Tag: coping and resilience

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What do you say to someone grieving other than “I’m sorry for your loss”? 

So often we find expressing condolences challenging, especially to the newly bereaved. We want to say something that will help but we are at a loss for what to say. We worry that we will make things worse.

I hear it all the time…I didn’t want to bring him up because I didn’t want to remind you. 

Here is an important thing to remember … anyone newly bereaved is pretty much always thinking of their deceased loved one. You don’t have to worry because it’s impossible to “remind” them!

What gave me solace after my son Kevin died, were the stories that friends and family shared about him. Even if it was just a couple of sentences in a card. It felt comforting to know people would remember him for his friendliness and sense of humor. In my memoir, there is a scene where a friend tells Matthew (Kevin’s brother) a story that has him laughing out loud. We were among a crowd and although I couldn’t see Matthew, I heard him laugh from across the room. I remember thinking someone must have told him a funny story about Kevin.

Not sure how to go about it? Try starting the sentence with “My favorite memory of (insert name) is…”

 Focus on the positive. 

  • Think of a character trait of the deceased that touched you. Were they thoughtful, generous, friendly, or funny? Maybe they were passionate about playing cards on Friday nights. Maybe they loved fishing or had a signature dish they made every Christmas that you looked forward to. 
  • Whatever reminds you of the deceased can help you choose the story to tell. 

However mundane it might sound to you, chances are, it will mean so much to the person grieving.  

An experience I had with someone who reached out years later…

Recently, a friend of Kevin’s (who I’ve never met) messaged me on Facebook. She wrote to tell me she had found herself hanging out with Paul Simon’s daughter the night before (Wowza I know!). She went on to say that when she got home all she wanted to do was tell Kevin about it, imagining all the funny things he might have said. Instead, she reached out and shared it with me to let me know she was missing and thinking about him. 

I responded by thanking her for reaching out, saying how much he and I both loved to dance to Paul Simon when he was little. She went on to say “He had great taste in music. We went to a music festival with him once and ended up losing track of him many times over the weekend because he was always in the crowd making friends with a few hundred people! He never met a stranger, that’s for sure.”

This actually made me laugh out loud because that was so like Kevin! I could just picture him falling behind because he was chatting it up with strangers. 

I proceeded to share my story of “losing” Kevin when he was young.

When Kevin was about 10 years old we went to watch his brother’s middle school wrestling tournament in Lawrence, MA. It was in a huge gym with about 100 kids from area schools. His brother was wrestling, Kevin was watching the matches, my husband was assisting as a coach, and I was in the bleachers. Time goes by and I realize I haven’t seen Kevin in a while so I climb up to the top of the bleachers to have a better vantage point. I spot him. Here he comes, one foot in front of the other, gliding past the bleachers like a statue on wheels. I zip down the bleachers and am ready to give him an earful for not checking in sooner but I get distracted when I see he is wearing a pair of Heelys (Kevin didn’t own a pair of Heelys). 

The sole of a Heeley sneaker

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Kev, whose Heelys are those? 

Kevin: Some kid I met. 

Me: Where are your sneakers?

Kevin: (looking around) Ummmmm???

Me: How did you get someone you don’t know to lend you his Heelys?

Kevin: (shoulder shrug) I don’t know, you know how you just get talking to someone?

Kevin returned the Heelys to the kid but since he was all over the gym it was hard to remember exactly where he took his sneakers off… 

Leaving the tournament on that snowy February afternoon, I remember Tom giving shoeless Kevin a piggyback to the car.

The whole exchange left us both feeling grateful to have connected with each of us having a new story to treasure.

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Shining a Light on the Stigma of Overdose

The CDC estimates more than 107,000 people died of a drug overdose in the 12-month period ending August 2022.

These are staggering numbers but when someone you love dies from an overdose, it is no longer just a statistic.

It becomes very personal.

My 25-year-old son Kevin died in 2015 from an accidental overdose. 

I couldn’t tell people he died without the person asking me questions.

Kevin and Susan in 2009, college move-in day 

From the bereaved family’s perspective, it feels like anyone who asks “What happened?” wants to leapfrog over the fact their loved one just died. 

Stigma complicates grief and adds to isolation. At a time when families need the most support, they end up suffering in silence for fear of judgment. 

I write about my personal struggle with this stigma and what I went through to heal in my memoir Life After Kevin. 

If there is one thing I’d want people to take away from my own journey, it is this:

Shame is the emotion we feel due to the stigma surrounding how a person dies. Shame keeps families suffering in silence. 

In light of Overdose Awareness, and all those who have lost someone this way, I’m offering my own suggestions of the do’s and don’ts when you know someone who has experienced the death of a loved one from an overdose.

What NOT to do:

  • If the cause of death isn’t made known, that’s intentional. Do not ask probing questions about the cause of death or what happened. 
  • Never begin a sentence with  “At least” or “You should”.  At least you have other children, At least he had 25 beautiful years, You should keep busy, You should be past this by now…
  • Don’t judge the situation or family. Period. 

