What do you think of when I say the word “survivor?” The Holocaust, 911, cancer patients, that kinda stuff, right? They’re people who have survived something while others didn’t. So why do they call the relatives of someone who died “survivors” in obituaries?
I always wondered that. It never made sense to me to call people “survivors” just because somebody else died. It’s not like the survivor’s lives are at risk somehow. Or are they?
I had a great life, a fantastic marriage, terrific kids, a fun job, a fun place living in Austin…I had it made. And then all that changed in a heartbeat.
At one o’clock in the morning of August 13, 2015 I was in bed asleep. I woke up to an odd noise. I got up and went to find out what it was and found my wife, Mara, laying on the bathroom floor. She was unresponsive, and I immediately dialed 9.1.1 and started CPR. The EMS was there within a few minutes. Meanwhile, I had four terrified kids huddled in a guest bedroom, trying to shield them from all of this.
They worked on Mara for two hours and finally broke the news: subject in cardiac arrest, unable to resuscitate.
The love of my life and best friend of 20 years was gone, turning me instantly into a single, grieving, dad of four young kids, who were only 8, 10, 12, and 14 at the time. Gone were all the plans for the future, gone was the life I loved and wanted, and my world went upside down.
When I told the kids, they all screamed. Mary Cate, my second oldest even threw up. It was horrifying.
Reality didn’t sink in until the next morning. That emotional pain was so intense I thought I would die from it. Unless you have been through it, you can’t imagine how bad it is, and I can’t describe it. And it goes on for months. It was like combining every illness, every injury, and every surgery I’ve ever had into one, and then multiplying by it 100. I’ve lost other people to include both of my parents, but losing Mara was so much worse.
Grief can be life threatening.…. It’s a real thing, called stress-induced cardiomyopathy, or Broken Heart Syndrome. Peoples’ hearts just give out and they die from it. Remember Carrie Fisher from Star Wars? She played Princess Leia. She died in December of 2016 from heart failure. Her mom, Debbie Reynolds, died the next day, and they pretty much chalked it up to “broken heart syndrome.” NFL quarterback Doug Flutie’s parents died within an hour of each other. His dad was in the hospital and died, and then his mom had sudden heart failure and died unexpectedly right there at the same hospital.
Grief also can put people at higher risk of suicide. I was really scared I was going to have suicidal thoughts. I never did. I was fortunate.
That’s why we are called “survivors” in the obituaries. Now you know. And some of us who do survive, never quite get their lives back and in live on in misery and sadness. I’m not gonna do that. I have four kids to raise and I made up my mind right away I was going to do whatever it takes to get better.
There are way too many fun and cool things to do in this world to simply just give up and be miserable. And, I have to show my kids that we are going to honor their moms’ wishes by living happy and fulfilling lives. Our family motto is “Live a great story” and that is exactly what we are going to do.
So, what do you do about all of this? That’s the problem. The hardest thing we’ll ever deal with is losing loved ones, and nobody learns anything about it ahead of time. Why they don’t teach coping with loss classes in high school amazes me. And don’t think this kind of stuff just happens to “other people”, it happened to me, and it can happen to you.
It’d take me days to tell you all the stuff I have learned on what to do and what not do, and I don’t have enough time to get into all the details. And I’d be kidding you if I told you I was 100% healed up, I’m not. I’ll carry the scar of losing Mara forever.
But here’s a few things you can do, and try to remember them:
First off, get yourselves prepared to be a survivor! Don’t screw up like I did. Our estate plans were not buttoned up and our will wasn’t in place like it should have been. I was so mad at myself for that because I knew better, and it was embarrassing. Years ago when I was in the Army, they MADE us do all of that stuff. Every time you deploy or change duty stations, they make sure your will is up to date, notification of next of kin, what happens to all of your possessions, all of that stuff. It’s a checklist, and they do it because they know that otherwise, it’s a big mess to fix afterwards when something happens.
Get your family plans all laid out people, and now! I have mine all buttoned up and did most of it over phone calls and emails. I bet I didn’t spend more than an hour doing it, and mine’s complicated because of where the kids go if something happens to me.
Also, make sure your life insurance is adequate for everyone, even non-working family members which is something else I screwed up on. I’m down to one income now, and I have to hire people to help with the kids when I travel for my job. It’s not cheap and neither are funerals. Life insurance is something else that’s easy to take care of.
Why is all this prep stuff so important? Because of a thing I call the Mr. Spock factor. He was the Vulcan guy on Star Trek who had no emotions and was always logical. Logic and emotion are inversely proportional; when your emotions are way up there, your logic is going to be way down here.
When you are suffering from loss, your emotions will be off the charts like mine were. I couldn’t focus or make decisions. And dealing with all of the stuff afterward that I should have been prepared for takes a ton of time and I didn’t have the energy for it.
Get yourselves prepared now in case you wind up being a survivor.
