Episode 19
Supporting Grievers: Compassionate Care for Sudden Loss and Natural Death -19
In this thought-provoking episode of Enduring Grief, host Sarah Peterson is joined by Dr. Marlis Beier and Dr. Dean Sharpe to unravel the unique journeys of experiencing loss. Together, they explore the profound contrast between sudden loss—such as accidents or traumatic deaths—and natural, expected death. From the overwhelming physical shocks that grief creates to the distinct emotional landscapes of denial, guilt, and regret, the conversation offers listeners a compassionate look at the full range of grief reactions.
If you’ve ever felt lost after a traumatic event, struggled with “what ifs,” or wondered why even anticipated losses can leave you reeling, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in for personal stories, practical wisdom, and gentle reminders about support, healing, and finding new guideposts after life-altering change.
Sarah Peterson is a licensed clinical social worker with over 13 years of experience in medical social work, hospice care and in private practice. As the founder of Clear Mourning, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shifting the culture of grief through innovation, support, and awareness, Sarah brings a deep understanding of grief and loss to her work. Her personal experiences, including the tragic loss of her two-year-old daughter and father, have profoundly shaped her mission to provide compassionate support to others navigating grief.
Sarah holds a Master of Social Work from Portland State University and has extensive experience in both private practice and nonprofit leadership. She also serves as an adjunct instructor at Portland State, runs her own private practice, and provides supervision for licensure candidates.
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Dean Sharpe trained as a general surgeon and worked in private practice from 1980 to2002. His interests expanded and in 1994 he earned a master’s degree in health administration, becoming the first Vice President of Medical Affairs at St. Charles Medical Center. He shared this position with his surgical practice until 2002 when he became a full-time administrator. Informatics and computerized medical records arrived, and he facilitated that change at St. Charles from 2004 to 2006 as VP Clinical Informatics. In his two administrative jobs, relationship and change facilitation were his major roles.
His passion as facilitator and educator led to helping design and facilitate “People Centered Teams”, an organizational and personal seminar beginning 1992. The program grew from St. Charles to national, impacting the lives of over 5000 participants. He helped design and teach Death and Dying workshops at St. Charles in the 90’s with the goal that caregivers would become more comfortable with their own mortality as well as their patients. He believes the physician’s role is to facilitate the relationship between patients and their illness, which allows healing, regardless of physical cure. Teaching the Sacred Art of Living Community seminars are a natural extension of Dean’s interests because of the wedding of psychological and spiritual aspects of the inward journey. He has facilitated Healing the Healers seminars since 2008. Starting in 2017 he has facilitated with his wife the 10-month track (part of a program called Anamcara second year) Soul of Wellness: The course focuses on the lifelong questions “Who are you and what do you want? He is married to Marlis Beier, has two daughters and three grandsons. He lives in Bend, Oregon and enjoys cooking, skiing, hiking, gardening, traveling and being with his family.
Marlis Beier started her professional career in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Bend, Oregon. She found gratification accompanying patients facing life transitions. She learned about grief when her best friend, brother and beloved patients died. Her chronically ill daughter asked her to help her die at age 5. Grief comes not with just the loss of someone but also loss of identity and ability. The diagnosis of MS meant repeated grieving loss of ability and with time, her identity as practicing physician. She found similar gratification volunteering in hospice being with the dying. That’s where she met Sarah. Their deep friendship held space for Sarah as she grieves the tragic loss of her daughter Marley at age 2 from a drunk driver on a Sunday morning.
Marlis has been a spiritual seeker from an early age, learning from many traditions and teachers. She has become a mentor to many through teaching at hospice and the Sacred Art of Living Center. Although she teaches many diverse subjects, her intention is transformation of suffering. Her greatest love is her family, including husband Dean Sharpe, M.D., two daughters, Marissa and Anneliese, and grandsons Thielsen, Sawyer and Kepler. The saga of Anneliese’s health challenges since age one inspired her to become a better doctor, mother and companion to anyone facing illness or challenge.
