TV Was Fun Before Grief Got in the Way
Remember what it was like to channel surf?
One of the most frustrating things for me about grieving my son is the banana-bonkers side effects of grief that never occur to me until I’m knee-deep in them. You know that expression “kids don’t come with an owner’s manual?” Mourning them doesn’t even come with the CliffsNotes version.
Every day begins with me wondering what new and inventive things my brain has in store for me. Will this be the day I learn bees make me cry? Is today when I find out the smell of ranch dressing gives me funeral flashbacks or Jeep ads remind me of his first steps?
Living with this kind of grief is a daily adventure, let me tell you. I spent the first year of grief counseling asking, “so is this normal?” at the beginning of every appointment, and it turns out the answer is yes. It is, in fact, not weird at all to be laid flat by the strangest, tiniest things. Like TV, for instance.
I fondly remember the days when I could throw myself on the couch with a snack and flip on TV show without giving it a second thought. Now it takes more planning than the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Until you lose someone to suicide, you never realize how many needless ways that manner of death is written into scripts and scenes. It’s the punchline of jokes, the menace behind how characters threaten each other, and used as visual humor to prop up a bad plot.
I’m sure other grieving parents also run into storylines that hit a little too close to home, which sucks because being blindsided when you’re just trying to relax is extra nerve-jangling.
After Christopher died, I didn’t clue in right away on how difficult it would be to watch television without a lot of preliminary legwork. Though, in fairness, that would have required a level of insight I was incapable of at the time.
A few weeks after the funeral, my husband, parents, and I sat down to catch up on a serial drama we all like — or used to like. A few minutes in, and with no warning, the main character discovered the body of a teen who had taken his life. In the same manner as my son. Because, of course.
I screeched a profanity (sorry, mom), leaped off the couch, sailed over the coffee table, and ran upstairs to have a private meltdown. Thus began my trust issues with visual media.
Watching an unfamiliar program is out of the question for me these days. Michael now vets storylines and plots before I lay eyes on anything I haven’t seen before. Even so, I still limit myself to shows where children of any age aren’t part of the premise, and a situation like suicide is unlikely to come up. You’d think that would pretty much take care of the surprise curveball problem.
Ha.
Midway through the pandemic, Michael and I decided to work our way through the entire Star Trek lexicon in the storyline's chronological order. Family-friendly science fiction should be safe, right? Well, yeah, Enterprise was all right (in spite of some seriously bad special effects). The original series, the one with James TK, didn’t have any unwanted twists. Discovery held up as a safe choice, too. Then we got to ST: The Next Generation, and all bets were off.
The first couple of seasons were fun, but everything eventually went off the rails. We’re now in the middle of season five and it's filled with all manner of children in peril. When they aren’t sick or injured, they’re about to be jettisoned out of the cargo bay or led astray by an evil imaginary friend. I think the only stone they’ve left unturned is “young boy threatened by space werewolves,” but there’s still time.
Since Michael can’t hold my hand every minute of the day, sometimes I have to make educated guesses on whether a TV show is free of landmines. Rather than be wrong, I usually default to something I’ve seen before or select something from an era where the most onerous plot is Rob Petrie forgetting Laura’s birthday (although Ritchie still makes me twitch occasionally).
Of course, sometimes my memory of a show doesn’t match up with reality. I recently thought Cheers would be a fun blast from the past, but boy was I wrong. Besides the jaw-dropping racism, misogyny, fat-shaming, and homophobia, there’s at least one suicide joke about every third episode or so. Some are really graphic. (What the hell was going on in the late 80s?)1
Not all of us are caught off-guard by TV landmines, so there’s no reason to feel any kind of way if you’ve been spared this particular side effect of profound loss. It doesn’t mean you aren’t grieving “enough” or that you don’t care. We’re all affected differently by what happened to us.
But if this is a sore spot for you, you aren’t alone and you aren’t weird. Pre-pandemic, back when I actually saw people in person, I sometimes got the side-eye when I’d politely opt out of watching something. Even when I mentioned why, people would occasionally patronize me. Like many things I’m finding out about vilomah grief, some of the ways life changes when you lose a child are absolutely incomprehensible to people who haven’t. This is one of those things.
If you don’t have someone you trust to vet programs for you, Does the Dog Die? is a great crowdsourcing site with tons of info about whether a TV show or movie has an emotional bombshell. Or get ahold of me and I’ll find out for you.
I’m beginning to think the only safe thing to watch on television is the snow you find in between channels, and even that’s debatable.
News & Notes
A Letter From My Daughter on the 4th Anniversary of Her Death
"Some nights, I try to show you where I am. I wait until your consciousness slips close to the edge of sleep and I speak to you, but you never hear me. You don’t know I’m there because you’re looking for the wrong version of me.”
This is brutal to read, but beautifully written. I admit I couldn’t make it through the whole thing before I fell apart, but I’ve bookmarked it to try again.
"As the years go by, I’m realizing more and more what real 'grief burnout' looks like - that feeling of powering through work, seasons of grief, hard days, annoying obligations, anniversary after deathiversaray after holiday after anniversary (that loop), then getting to a day where we just can’t get out of bed.”
Carrying deep grief makes everything exponentially harder, even doing the dishes. Constantly “powering through it” isn’t the best idea, but many of us don’t have a choice so if you get the chance to take a break, do it.
Short Films in Focus: If Anything Happens I Love You
"The film starts out with an image of a couple eating dinner at opposite ends of the table, often signifying a communication gap. In this case, there is something misleading about that.”
Speaking of watching things, this is a 12-minute animated film about a couple trying to heal after losing their daughter to gun violence. From everything I’ve read about it, this film is a masterpiece that handles parental grief with sensitivity and compassion. But I can’t personally confirm that because I’m not touching this one with a 10-foot pole yet.
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Until next week,
Be well.
Lisa
Rhetorical question. I was there.