My Friends!
First and foremost, I want to wish you a Happy Lisa Mae Lee Month! Yes, yes, I know it is Black History Month as well, and we’ll definitely get to that, but right now I need to focus on my beautiful mama. This lady has been gone for nearly 17 years now and February is Lisa Mae Lee Month because her birthday (2/18) and deathday (2/28) both fall in February. This is also the month I learned I was infertile just a few years after my mom died, so on griefy days it goes from Lisa Mae Lee Month to F*ck You February because grief is a lot sometimes.
This month we are going to celebrate this amazing woman by doing more of the thing that she did best: LOVE. Lisa knew how to love. She loved in the way that feminist writer bell hooks calls us to love: with a mixture of “care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, and honest and open communication.” In other words, love, to my mom, was a verb.
Her love was not restricted to her family or friends. It was for everyone. She loved big, she loved hard, and boy, did she love to celebrate everything and everyone. And she was my person. When she died I lost the person I loved most in the world. The last thing she ever gave me were chocolates for Valentine’s Day from our local candy store. And I’ll be honest, you guys, some of it may still be in this house. We are about to find out if Matt reads this newsletter, because if he does, he is going to be seriously grossed out by me for keeping chocolate for 17 years. But listen, my grief and my love are too great to toss!
Last week, I shared that during periods of grief, ambiguous or otherwise, we must return to our values, and to the things we know we can rely on no matter what. Is there a value better than love? I certainly don’t think so, and neither did Lisa Mae Lee, so this month we are going to go hard on love: love for ourselves, our families, our communities, and the whole damn world, because we need it.
This week’s letter is about how to do more love, right now, in your family and your community. Next week, we will focus on self love and why it’s not just the stuff of hashtags and self care. Later, our February Joy List will feature things that brought my mom joy and that I think would do so if she were still here, and lastly, I’ll share with you how I was shown love during my time of great grief. There will also, of course, be a Black History Month special letter because, if you haven’t noticed, I am Black. All of this, I hope, will provide you with ideas for how to show up for others this month and beyond. So here goes:
Family Love: My best friend Allison (who uploads these newsletters!) shared a family tradition that we are adopting. In the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, she and her husband write things they love about their girls on heart doilies.The notes can be silly and fun—for instance, Bennett has started speaking in this weird robot voice for laughs so one of my notes is, “I love your creepy robot voice.” Or they can be more serious, about your loved one’s tenacity or their empathy. It’s a little thing, but a big reminder to the people you share space with, who you love the most, and who annoy you the most, that they really are something special.
Friend and Community Love: Once upon a time, a family was driving home from church in upstate New York and spotted a man on the side of the road holding a sign. He was offering to work for food. The mother told the father to pull over and let the man know that they would be right back. The family rushed home, where the mother gathered all the cash she could find. She packed that and their Sunday Supper up in an old Country Crock container (oh, the 90s), and sent the father back out to find the man and provide him with the meal and money for his family. As the father left on his search, the eldest daughter turned and asked the mother what they would eat that night, now that their dinner had been given away. Yes, this story is about my family and yes, I am the eldest daughter who went to bed that night without any dinner. I learned a hard but essential lesson: there is always something we can do for someone else, no matter how little we have. This month, look around. Find someone who is struggling and don’t offer to help, just help. Text them an Uber Eats card. Send them a book you enjoy. Show up and tidy up their house. Run an errand, send chocolates, DO SOMETHING. The world needs more people who are committed to doing more good right now.
Grief is Love (Because I can’t help myself): I say that grief is love, not because grief is somehow enjoyable, but because the pain of grief is the pain of unrequited, unconditional love. We still love our people and they still love us, though they are not here to act on that love. So what do we do? One of the things that has helped me the most is sharing my mom with others. She had a notorious sweet tooth, so we are sending candy care packages to cousins this Valentine’s Day! I let Bennett choose the candy and make his recipient list. The valentines candy isn’t really the point, though, and neither is the holiday. The real goal is to create space for Bennett to experience who my mom was as a person and, in doing so, create more space for me to heal from her loss.
I hope these ideas for how to create more love in the world feel useful. If they work for you, pass them along to someone you love. Next week we will have a special guest author digging into the science behind self love. She also happens to be one of my best friends, college roommates, fellow grief expert, and a therapist. I truly cannot wait for you to meet her!
xxMarisa