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Transcript
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Sarah Peterson [:Welcome to Enduring Grief, Healing Practices and True Stories of Living After Loss, where we dive into real, honest conversations about the journey through grief and the support that makes it possible. I'm Sarah Peterson, an LCSW, and in this space I bring my experience as someone who has walked this path, as well as my work with my nonprofit Clear Mourning. I'm often joined by two incredible guests, Dr. Marlis Beier and Dr. Dean Sharpe, both incredible people and physicians who've spent their lives caring for people and have supported me personally on my journey through grief. In our first episode, I'll share my personal story and how I've come to this work, why it matters so deeply to me, and how it might resonate with you. Whether you're navigating your own loss or standing by someone who is, this space is for you. Join me as we uncover the stories, the struggles, and the hope that lead to healing.
Sarah Peterson [:Let's walk through this journey together.
Sarah Peterson [:We are so glad to be back together and we are so glad to be welcoming you, our listeners, into our space. This episode of Enduring Grief with my dear beloved people, Marlis and Dean, again. We are back at their table, looking at the mountains, gazing into each other's eyes. Right. Excited.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And the peonies are still pluming.
Sarah Peterson [:We're always, like we said, excited to be together, and today's no different. Today we are going to talk about natural death versus sudden loss. I think a lot of people experience both. It's important to understand the difference between the two of our cultural story around it. So let's just start by defining the two. Sudden loss is an accident, a suicide, an overdose. And it comes with a whole set of responses that are pretty unique to sudden loss, right?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:What are those responses?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Your neurologic system goes into shock and how people respond to that shock is fight, flight, and freeze. But it's far more involving your entire body. I mean, all of you. And you know, it's interesting is thinking about this. I have dealt with people with sudden loss a lot, you know, both as a clinician and I co led a group on traumatic deaths and grief. And I've had it happen with my friends and there's just this incredible range. But my primary response is that the shock is just enormous and overloads the system.
Sarah Peterson[:Yeah, I can agree with that. It's just like you sort of have no idea which way is up. And that's a very mild way of putting it, but you just go, everything is done. I remember sitting on the couch the night of Marlee's death and Thinking, okay, this is the last. Or it was the next day. Cause what I said was, this is the last day of my life. I get to say that I saw her yesterday. And how in the hell can that be? There was,
Marlis Beier, MD [:true. But even seeing you now, you're having physical response. Your face is flushing. I'm sure if I were to check your pulse, your heart rate is going up.
Sarah Peterson [:It's interesting because I can go into that memory specifically so clearly, because I was waiting for somebody that was at my mom and dad's house to take their last bite of lasagna. And then I said, is everybody done eating? And they said, yeah. And I said, here's what I have to say. Cause I just felt like I didn't want to say it while anybody was eating. I don't know why, but I remember very consciously thinking it while looking at the room, choosing when to say, that's it. We can't ever say we saw yesterday. So, yeah, I can slip into that pretty easily. Also, the shock.
Sarah Peterson [:I mean, the day of the crash, it took six large firemen to hold me back from attacking the driver. That. I'm not that strong. I mean, I'm strong, but I'm not that strong. But that, I think, was really pumping through my blood. But then I think some of the only words I could say. Well, one of the only words I could say for a really long time was no. I remember a friend taking me up into the woods, way up.
Sarah Peterson [:And just, like, scream. And I'm like, all I want to scream is, no. How can this have been? How has this happened? Anything we missed, though, about the response to the sudden loss.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Other than physical?
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Marlis Beier, MD [:The shaking of the world as you know it. I think that you can take that apart in each one of aspects of how we function as humans. Mentally, it's unglued. And physically, there's just this neurologic response of changing heart rate, breathing. Okay, someone else has to talk now.