Now, what do you do when you suffer from a loss? Don’t forget this: when it happens, you can absolutely 100% get your life back. It’s not easy and takes a lot of work but it’s a choice you’ll have to make.
First thing, let people help you. We had a ton of help from friends, family, and our neighbors. They brought food, shuttled the kids around, had our house cleaned, did our laundry, and on and on for months. Anything we needed, all we had to do was ask….and let them help. Let people help you. Not because you need it, but because it makes people feel good to help out. There is a lot of healing in helping. A lot of people were in pain from Mara’s death, and anything they could do for us made them feel better. This also applies to everyday life; let people help you because they want to and because its instinctual. You J&J guys get it, your core business model is all about helping people.
Next, reach out for professional help from a licensed counselor who specializes and understands the grief and trauma of a loss. The kids and I would tell you at the top of our list would be the one-on-one professional grief counseling we got. It’s no different than going to a doctor or dentist when something’s wrong. People try to heal themselves from grief on their own, and it’s just too hard and takes too long. Anyone ever broken an arm or leg and tried to heal it up on your own?
And try to keep everything as routine as possible. If you start making a bunch of changes while the Mr. Spock factor’s going on, you might screw up and make mistakes you won’t be able to recover from. Keep your job, stay living where you are, keep your routine.
Also, find positive, healthy things you look forward to doing every day. I like to run, and it’s my “thing” I look forward to everyday and it helps me to vent my grief. Have things like trips, family visits, and things you like to do on your schedule so you always have something to look forward to. It will keep you moving forward in the right direction.
I also found huge relief in what I call the Four Great Healers: Time, Patience, Nature, and Effort…the key one is Effort. The more effort you put in it, the less time and patience you’ll need. I have spent countless hours out running and hiking on nature trails, and it’s been a great way for me to clear my mind and release some of the grief.
Don’t think time alone will heal the wounds, it’ll take too long. Grief can take months and, years to work through, if not a lifetime, even with a lot of effort.
I wish somebody would have told me all this stuff a long time ago instead of learning it the hard way.
Let’s shift gears and talk about the workplace since we spend a lot of time there. The morning after Mara died, I texted my boss Jim, and told him what happened. He was good about it and told me to take what time I needed. But that was about it. No cards, flowers, or really anything else from my company.
I tried to come back to work about a week later, but I was missing meetings, saying stupid things and griping at people. Jim stepped in and told me to take some more time. I was a liability and he knew it.
A couple of weeks later a senior exec called me to see how things were going. Then he says to me: “Steve, nobody knows what to say or do”. I thought, wow, 130,000 employees and nobody knows what to do.
Eight months after Mara died, my mom died. Same routine, I texted Jim and he said, “take the time you need.” But a couple of days later, though, he sent me an email, wanting to know when I planned to be back at work. I could tell HR or leadership was on him about it. Again, no cards, no flowers, no nothing. I felt like they took the attitude of “well, it was just his mom this time” and they were just trying to enforce THE POLICY. I don’t think anyone was doing anything intentionally wrong, I think they just didn’t know what TO do.
Corporate America, and by corporate America, I mean any work place, are we doing enough to take care of our grieving employees? No, I don’t think we are, at least the places I’ve worked. And I think it goes back to this problem of not knowing what TO do. Five years ago, I wouldn’t have known what to do, but I know now.
Wanna know who IS really good at taking care of their people when a loss occurs? The military. They’ve got it down. They have people that are called Casualty Assistance Calls Offices, or CACO for short. A good friend of mine named Stacie Rine was a CACO in the Navy. Her full-time job was an instructor pilot, but every so often, she would have to drop everything and head out to deal with a death. These CACO’s are trained on this stuff and they stay onsite with the families and help them with everything. They run errands, help with funeral plans, get people into counselors...whatever the family needs, these CACO’s hop to it.
The biggest thing I think we need to talk about with our coworkers and managers is to pay attention to people who are dealing with a loss. Check on them, listen to them, ask them questions and how they’re doing.
Employers should take a hard look at updating their bereavement policies and support systems for loss, whether its for a death, divorce, or something else. My employer only gives three days off. It should be more like three weeks. Good Lord, people are out sick with the flu for two weeks straight and nobody bats an eye. Three days, that’s it and maybe 5 if there is travel involved.
You guys here at J&J could set a world standard. You already have this phenomenal parental leave policy that is blazing trails.
I don’t for one second think it was just pure luck that I got to get up here in front of Johnson & Johnson and talk about all of this stuff. There’s a source much greater than me behind all of this. I mean, I’m up here talking to a world leader of taking care of people’s health! Give it some thought. I plan to keep pestering corporate America so we can take better care of our grievers.
Thank you for letting share my thoughts and remember the three top things I want you to take away:
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Let people help you, always….and help others when you can.
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Get yourselves prepared to be survivors, NOW!
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And when you do wind up being a survivor, grieve,,, but don’t let it get ya. Work through it and you can get your life back and once again flourish, like my kids and I are doing. That way, you too, can go on to live a great story.
