been that I could talk about this fucked up shit with generally somewhat dispassionately, even though it is you know deep for me. It's just now I actually do cry when I didn't used to when I was young. You know, I've made a lot of people uncomfortable with my being a child of abuse jokes and stories before because that's the way I've dealt with my childhood or whatever, and it's not unlike that now. It's just you know now it's in the form of my husband's dead, but you know when you've had to crack your husband's chest plate to give him CPR. Your whole perspective on whether or not someone gives a shit about what you're doing changes. You know, I have to deal with the fact that I have felt that sensation and that I both resuscitated him once and wasn't able to resuscitate him again. You know, so no one can say anything to me.

 

LaVonna  1:14:24

No.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:14:25

Because of that, because I had to experience that. So

 

LaVonna  1:14:30

You own it.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:14:31

I own it. Well, that is episode three. I know we ran a little bit long, but thank you everybody who has participated so far. If you would like to support the show, first of all, the best way to do it is to subscribe wherever you are watching and/or listening to us, because that does help spread the word. If you can share it with someone you know that might be going through what we're going through too, they they might need this community. And if you would like to support the show, financially, you can go to stayathomewidow.com and click on the membership tab, and you can drop some coins in the chip jars so that we can keep this show going on the production side. And if you have any thoughts or questions, you can put them in the comments, or you can email stayathomewidowpod (at) gmail.com.

 

LaVonna  1:15:21

Thank you.

 

Sharmane Fury  1:15:22

Thank you.

 

LaVonna  1:15:23

Well, now that's our show. Around here, we know grief is a lot like laundry. You don't finish it. You just keep finding more of it. Some days you fold it, and some days it folds you. But the bills still need paying. Those dishes still need washing, and somehow tomorrow still expects us to show up. But that's all right. We'll keep connecting the dots. We'll keep carrying both the grief and the joy. This is stay-at-home widow, navigating the fuckery of grief one load at a time. Join us on the first Wednesday of every month, and until then, be gentle with yourself.