Sarah Peterson [:Dean, what are we missing?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I don't think you're missing anything. It's shock, denial, overwhelmed, shut down. You know, unsafe.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. And as the supporters, we just have to sort of stand by and make sure they're safe. Essentially. Like, not in harm's eye.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Not functioning in any real capacity. Some level, it's. The entire autonomic nervous system is what keeps you alive. The fact that your body breathes whether you want it to or not. And even if you hold your breath a really long time, at that time, you will pass out and start to breathe again. But that's what keeps you going is stuff that's not conscious. And as an organism, some level, whether you live or die doesn't make any difference. You're even beyond thinking of those sorts of things.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:It's a complete system crash. And if you're going to use like any change that you go through in your life, there are really a couple of ways there are changes that you choose. You know, I'm going to get married. At the end of that change, you will find yourself in a new room, married, which is different than the old room, single. And you'll find yourself in a whole new metaphorical storytelling way of talking about who you are and what your life is. And, and on the way to the new room, you've probably had some time to think about it and to talk about it and you think, you know, some of the stakes in the ground or mileposts in the ground by which you'll be able to navigate in the new room. But in my experience, once you get into the new room, it's like all that stuff you read or thought about beforehand is all garbage anyway. I think that in the situation of a traumatic death, it's like God picks you up and throws you through the door into the new room completely without any mileposts or anything in the ground to guide yourself by.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I mean, you are lost in a wilderness with no markers. And that's so much more shocking, dysregulating, disorienting, disorienting, overwhelming than something that was planned. And then there are the times when it's not something like marriage, which I'm sure you're most of the time when you're going to do that, you're kind of looking forward to it. It's a change that you're saying, oh, this might be good. There are a lot of changes we go through in our lives where it's planned, but it might not necessarily be what my choice was. When Marlis and I decided that the time had come. Well, Marlis decided the time had come that we downsize, which I have come to agree with completely. Thank God for Marlis in my life.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:But this was not a change I was ready for or really was very welcoming of. And clearly the process of downsizing from the house we lived in for 35 years and had accumulated enormous amounts of stuff that needed to go. And moving into the house where we currently live, it was a two year process for me to come to terms and feel as though the new place, this new room, was the room where I really wanted to be and so that's not actually, you know, like somebody dying in the intensity of that change. And yet it's not something we come to terms with immediately. What I ended up doing, and I think it generalizes to the process, is you move into the new room, my new house, and I don't know where anything belongs. I look out there at the yard and I didn't plant any of those plants. And I look at the walls and I didn't paint those walls. I didn't even choose that color, whatever color that is.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And so all the ways that I have for navigating in my life still is disrupted. It's just I have a little more time and space to come to terms with it. And like I say, it took me two years to plant my own plants, build my own patio.
Sarah Peterson [:I've thought that a few times. We're back to the bush.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:We're back to the bush.
Sarah Peterson [:One of our listeners favorite stories.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah, we're back to the bush.
Sarah Peterson [:Back to the bush.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:Meaningful, meaningful bush.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Anyway, so.
Marlis Beier, MD [:So.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:So I really think that, you know, the other topic we're going to go into is a chronic.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Natural death,
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Natural death
Sarah Peterson [:Progression.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:This is very much.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:You know, you have time to get used to it. But let's not kid ourselves when we find ourselves in a new room, meaning that person has died. It's still a shock.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah, that's true.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:So I don't.
Sarah Peterson [:Which I think sometimes can be the shock itself is the shock because people will think, I'm not going to be shocked.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right.
Sarah Peterson [:Then they are shocked and that becomes the shock. That suddenly they felt so prepared. And what. I'm not fully 100% prepared for this now. I'm going to spend a lot of time being upset about that disappointment.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right.
Sarah Peterson [:I've talked to a lot, especially folks who've cared for somebody with a dementia diagnosis. They think I'll be so relieved the suffering will end. This has been so hard and so expensive and so. This poor person is suffering. And even then the person dies and they're just brought to their knees by the fact that they. Turns out they still are very sad.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yes. And there often is this sense of it's a bittersweet thing. There's a sense of relief that it's done after so much suffering on the part of a lot of both sides.
Sarah Peterson [:Absolutely.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And at the same time, that sense of relief is overshadowed often by the sense of loss.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Well, I mean, and it's interesting that Even it's kind of your. Similar to your bush. No, I'm just kidding. It's my dad. When he was diagnosed, we knew he was going to die. We didn't want him to die. We didn't get a,
Sarah Peterson [:There was no, like, oh, this has been such a long, terrible journey. It was like all of this was happening really fast before us and there was a lot of resistance right up until hours before he died. And yet still at those final hours, I think we all turned the corner toward what do we need to say, yes, this is the end. We have this beautiful opportunity to be with him in his dying moments. There was, despite it not being what we wanted, we were still able to do some of that very quickly anticipatory grief, because we did see it coming. And I think it made all the difference. I mean, especially for him, because he was the one mostly who said the things he needed to say, which was awesome. Granted, he spent the last waking hours watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but we won't go there because that was my dad.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I'm proud of the boy.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah, exactly. We're like, oh, so you have four hours to live. What should we do with 50% of that time? Monty Python. You got it, Jimmy.