What TO do:

  • When someone tells you their loved one died, give them your condolences and PAUSE. Hold the space by expressing your sympathy and compassion. Let them know you are there for them. 
  • Respect the family’s right to privately come to terms with their circumstances. If they want to talk, just listen. 
  • If you knew the person who died, consider sharing verbally or writing out a memory or favorite quality about them. 

When we think in terms of “good” and “bad” ways to die, we inadvertently minimize the value of the person’s life. Let’s give the families our support by rethinking our responses. 

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Gifts: In and Out of the Box

As long as there are moose antlers (the tender tops), large Huggle Hound balls, and a couple of fleece Lambchop toys in my dog’s toybox, they’re happy campers.

Of course, their toybox is full of other toys that are met with a “meh” attitude but I can’t bring myself to toss them because I think: maybe someday they’ll play with them.

But one of the things I’ve learned from watching my dogs play is that they only engage with what they find fun or interesting.

In this season of my life, I am learning more and more to join them in that mindset. As I watch Ripple wade through the “meh” toys to find a treasure, I think, he’ll know it when he finds it.  

But on this particular day, whatever he was looking for wasn’t in the box. 

Sometimes what we are searching for requires us to look “outside the box.”

Life changes as we get older. We go from parenting small children to being empty nesters. We have career changes and relationship changes.

So, why wouldn’t our interests shift? 

After my son Kevin died, I tried going back to competition dog sports. It had been a passion of mine for over 20 years, but the competing part just wasn’t working for me anymore. I knew my dogs were still going to be a huge part of my life but I felt I needed to pivot. I started thinking maybe volunteering with them might be a better fit.

And it was.

Being a therapy dog team with my dog Manny made me feel good. 

By focusing on my core interests, I could tweak, or add little things to redefine what interests me and brings me joy 

  • saying yes to a Beagle puppy 
  • taking a class 
  • writing and speaking about what I’ve learned

Making small out of the box shifts led to a couple of BIG ones that also made me feel good

New seasons in life bring an opportunity to try on your old life and see what still fits. Is what you’ve been doing for X number of years still fun? 

If the answer is YES, then yippee!

If you’re thinking ‘not so much’ or ‘no, it’s not fun anymore’ then it might be time to look outside the box for ways to pivot, or to try something new. Find what brings you joy in this season of your life and see what gifts come.

Susan Lynch is a former competitive dog trainer who has been training, competing and volunteering with her Golden Retrievers since 1995. In 2020, she founded Life with Rune, a Facebook community that documents the socializing and training of her own puppy Rune. In 2021, she was awarded the Rachel Page Elliot Lifetime Achievement award by the Golden Retriever Club of America. Her memoir Life After Kevin: A Mother’s Search for Peace and the Golden Retrievers that Led the Way is available here . To learn more, visit: www.susan-lynch.com. 

For socializing ideas and training tips go to the Life with Rune Facebook group and click on the Guides tab at the top of the home page.

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Following Their Lead

Five years after my son Kevin died, I decided to write my story in Life After Kevin: A Mother’s Search for Peace and the Golden Retrievers that Led the Way. I wanted to share what I’d learned in hopes that it could help someone else on a similar path or give someone insight to child loss by overdose.

My specific intentions for writing it were to:

  1. Help others who have experienced complicated grief.
  2. Give hope by illustrating the relationship I continue to have with my son.
  3. Showcase the supporting role my dogs played in my healing.

Right after Kevin died in 2015, I was slogging through my grief. I had no interest in the things I did before he died and mostly just spent my time trying to figure out how I was going to live in a world without him in it.

Most people who have grieved a loved one know that grief has a way of slowing life down and lining up priorities. After Kevin died, I was thrust into that slow pace and my two Golden Retrievers, Manny and Tripp, stayed by my side constantly.

One of the few reasons I would even leave my house was to take them for a walk in the woods. Every day the three of us would walk silently along the trails. In my life, before Kevin died, I had always loved walking in nature, but I was also busy with life and would be in more of a hurry to check it off my to-do list. 

During the grief walks, I was moving slowly. Of course, it wasn’t intentional, my grief weighed on me like a lead blanket, forcing me to slow down.

I stopped when Manny and Tripp stopped. I watched them sniff plants and dried pine needles. I’d be walking behind them and they’d turn to check on me, making sure I was still with them. I would hear the water moving in the stream, the birds chirping, the leaves rustling. I looked where they were looking to see what they were seeing.

During these walks, I would have brief moments of feeling calm. I simply walked and observed with my senses. At first, this slow observation practice got me out of my head for short moments and then, they gradually became longer. Looking back now, I can see that I was doing my own version of a walking meditation guided by my dogs.

From the day I learned Kevin had died, my dogs knew there was something wrong. I knew this to be true because their behavior reflected mine. They had both been used to training and exercising 5-6 days per week, but right away they had read my energy and they too became subdued, gentle, and quiet. They spent their days lying alongside me and coming right to me when I’d start sobbing. The fact that they were able to understand my feelings and support me in a way I needed was, and still is, remarkable to me. 

My dogs got me thinking… if they were able to use their senses to understand and communicate with me, then maybe I could connect on some level with Kevin?

What started out as a time to sit with my thoughts and cry in Kevin’s bedroom became so much more. It was during that quiet time of inward contemplation when I started to gain insight into my grief, to connect with Kevin on a spiritual level, and begin the process of healing.

Ultimately it was the relationship with Manny and Tripp that taught me what the first step of my healing journey was. In the beginning, alI I could see was darkness, but they showed me that we don’t necessarily need words to connect.

Through our other senses, we have access to the undeniable, energetic bond that we have with anything we love. It was the bond between a human and two canines that spotlighted the capability of having deep, meaningful relationships where we learn to communicate in a different way.

Susan Lynch is a former competitive dog trainer who has been training, competing and volunteering with her Golden Retrievers since 1995. In 2020, she founded Life with Rune, a Facebook community that documents the socializing and training of her own puppy Rune. In 2021, she was awarded the Rachel Page Elliot Lifetime Achievement award by the Golden Retriever Club of America. Her memoir Life After Kevin: A Mother’s Search for Peace and the Golden Retrievers that Led the Way is available here . To learn more, visit: www.susan-lynch.com. 

For socializing ideas and training tips go to the Life with Rune Facebook group and click on the Guides tab at the top of the home page.

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Remembering With More Love Than Pain

A friend of mine once told me “If something seems beyond your capability right now, save it for your future self”.

When my son Kevin died of an accidental overdose on October 3, 2015, my life was shattered. Just thinking of him brought on feelings of unimaginable pain. Desperate for peace, I embarked on a deep dive into a spiritual journey where I learned about myself, the afterlife, and how to bring forth Kevin’s essence in all that I do. Little did I know my dogs would also be a huge part of my healing.

In my upcoming memoir: Life After Kevin: A Mother’s Search for Peace and the Golden Retrievers that Led the Way, I talk about the moment I had my first shift. 

It was a few months after Kevin had passed. I was putting my shoes on and asked my dogs out loud “Do you guys wanna go for a walk?” Tripp’s face had an expression much like Scooby-Doo anticipating a Scooby snack.  

I reacted with a giggle for the first time in months and it felt good. 

Eventually, I was able to think of Kevin with more love than pain. Even the times when he was on the edge of being naughty are funny to me now. When he was in kindergarten, I remember him testing our patience with a couple of swears. I had read in a parenting book not to make it into a big deal. 

“Mommy, is dammit a swear?” 
“Um, Yes, Kev, it’s a swear”
“OK, so I shouldn’t say dammit, right Mommy?”
“No, you shouldn’t”
OK, Mommy, I won’t say dammit anymore”.

Then there was the middle finger discussion sometime around six years old.

“Daddy, is this a swear?” Kevin asked while pointing just his middle finger to the side.
“Well, not really, but it’s not nice”.
“Ok, is this a swear?” pointing his middle finger down toward the floor.
“No, but it’s not nice Kev, so you shouldn’t do it”.
“But this is a swear, right?”, slowly turning his middle finger up.
“Yes, Kev, that is a swear”.
“OK, but not this way, right?”, quickly turning his middle finger to the side hoping to offset any trouble he might have gotten into by pointing it up.

Humor was the very essence of Kevin and when I laugh I can feel him laughing with me.

Kevin Lynch (8/3/1990 – 10/3/2015)

Dr. Melissa Morks talks about laughter and grief in this 3-minute video. In her bereavement therapy with clients, she will ask them “What did you do with your loved one for fun? What did they do to make you smile?” 

She says, “When we focus on how we enjoyed each other we feel closer to them”.

When a loved one dies, there’s no way around the pain. But, after we’ve cried an ocean of tears, we can start to participate in our healing. We can teach ourselves to look for the small seeds of love that help us shift just a little bit. Love can be whatever feels good: a giggle, the companionship of our dog, or a sign from our loved one. These seeds of love are small rays of light that act as breadcrumbs, leading us out of the darkness and toward our future selves. 


Today, my mantra is Joy and laughter are in alignment with my true nature and I honor Kevin by openly expressing them.

Susan Lynch is a former competitive dog trainer who has been training, competing and volunteering with her Golden Retrievers since 1995. In 2020, she founded Life with Rune, a Facebook community that documents the socializing and training of her own puppy Rune. In 2021, she was awarded the Rachel Page Elliot Lifetime Achievement award by the Golden Retriever Club of America. Her memoir Life After Kevin: A Mother’s Search for Peace and the Golden Retrievers that Led the Way is available here . To learn more, visit: www.susan-lynch.com. 

For socializing ideas and training tips go to the Life with Rune Facebook group and click on the Guides tab at the top of the home page.

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