When Loss is a Gain
“No one wants to work!” is a constant murmur making its way across America, mostly uttered by retired people who are parroting ill-informed news outlets. It’s true, no one wants to work crappy jobs for crappy pay. That has been true for as long as “work” has been a concept. It’s why we have organized labor and unions. I don’t want to work, either. In fact, I stopped working last year. “Working” in the sense of “being paid by another person or entity.” I can’t say the “work” I was doing was particularly life-affirming or integral to society, but it was creative and interesting. I’ve run events, taught writing classes, worked in marketing and public relations and nonprofit and once, I was employed by a very fancy business magazine. I’m certain if I had not done this “work” the world would not be any different.
We all know we work to make money, but, we don’t like to talk about money directly. We’ll ask a total stranger “What do you do?” but we’ll never ask, “And how much do you make doing that work?” We’ll talk around it, we talk about it in roundabout ways, but rarely do we have an idea of what even our closest friends earn or how their parents may have helped them with that down payment on a house. Of course, we can guess and assume, but we ignore the cold hard cash that lurks behind every vacation photo, kitchen re-do, and self-care routine. It’s why I love Jane Austen—money and inheritance are right there, out on the table. Everyone knows what everyone else is worth, their annual allowance, etc. I have felt a bit like a Regency or Victorian heroine: “The Widow O’Neill, motherless, husband-less, but with a not disagreeable sum upon with to live with her elderly dog.”
Money is the reason I could let go of “work,” because I could rely for a little while on the savings Daryl left behind after he died, much of it from a GoFundMe that literally saved us from bankruptcy. And then, just 15 months later (yes, I measure my grief like a baby’s age), my mother suddenly died. I found out I was the sole beneficiary on a bank account with a not insignificant amount of money. It’s not the inheritance of the robber barons, but it is a nice sum and it gives me yet another buffer against “work.”
The cruel irony is that Daryl and I would always talk about what we would do “When we got our money right…” and he got sick just as his podcast was taking off, finally making a good salary on his own terms. Up until that point, we would swap off with one of us working FT while the other pursued a passion—for me it was an MFA in Creative Writing, for him it was the Total Soccer Show. He loved what he did and that mattered, a lot. He wanted to be able to support me financially so I could focus on my writing and so we could finally plan some fun trips. And now he does, but he’s just not here, but the money is.
It’s twisted, ironic even, to lose a person and gain money.
Sure, it’s preferable to losing a person and then finding out their debt will now drag you under, but it’s still loaded emotionally. I now have an estate in Daryl’s name and I am the “executor of the estate” and I spend a lot of time untangling our taxes, worrying about money things I never worried about when he was alive, and, cherry on top—I now get to help my dad do the same thing for my mom’s estate. This too, is “work” of the most emotionally draining kind. Receipts are constant reminders of when things were good, when Daryl could travel, buy clothes, eat a hamburger. Bank statements are brief reminders of a place and a price to say, “A life once existed that accumulated these numbers.”
“Receipts are constant reminders of when things were good, when Daryl could travel, buy clothes, eat a hamburger. ”
I’ve talked to friends who went through this too when they lost a parent or close relative, suddenly you have a sum of money and not your parent and a lot of feelings. Instead of a living, breathing human you are left with paperwork, bank accounts, receipts. Meaningless pieces of paper when the person is alive suddenly become little bits of poetry and grief bombs that can undo your entire day. I found an old checkbook ledger of my mom’s that I kept because of the treasure trove of old store names captured in her purchases. Grief has a mysterious alchemy to it, can transform the mundane into the profound.
“Inheritance,” “legacy,” are words for a different class of people.
My parents careers veered from working class to middle class and they had very different views toward money--my mom was a conscientious spender and my dad was a saver. I was constantly stuck between the two identities and, now, I firmly fall into the “You can’t take it with you,” category. I rent my apartment, I used to lease a car. I don’t like the idea of being tied to a possession or a place so that it dictates my future.
When people ask, “What do you do?” I tell them I’ve taken a sabbatical and that I’m a writer (both things can be true). For years “writer” felt like an occupation I could not possibly hold in any real way. It was what I did in the dark, for play, for a master’s degree, generally for things that do not relate to “work.” But, at some point, writing started feeling a lot like work whether the pay lined up with what we deem an acceptable wage. Writing was literally how I have survived some of the longest and bleakest days of my life after losing Daryl. It was how I was figuring out my new and, often shitty world. After Daryl died, embracing being a writer and saying it aloud felt a lot easier. I think when the world as you know it is suddenly devoured by a black hole, calling yourself a writer doesn’t seem scary at all. And, it was a lot less emotionally charged than saying “Widow,” which, if I’m honest, is my other occupation.
The money has meant certain things have become essential—
Hair salon visits, massages, chiropractor visits, a membership to a fitness studio. All things I would have deemed “Non-essential” when Daryl was alive. But, when he was alive, he was available to touch and talk to and share my evenings. When he was alive, I didn’t have stress and sadness living in my body every day that creates tense knots in my shoulders—the body indeed keeps the score. When he was alive, I didn’t have a calendar of empty weekday evenings, so going to a dance or barre class felt like a healthier option than binging TV and drinking wine.
I wrote a research paper in college on the rhetoric around homelessness in Richmond and this article by Melanie Loehwing that critiqued a documentary in which the producer gives a homeless man $100,000. Within a six-month period, the money had dwindled significantly. There were various reasons for this, swinging from extreme generosity to responsibility, but what resonated most with me is that his “handling of money” was being held to a very narrow view of time and achievement and “present-centered reality” vs. “future-oriented perspective.” After Daryl and my mom died, the future feels unimportant and uncertain, so, money, saving money, all of the things future-oriented people (i.e. those who believe they have control over their lives) do seems totally absurd. I understand WHY and HOW to be responsible, but I also understand not giving a f*ck and wanting to throw it all into the wind before the wind completely takes it and you away.
In grief, secondary losses
are basically what you live with after the death of your person—they include companionship, confidence, and yes, financial security. But, in my case, it’s what I gained that is making me feel mixed up. Now the money has its own legacy—is this how they would want me to be using it? Do I deserve it? Why? Why not? I know the money is a gift and try to treat it that way, try to be careful, but it also feels heavy. My mom didn’t have a will, never told me or my dad she had put me down as the sole beneficiary on the account. I think if she had told me I would have felt a sense of permission granted. Now, I feel guilty in some way, undeserving, unsure. I’ve landed on just relying on what she said, repeatedly, while she was alive: “It will all be yours when I’m gone, anyway.”
I want my mom back to dole out whatever she wants to give me over the next 20 years, not this. I want Daryl here to spend our savings, to go on vacation, to build our life. Now, it’s just me for better or for worse, making the rules, deciding how to save and spend, not working, but, finally, writing.
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Recommended Reading:
Grief, Money Beliefs, and Self-Care Splurges (What’s Your Grief)