Marlis Beier, MD [:That might be distraction as a desire to avoid the hard feelings of grief.
Sarah Peterson [:I think, too, he was so tired and there was so many connections through that movie, especially with my brother and my uncle who was there, that he was able to just really be sort of saturated in those old memories with them and not have to say much.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right.
Marlis Beier, MD [:That's brilliant.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Marlis Beier, MD [:There is no right way.
Sarah Peterson [:No. But I think that what we're saying here too is that when you have the opportunity to come to terms with it, even if it's in a short amount of time, it can be such a really different visceral experience, especially.
Marlis Beier, MD [:But I want to acknowledge, for the person who has a chronic disease, there are so many shocks. I mean, there's a shock when you get the diagnosis, you go home and it rearranges your whole world. Thinking body. My own diagnosis. I felt very betrayed by my body, by reality, by God. It's a shock. And then, you know, as the first treatment happens, it's a shock. And then when that doesn't work and you go on to the next treatment, it's repeated shocks and grief.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Any chronic or natural death involves multiple losses. Losses of function, losses of relationship. And so with each one of those, it's both a shock and a grief. And you know what I always try to say Is that exactly what you said? If you are willing to take the time as someone is living or dying is to say what it is that you want to say, as if they're going to die tomorrow.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. We don't have to wait.
Marlis Beier, MD [:No, don't wait. Don't.
Sarah Peterson[:We don't have to wait.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Don't.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Well, and I think that's a part of the profound difference between something that happens in stages and something that happens all of a sudden. In the sudden death scenario, where somebody leaves home and never returns because of an accident, a heart attack or whatever violence oftentimes, not only have you maybe not said the most important things that you would like to have said to them for a while, but you may even have been kind of peeved with them or even had some harsher words in departing that you would love to have taken back, and you never will have that opportunity. So it's not only the shock of the loss, but even the secondary wounding of the things that never got said or the things that were said that I'll forever regret.
Sarah Peterson [:Totally. And that's honestly our next thing that I want to touch on was just the difference in vicarious and secondary trauma with a sudden loss versus a natural death. I think they both can exist for either one, but I think the likelihood of a griever experiencing that secondary trauma after sudden loss is much higher. For the things you just said. One of the last things I said to Marley and her brother was that they were both acting like Donald Trump. Now, how terrible is that? Those were some of my final words because they were like, they wouldn't stop fighting, and they were arguing and arguing and tried to get, you know, one up each other. And I said, you guys are acting like Donald Trump. And then they both started bawling.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Really?
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Oh, yeah. They were so offended. Anyway, we shouldn't get political, but, you know, things we've said that maybe if I could do the last few conversations with her over again, I probably wouldn't maybe say that.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Well, and the other piece is that while you have that in the acute trauma, where you just lose them today, in the long term, stuff, you know, that goes on for months or years sometimes, and you're the caregiver or the person who's showing up each day or the person who's living with that person supporting them through all of that, there is the real risk that the vicarious traumatization is just finally being overwhelmed by being in the face of their suffering, someone who you love. Their suffering over years worth of time, you begin to develop things like compassion, fatigue, and inability to be with them because it's so hurtful for yourself. And the guilt or maybe even shame of not being all that they needed at every moment of the way that you just were too tired to do it. So it's the human journey. What can I say? It's just kind of the reality of it.
Marlis Beier, MD [:We're imperfect.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah, I'm kind of shifting. But I think too, like, with this sudden loss, traumatic loss like that, one thing that I often hear grievers talk about is the what ifs? What if I didn't do this? And what if I didn't do that? Could the whole thing have been prevented, stopped? And the truth is, we'll never know, right? But I struggle, I think, each and every time somebody says, what do I do with that? Because I don't know. You'll just do it until you're sick of doing it. Until you come to terms with it's not helpful. I remember my therapist told me to switch. What? Why? To switch the word why to how that was something. Was that you that told me that? Okay, that was not my therapist. That was just my best friend.
