From someone wanting to share their home hospice experience:
Perhaps your talk resonated so strongly with me because so few people talk about the day-to-day horrors of seeing this beautiful human who you loved in everyday life decaying before your eyes. I too carried my husband’s 65 lb. body to the bath and wrapped him up in cashmere so he could go outside just once more in a wheelchair.
From a newly single dad:
The single dad thing has thrown me for a few loops and I am definitely doing things I never expected (bra shopping for our now 13-year-old daughter was interesting), but that we are still here is what our wives wanted.
There were messages that have inspired me to keep speaking and, yes, even try my hand at writing a book . . .
Thank you for your openness in . . . delivering your moving TED talk (first and only time I’ve ever watched a TED talk). While perhaps you didn’t plan to be a public person, it is an identity you wear with grace. Both you and Amy reached me and touched me in ways few have.
Divorcées reached out . . .
“What will you do with your own fresh start?” This is the question I am facing in the wake of unexpected divorce at the age of 63. I alternate between horror and extreme excitement at the possibilities.
From a woman whose marriage ended:
I wish for you, Jason, a woman with an expansive ♥ who will always respect your love for Amy. I wish for your children that they’ll allow themselves space and grace towards that woman—to like her when they like her, to dislike her if need be in those moments of their lives when they so desperately want their mom there, not her. There’s complexity there for sure, but it can be done with respect for all.
. . . and from people whose generosity reminded me so much of Amy, and in some cases, moved me to tears . . .
The only thing I have been thinking since I was 18 years old is that if I could donate my life, my heart, my organs or whatever someone needs to survive. If I met your wife when she was diagnosed, I would definitely donate one of my ovaries as I wanted to donate my gallbladder to my mother.
From a ten-page handwritten letter, accompanied by a dream catcher:
I’ve faced so much sadness, abuse and many years of feeling hopeless and having so many questions about who I even was, since the years of abuse from a small child on to adulthood had brought on pretty severe PTSD. . . . I can only hope that in me sharing this with you, you’ll be able to smile in your heart knowing Amy’s beautiful presence on this earth is so strong that she touches people across the country without even knowing her.
See, some people are good:
I am not sure exactly what I hope to achieve; maybe it’s just a sounding board to capture my journey to share with you so you know you are not alone. And so I know I’m not alone.
I’ve learned more from my wonderful new letter-writing friends from all over the globe than I can begin to describe. This woman, for example, whose mother died of ovarian cancer, introduced me in her letter to the Japanese tradition of kintsukuroi, the art of mending a broken pot with gold, making it even more precious than it was before. It was in that context that she concluded,
At the time Mom felt broken and the message comforted her. Today our lives have a brokenness, and future life will be very different, but hopefully with new beauty and encouraged by the legacy of love and kindness we’ve been given.
In addition to these letters sharing extremely personal stories, I received all forms of religious missives, including a sincere note with a copy of the Book of Mormon, references to “doctors” all over the world who could eradicate Amy’s cancer, as well as tchotchkes and symbols readers felt reminded them of Amy.
To every one of you who’s taken the time and energy to share your stories, your pain, your thoughtfulness, your compassion, and your hope with me: whether or not we ever meet in person, we’re connected now. Amy was a passionate believer in the power of connection. Through your generosity to me and our children, you’ve honored her legacy, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Hearing these stories made me think of Free to Be . . . You and Me and the lyrics “It’s all right to cry / Crying gets the sad out of you / It’s all right to cry / It might make you feel better.” The memory of listening to Free to Be and reading these incredibly personal submissions made me want to shout to the rafters or post the following to a Facebook page. If I had one, I may have immediately posted the following thoughts that I think are so important for us guys to remember:
Grief and loss are a shared tale.
Somehow throughout the course of history, men have been labeled as unemotional. In fact, in institutions from the US military to our typical American family unit to our ball fields and sporting arenas, institutions of learning and their social groups, and even film and television, men are portrayed as rock-solid stoic types in the face of an emotional event. I have news for you: fuck that.
If you think you need permission, here it is. If your wife—the woman you built your family with, the lady you consider a model friend and mate, a vital cog in the wheel of universal creativity and the arts—dies, cry your eyes out. For that matter, if you lose your family pet, your job, your marriage, or your mate, let it out! For me, I bawled like a baby as my wife was rolled out of our home on a gurney. I cried my eyes out often afterward in my car when a familiar tune came on. I wept when one of my kids texted me. When I found my voice to relay my message about my experience with the end of life, I let it loose like a fountain as I practiced in the quiet of my home.
If you feel like you need to talk about your pain, do so. Just because my journey through loss and my grief was more public than the average person’s does not make me the only guy to want to share how it feels at the end of the life of someone you love, or to suffer loss of any kind, for that matter. I am here to say, “It’s okay to talk about how you feel.” Find a way that works for you, whether that is with one good friend, a family member, or the neutrality of a mental health professional. Again, this is just me, but talking with a therapist was vital for my process.
If you need to find a place to talk anonymously, share your story with me at jasonbrosenthal.com.
Just please let us shout it to the rooftops: guys, it is really acceptable to show emotion when you go through a loss of any kind. Period.
Of course, because Amy’s New York Times essay was called “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” there’s a whole other category of mail that still keeps coming. You guessed it—many, many women have reached out to me to extoll their virtues as my potential new spouse. Some are very genuine, carefully and thoughtfully handwritten. Some are hard to understand but convey a genuine sentiment. And some have just made me laugh. I can’t always tell if that was the intention, but it doesn’t keep me from appreciating the result.
Amy must have known that there would be a response when her essay was published. That the response has been so overwhelming, and from all corners of the globe, probably wouldn’t have surprised her one bit, but it still surprises me. There were crates full, but here are a couple of examples: