Handling the death of a friend overseas...

Dealing with death never has, and never will be, a walk in the park. It is something that ravages our heart regardless of age. It makes both the young and old cry. The only thing age brings is more experience in handling death and perhaps the ability to find better coping methods for the pain.

The death of someone close to you is terrible enough at home, surrounded by others mourning and with the ability to lean on life-long friends and loving family for support. Coping with death in a foreign country you only recently moved to is another matter entirely.  The people whom I’ve long considered closest to me were thousands of miles away and work made it impossible to return home for the funeral.  For someone like myself, who passionately loathes crying in front of anyone, even if we are very close friends, dealing with the death someone close to me took on a whole new level of difficulty.

For reasons very clear to me, yet difficult to articulate to others after the fact, I had let none of my closest friends in Japan know that I had a friend back home dying of terminal cancer.  I quite frankly immensely dislike letting people past a certain trust threshold, and this was something terrible and I felt it was my burden to bear because none of them knew her.  Living in a happy-go-lucky community can have its downsides; one of which is that you are friends with so many people yet opening up about really big problems can be quite difficult. Especially when you know news has a habit of invariably spreading to people it never was meant to be shared with, creeping from one set of loose lips like cigarette smoke meant to hurt no one but bothering everyone.  I was certain that if I told one person it would soon mean that everyone near to me would know and next thing I knew everyone would be walking on eggshells around me, or worse, asking me about it.  This was the last thing I wanted.

However, as the situation back home became harder and harder to cope with because my friend’s cancer resulted in a long and unfortunately drawn-out death.  Soon I was invariably faced with a dilemma: I wanted no one to know about my problems, but I was falling apart and holding everything tenuously together with a smile. I began dealing daily with a dangerous dance of emotions under a mask of normalcy in attempt to convince everyone, and I include myself here, that I was ok.  As I’m sure you can expect, people began to notice. I’m a terrible liar; it’s both a curse and a blessing.  I guess my friends clued in that something was up when I stopped drinking at parties (does this make me sound like an alcoholic lol?) and began a downright insane nightly running regime. If there is one upside to the terrible situation of my friend’s passing it was that I realized how many people here care about me.  The people closest to me started asking questions, and when they kept asking, eventually my resolve to keep my secrets started to waver and so bit-by-bit I revealed what was happening.  Those that I confided in accepted me through the thick and the thin and although they didn’t realize the enormity of the whole situation they stood by me.  

So here’s what I learned about what works for me when dealing with death while living abroad:

1) Find at least one confidant. 

Dealing with it alone, or only with people back home, is simply just not going to cut it. You need people to help you living in your time-zone and who can give you a real hug. 

2) Pursue a hobby you can throw yourself into.  

For me this was running, but keep it reasonable. A newbie-runner running 5km+ a night, every night = not reasonable. I found running particularly useful, because it also helped to put some of my anger towards better use.

3) Distractions such as spontaneous holidays are great, spontaneous relationships are not. 

You’re emotionally vulnerable at this time, and all those painful lessons that life taught you in the past about avoiding assholes who just want to mess around with you.…..well, let’s just say you might be likely to forget those lessons. I can pretty much guarantee that with your current state of mind (combined with wearing rose-colored glasses) chances are high that this so-called “great guy” is actually a “bad boy”. So, while the excitement of a new romance to take your mind off your problems is tempting to be sure, let me remind you heartache also does a good job of distracting you, just maybe not in the way you wanted. Wait until you've gotten over the worst of your grieving. Opt instead for a spontaneous holiday!!! 

4) Culture shock during this time is going to be magnified so be careful. 

During this period, culture shock has a nasty way of sneaking up on you and making you just want to plop yourself down on the floor like a toddler in a grocery store and bawl your little heart out. Little things that would normally never have bothered you don’t feel quite so “little”.  Have something ready for those moments when you feel close to a melt down or when it feels overpowering. My saving grace was piping hot cups of tea and a really truly excellent music playlist.

5) Find joy in the little things. 

At the beginning it’s going to be rough and perhaps every day it’s going to be difficult to roll out of bed and force yourself to go to work. It’s important however to smile, and I promise you that you can with the right outlook and positive thinking. The day after my friend passed away the last thing I wanted was to go into work, but as I lay there in bed staring blankly at the alarm clock I remembered that it was Halloween and my students were excited about the Halloween Party I had promised them.  The thought of how disappointed they would be to not have that party loaned me the strength to get out the door. It was the best thing I could have done. During the party they were so happy that for the first time in my teaching career that I received hugs from all of my students.  It was enough to almost move me to tears and exactly what I needed to remind me that life was going to be ok.

Writing this post has helped me to give closure to one of the roughest periods of time in my life. I’m not finished grieving but the worst of the pain has ebbed. Dealing with the darkness of death helps us to become stronger and to truly appreciate all that is good in our lives: a future that we can claim as our own, the knowledge that regardless of where we are in the world we have people who care about us and that life is a precious gift meant to be lived to the fullest and enjoyed.