Sarah Peterson [:But I could logistically explain how this has happened. It happened because we were in this terrible crash. I can explain how one person overdoses, they take too much of a drug. Instead of why? Why didn't I know why?
Marlis Beier, MD [:There is no answer.
Saerah Peterson [:There is no answer.
Marlis Beier, MD [:There is no answer.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And. Well, there is an answer to that question. It only requires an entity which completely understands absolutely every flux and flow of every particle in the universe at that moment in order to truly know why that happened. Because it is so much more complex and contains so many more moving parts than just your decision that day.
Sarah Peterson [:Absolutely. And I did use that tactic to undo the why a little bit, especially in the beginning, because I thought, okay, it was a Sunday morning. Now, if I would have been a churchgoer, I would have been on my way to church instead of on my way to a folk festival. And if I would have then also been a van driver for that church, I would have been out picking up everybody's kids and not just toodily to my own. That feels psychotic now when I say it like that. But when you must come up with how it is more than the decision I made to go to a folk festival, that's how far I would go back to it. If I would have, then I would have been doing this, my life would have been different, and I probably wouldn't have Been on the road. And it revealed to me exactly what you're saying, Dean, is like there are just so many moving parts to what led me to be in that exact spot at that exact moment.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Well, and all the people who were also in that exact spot at the exact moment, including the drunk driver who was influenced by things so far beyond your control. For him to reach that moment in his life, what it is, is. It's crazy Making it is crazy making it's unanswerable. And my bet is that if we go back to the place where we made the decision to do what we did do, that probably if we put ourselves back in that spot again, we'd make the same decision again.
Sarah Peterson [:Sometimes.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah. Or almost all. I mean, that day, those circumstances, that situation where you were who you were, what you were trying to do, all of that which went into your decision to do what you did, put yourself back in that moment again, you'd make the same decision.
Sarah Peterson [:Right.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:It would not decide not to go. Now, in retrospect, looking back at it, you can say, oh, my goodness, I wish we hadn't.
Sarah Peterson [:I would decide not to go if I knew.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:If you knew but didn't know, but you don't. And you can't.
Sarah Peterson [:And that can be for. I wish I would have called my loved one because I didn't realize they were so low. I wish I would have gone. I tried calling 10 times. I wish I would have just stopped by. I wish I tried stopping by. They didn't answer the door. I wish I would have called the police.
Sarah Peterson [:But in that moment, like you're saying, you took all the information you had in that moment to say, statistically, historically, based on what I know to be true about my life and theirs. Yeah, this is what I do.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah. It is so much of who you are, so much of who everybody else is, it's impossible to do that. So there's a point at which I think you just have to say that there's an addictive part of doing that to yourself over and over again. And you really have to ask the question, what am I gaining from this?
Sarah Peterson [:Absolutely.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And what is this costing me? And really, there are 12 step programs out there. And the first step is I'm out of control around the addiction to wrestling with this silly question. And I just need to stop.
Sarah Peterson [:I just need to stop.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I just have to stop doing this because. And that was the other thing I was going to say. One of the most important things, when you find yourself in a new room, whether that's. You just got married because that's what you've always wanted, or you just had a kid or you know, all the times we go into a new room because we think it's the right thing to do. Or it's a situation where you got sort of pushed and shoved into the new room because of life circumstances. Or you get picked up and thrown into the new room by the universe itself. Like you were right, you know, here you were driving on a Sunday morning, here we're just going to pick you up and throw you into a new room. The most important thing to do is to get clear about what you want.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Getting clear about what you want puts new guideposts into the ground by which to navigate in the new room.
Sarah Peterson [:I agree. And what I want doesn't have to be for the rest of my life or for the day. It can be, I want a shower because I'm starting to smell and I've gotta go in public or whatever the thing. So here's the guideposts that will navigate me to take that. Or I want my hair clean and I don't have the strength to hold my arms up that long. So I'm going to get it washed at the salon like I did for a year by the grace of my lovely friend. And if you want it, you have to work for it. And you're right, you do have to figure out what you want.
