Tips For Grieving Sudden Loss of a Loved One

Grieving sudden loss is not new, yet is an experience happening globally, very publicly, and in unison, at an unprecedented scale for the first time for many of us who were not around since maybe the Spanish Flu of 1918.

I am increasingly hearing of friends, founders we work with, acquaintances, and complete strangers popping up in my Twitter feed who are contending with the uncharted territory of greeting life one day with everyone of significance to them alive and well, to then quickly discovering that to be no longer the case.

This was my experience in August 2012 when my dad (affectionately known as Papa) died suddenly not 24 hours after our family lunch celebrating my youngest nephew’s birthday. After spending the afternoon together, my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I said our goodbyes and my dad wished us a safe drive to San Francisco later that week since we wouldn’t see each other prior.

The last photo I would take of my dad on August 6, 2012, the day before he passed away suddenly at home. My little nephew, who just celebrated his birthday, happily stretched out next to his grandpa.

The next day, I reported for work at the JW Marriott in downtown Los Angeles where I was a waitress. My college graduation was on Father’s Day a month and a half prior and I was working nonstop to pay bills while applying for full-time positions at companies where I could build my resume.

Near the end of my shift, I was doing my closeout (for you non-service industry workers, its where you reconcile your sales and tips and report back to the company before clocking out, along with other closing tasks like rolling silverware, etc.). It was about 10:00 PM and my cell phone randomly lit up — my dad’s girlfriend’s name flashed across my screen. All at once my confusion and a sinking feeling in the center of my chest, followed by hesitation to answer, led to a cautious, “Hello?”

Next thing I knew, I was in my car looking for the freeway entrance, the one I used every night, and couldn’t find it. Street after street, turn after turn, I finally located a different entrance putting me on the 110 South, bound for Long Beach, California. My mind raced and I drove somewhat cautiously down the various freeways connecting downtown L.A. and my hometown, placing calls to my dad, sister, and boyfriend, trying to run through all of the possible scenarios as to why my dad wasn’t answering.

I’ll never forget the moment I turned down my childhood street to find flashing lights in the distance, right in front of our home. I parked in the middle of the street behind a string of police cars and an ambulance, then sprinted down the street in my work uniform.

My sister and oldest nephew were outside crying and the front door upstairs was open, with seemingly every light on inside and various people in uniforms milling around. My sister’s eyes glanced up as I approached and our eyes met. Without saying a word to me, her eyes told me what I knew to be true and I fell to the sidewalk in a scream that I can never erase from memory.

An old picture from a family vacation a million years ago.

I’ll spare the rest of the details, but what we found out later was that my dad had fallen the day before — the morning of our birthday lunch — and hit his head. As someone with high blood pressure, he was taking prescribed blood thinners and developed a subdural hematoma (bleeding of the brain) which led to his death the next day. He became nauseous, ran to the restroom, and died, where he would later be discovered by his poor girlfriend who went to check on him after calling me.

What does this all have to do with COVID-19?

People are rapidly finding themselves in similar situations to the one I just described — you are going about life, interact with your loved one who is seemingly in good health, and then you get a frantic call with very confusing, disorienting, and limited information.

You then find yourself experiencing the greatest panic you’ve ever experienced. People throw around the word panic about things like buying toilet paper. “Panic buying” is what many are referring to it as. Yet my idea of panic, and I imagine others who have experienced the sudden loss of a loved one might agree, is what you experience in that moment of sheer terror when you get blindsided with the complete upheaval of life as you know it and quickly realize there is nothing you can possibly do to change it. You’re powerless and can’t protect the person you love.

That’s panic. The “why is my dad not answering my calls as I’m driving down the 110 freeway after receiving a frantic phone call from his girlfriend at 10:00 PM” kind of panic. The not knowing if you’ll ever see them again kind of panic.

Our neighbors and work colleagues and acquaintances and Twitter friends — all of us — are quickly being reminded of our mortality.

Here is my ask: Be kind to one another.

Be a person who listens to a complete stranger as they recount in detail the series of events — as I did in several paragraphs here — that transpired up to and following the sudden loss of their loved one. These details are prominent in our memory surrounding trauma and are part of the long grieving process.

Don’t offer empty lines of “they are in a better place now” — people experiencing shock don’t need that.

Validate their feelings and either a.) tell them how awful what they experienced truly was, how tragic, how heartbreaking; in short, practice empathy and b.) reinforce how special that person must have been (whether or not you knew them). Bonus points for c.) asking the question, “Tell me about them — what were they like?” Then, truly pay attention.

And, for those of you experiencing sudden loss first hand, perhaps for the first time, a few things that helped me navigate the days following my dad’s death in 2012:

1. Stay hydrated and don’t forget to eat. This is the single most important thing you can do to preserve your health and practice putting one foot in front of the other, which can feel impossible at times.
2. Be patient with yourself. You just walked into uncharted territory and likely have to make a series of painful decisions you’ve never had to make before. Mine included picking a mortuary to call to carry my dad out of our family home around midnight, compiling the list of extended family members to call and what to tell them, what to do with our home and my dad’s belongings. I realize this is 10x more complicated to manage in the time of COVID when transportation is severely limited and people might be in a different state entirely.
3. You. Do. You. Don’t listen to anyone about what you should or shouldn’t be feeling. Your feelings are valid and unique to you and your relationship with that person.
4. Don’t feel silly when you feel compelled to do things like calling that person’s phone just to see their name and photo on your phone screen for a second of imagined normalcy, or to listen to their voicemail greeting for the 100th time. Do what feels right — whether its to feel good or hurts yet helps you increasingly come to terms with this new reality, which is so hard to grasp as real.
5. Do reach out to friends who provide you with a safe space to talk openly. No one else deserves your time or attention. Follow your gut on who you want to connect with during this impossibly painful time.

I’ll continue to add things to this list as I think of them, though hope this might help someone looking for a little guidance on where to start. If that person is you — my heart sincerely goes out to you and wants you to know you are not alone, and you will get through this.