Sarah Peterson [:Do I want to get dressed today? Do I want to see what it feels like outside? Do I want a cup of coffee? And I think that if we give ourselves permission to start with these low hanging fruit desires, it's then how you build to seeing bigger desires, bigger wants in life.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right. Ultimately you have to find yourself asking deeper questions about deeply held values for you personally. So I want ultimately to be peaceful in my life. I don't have any idea how that's going to happen. I can't even imagine that it might happen. It seems like something so far out of bounds, but it's a guidepost. It's like, how is peacefulness going to find me? How will peacefulness manifest? Can I look and notice the occasional time I feel peaceful?
Sarah Peterson [:Well, and I think too like Marlis was saying in the last episode that we did together about with her mom and kind of thinking about the details of what would be post death, we can think about what we want if we're thinking in the course of natural death. What do I want my life to look like when this person is gone? A will I want to hang on to? What will I want to Let go of what new parts of me do I think might emerge. Do you think that's a fair exercise, Marlis?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. I'm still back with when the world is falling apart, trying to figure out what you want. For some reason, what's come up for me is all the families I know right now who've had a teenager take their life, and it's such a huge shock, and all of those questions come up, and it is such a sense of helplessness, powerlessness. And I think that's true with any sudden death, that it puts your sense of helplessness right in front of you. And so when you ask, just figure out, what do you want? What comes to me is, can I just find some ground? And maybe taking a shower is a reasonable grounding.
Sarah Peterson [:Or sleep.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Or sleep.
Sarah Peterson [:Maybe you haven't slept in what feels like a hundred years. Maybe that would be it. And I think, too, that I love that we have this variety of reactions to that, because that's what our listeners will have, is a variety of reactions to the idea of finding what you want amidst such angst. And so if that's not available to you in this moment, when you hear this or you're thinking of the person you love going, oh, my gosh, there's no way they're going to know what they want. That's okay. And just, like always consider that these are ideas. This is something that is going to always be available to you as you move through the process. And each one of these ideas that we share with you is part of the process.
Sarah Peterson [:None of them are to be implemented immediately on day one. Hit go. Here we are. These are ideas for the process. Because when we say things like trust the process, we're telling you about the process, right?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yes. It is a journey, and there is no end.
Sarah Peterson [:No, it goes on forever. Which was one of the conversations I had with a Griever yesterday, because this poor Griever is having, like, a really great time right now, and they're just thick with guilt about it. Both parents passed away, and they're thick with guilt about it. And I just kind of landed on. It's not going anywhere. I think you're very sad. Well, yes, I'm devastated. And I'm at this part of my life that feels really good, and I have all this support and big things are ahead of me.
Sarah Peterson [:That's okay, too, because there's also this idea that we have to undo about hurry up and do the hard stuff so that it gets easier, faster, and it doesn't work. Like that either. Like, you could make it really hard on yourself for the first year. Like looking at pictures, even when it brings you to your knees, never sleeping, always doing this, going to work all the time, or never going to work at all. And I don't know that it's going to propel you through the process at any different trajectory, it might just simply be harder for the sake of making it harder.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right. I think you always have to ask yourself, what do I think I'm gaining from this particular set of behaviors? And what is this set of behaviors costing me? There are so many things that get hardwired into us as children around shame and how things have to be hard or I haven't really honored the person unless I suffer a lot totally. And those kinds of stories are really just a story. And I think that we grieve the way we grieve, and people's grief looks different, and how much someone tortures themselves is not a reflection of how much you love the other person.
Sarah Peterson [:That's true. And, you know, I often think I remember starting grad school and wanting to tell my beloved cohort all about who I was as a person and can't wait to share this with them and that with them. And I remember, you know, in the first couple weeks sitting there going, all right, Sarah, you've got three whole years with these people every Friday for three whole years. The time will come when you will get to share the parts when they mean the most. It was really a process. And I almost feel like that sometimes around that acute grief response where it's like, you watch those people suffering, it's suffering for the sake of suffering, instead of it really truly being a transformative grief experience and never really understanding that there was permission to choose a path. And when I heard this particular person talking about really enjoying parts of their day every day, I was happy for them.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Life goes on.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, and that's how we live our most meaningful life in this actual reality, is we learn to live with it. And learning to live with it has to include all the different parts of us. The day before Marlee died, I was many things more than her mother, you know? And for a long time after she died, it felt like that was the only thing I was. And if we could, like, slowly bring back all the other pieces that we were at one time, although they are reshaped, I am still a friend, a sister, et cetera. Right?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right.
Sarah Peterson [:So do you think that the support one needs differs between natural death and traumatic loss? Like all the things They've learned from us about compassionate listening and showing up and not having to fix it. Like, is that different because somebody died suddenly versus over an extended illness?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:No.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I think the only thing that's different is that whatever the situation, if someone is down on the floor, incapable of moving, shock system, you gotta keep them safe.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:You gotta not let them get in a car and drive somewhere. You've got to check on them. You've got to be with them. You have to be sure they don't set their house on fire accidentally because they didn't blow the candle out. I mean, people are not thinking or reacting or being in the world in a way which keeps them safe. And so you have to provide that for them. And it doesn't just have to be a traumatic death. It could be losing a beloved job and, you know, the person is wondering whether they can even pay the bills now.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:There are many, many kinds of changes that occur in our lives that are sudden and overwhelming, that we need others to keep us operating. Beyond that, all the other things we've talked about are true. And there's a time and place for all of them.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. And Marlis, having lost, let's say, your dad to natural death, right? You had plenty of time to say goodbye and potentially say the things you needed to say. I don't know if those all crossed your lips, but you had the chance. In a way different than when your adopted son took his own life. The type of care you received, did it need to be different for those two? Why was it different? Is it because of the relationship? Is it because of the type of death? Like, what could you tell us about the care you received as a griever?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well, my dad was in his 90s when he died, and his body and his brain were both. I mean, he was ready. I mean, and he had a beautiful death. I was in bed with he and my mother at the time that he died, and the whole family washed his body the next morning before he went for cremation.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay, wait, let me pause. What about. I know that you've lost a really close friend to ovarian cancer, right?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:Probably not ready to go. Still a natural death. Still, she was taken too soon. It was a hard death. Maybe not a beautiful death always, or maybe it did vary at the end, but not. Okay, so compare those two.
Marlis Beier, MD [:As a griever.
Sarah Petersonn [:Yeah. As a griever, what kind of support did you need for her death versus the other?
Marlis Beier, MD [:And, you know, if I were going to. And this is my blocked emotion Issues. The support that's always helpful for me is to support me in having emotions, because otherwise, I'll just stick in doing and taking care of other people as opposed to somebody being present for me.
Sarah Peterson [:And did that happen?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Some.
Sarah Peterson [:Some?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah.
Marlis Beier, MD [:What's interesting in this moment is that the people who were the most supportive in the really difficult grieving situations were other grievers. People who were grieving the same loss.
Sarah Peterson [:The same person.
Marlis Beier, MD [:The same person.
Sarah Peterson [:But I do think, too, and this is one of the things I wanted to touch on, is this hierarchy of loss shows up, too. Because if your friend who died of ovarian cancer, I think it's easy for friends to just sort of get pushed out to the sides. And the society says it's the family who's grieving.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Right.
Sarah Peterson [:Friends who, whatever, your life is going to march on the way it always has. We know that's not true. But I think that the story of friendship, loss by death is one that is very broken in our culture. I don't think we have a lot of room for what it means to lose your best friend or a very good friend. So that's different. And I think that. Did you experience the same thing because Jason was your adopted son and not your biological son? Was there any difference there?
Marlis Beier, MD [:No.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay.
Marlis Beier, MD [:And it's hard for me to tell the difference between not getting the support that I would have wanted and not asking for the support that I wanted, because I tend to be so protected that it feels vulnerable and weak, too.
Sarah Peterson [:Wow. Well, thank you for telling us that. And what would you give as advice to the other grievers who identify with that?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Let in the love and support that's available to you? And I think one of the biggest issues for us and our culture is that we are so focused on doing. And I will claim at the top of the.
Sarah Peterson [:You're the best doer of all the doers in all the doing land.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yep. That grieving.
Sarah Peterson [:That's why she speeds everywhere she goes. She's got so many things to do, you can't waste a moment. Must be going at least five over.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Busted.
Sarah Peterson [:I often tease Marla about driving fast.
Marlis Beier, MD [:And people like me are a challenge because we're in deep grief. I can tell you my husband, who I'm sitting next to, I wanted a symbol in my yard to remember Jason by. And it's tall, elegant, beautiful, twirling sculpture. And every morning, I remember him express and meaningfully remember that person. It was very helpful.
Sarah Peterson [:Totally. And I want to back up to what you said, which Was that you're a tough case or you're a tough griever. I'm a tough griever. All are. Because I think Dean would be a really tough griever.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Oh boy. Howdy.
Sarah Peterson [:I know. I was a. It was tough.
Marlis Beier, MD [:No, it was kind of all over.
Sarah Peterson [:It was all over. And as I'm going through the Rolodex of my people. Who would be easy?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Nobody.
Sarah Peterson [:Nobody.
Marlis Beier, MD [:No, that's true.
Sarah Peterson [:I think they're all hard. It's hard because it's. It's completely unique to them.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yes,
Marlis Beier, MD [:It is.
Sarah Peterson [:And therefore. What the hell do I know?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:We're back. We're back to the first podcast where we said, every grief is different and each of us is unique. That's why none of us can give advice to someone else about how they ought to grieve, you know, because it's not our path, it's not our grief. The person who's supporting they may do it entirely different. One of the things that's so clear to me is that in the midst of, you know, catastrophic change in people's lives, there are the people who want hugs.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yuck.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And then there are the people who are like, I love to have you here. But over there, here. You know, I love having.
Marlis Beier, MD [:You're still describing yourself.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:That's what I said. That's what I like. You know, I want to be.
Sarah Peterson [:I want to see you.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I want to see you.
Marlis Beier, MD [:I just want to know you're in the house.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I want to know you're in the house.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Don't be in the same room.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Do not be hugging me. You know, don't be that touching stuff. So. But it's profoundly different. And so I can walk into a room, and if I'm with someone who's not all that interested in being hugged and I go in, and I'm very comfortable not hugging and just being there. It works really great. If I go into a place to be with someone who's grieving, who. All they want is to be touched and hugged and have their back rubbed and all of that, because that's how they want to do it, I'm not going to be spontaneously the best person to be there, because that's just not how I see it.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And if someone comes in when my grieving and wants to be all over me, this is a place for a boundary.
Sarah Peterson [:Right.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:This is not helpful to me.
Sarah Peterson [:I mean, it could also answer the question, what do you want?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And it does answer.
Sarah Peterson [:And that's a low hanging fruit too, right? That you might actually be able to answer in the throes of it. Do you want to be touched? Yes or no? I think in your visceral, acute grief response, that is a question most people can quickly get to the bottom of. Yeah, we know. Do not come near me or. Oh my God, please. Or I won't know till you try. Nope, don't touch me.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yep.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. Well, we are at that time.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Oh, my goodness.
Sarah Peterson [:I know. It went by so fast. It always does. It always goes by so quickly.
Marlis Beier, MD [:I guess we'll just have to do this again.
Sarah Peterson [:I know. We have to do this again. And on that note, please follow us on all the social media platforms, Clear Mourning, M O U R N I N G. And on those platforms, you can send us questions like I would love to answer questions that people have. So send us your questions. You can also send us your money. You can send us your money right at our website, it's very simple to keep this podcast going. We will be doing a donation drive here pretty quickly.
Sarah Peterson [:And tell your friends, because as much as we tell you, supporters especially don't offer advice to your grievers. I think we could say offer this one piece of advice. Listen to this podcast. Right?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Perfect.
Sarah Peterson [:I mean, it is why we're doing it. And people are telling their friends, people are telling the people who are crossing their paths in grief. Hey, try this out. And. And the feedback we're getting is really incredible. So to our listeners, thank you for giving us a shot. To Marlis and Dean, thanks for doing this with me.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Thank you.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Thank you.
Sarah Peterson [:Thank you for joining us on Enduring Grief. Healing practices and true stories of living after loss. We hope today's conversation brought you comfort, understanding, or simply the assurance that you're not alone in your grief. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might need to hear it and subscribe as a way to stay connected. We'll be back next week with more personal stories and practical guidance for navigating the complexities of loss. Until then, take care of yourself.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And remember, there's no right or wrong way to grieve.
Sarah Peterson [:You have the freedom to mourn in the way that feels true to you.
