This is our fifth Dossier. Our first is here. The second is here. This is the third. And the fourth. Thanks for being here to read them and to pass them along to others who might deepen and benefit from them, too.
Some neighborhood shops are shops, other neighborhood shops are metaphors for their entire community. For the 18 years that John and Frances Smersh ran Click! Design that Fits in West Seattle, it was the very definition of the latter. I met them back when I wrote about retail, shopping, and the people who take special care to nurture local artists, curate classics, and share charming curiosities specific to their marketplace, and I was always struck by the perfect fit of their efforts. I’m not sure I’ve ever known two people so in love with their jobs, their shop, their neighborhood, their community, and each other. If there’s a place near you where the folks inside are always eager to share some good news and show you something they think you would really love, maybe—in honor of John, who answered these questions, and Frances, who is deeply missed by so many—you’ll make it a point sometime soon to tell them you’re grateful for what they bring to your neck of the woods, and to your day.
WHO ARE YOU GRIEVING?
Frances Smersh, my life partner since we were 20 years old, who died in September 2021, six and a half years after being diagnosed with younger onset Alzheimer’s disease in her mid-forties.
We moved through life as a true partnership—I’ve been told that meeting us was like meeting two sides of the same person—so in many ways I am grieving the loss of a huge part of myself. With the nature of Alzheimer’s my grief began long before she actually passed away, so there have been many complex and shifting phases.
Losing Frances has also stirred up some of the grief from losing my mom when I was 19. I feel so honored having the two most important people in my life be such amazing women that it is hard to feel cheated by having them taken from me too soon—I really feel like I won the lottery having been loved by both of them. Of course this doesn’t exactly ease the pain.
WHAT’S ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE MEMORIES OF FRANCES?
I would prefer to conjure a memory from the prime of her life, but what always comes to mind is a vision of me tucking her into bed in her advanced stages, in an instance shortly after I had lost my patience in my caregiving role. She looked at me with so much love in her eyes and apologetically told me that she knew this was hard on me. It was amazing how much she cared for me while I was caring for her.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT FRANCES’S LIFE?
Her unwavering positivity. One of the things I spoke of when eulogizing her was her ability to find a patch of blue in the most overcast sky, both literally and figuratively. This was true throughout her life, and especially notable in the face of her illness.
I feel blessed with an incredible responsibility to continue living this way in her honor.
WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT STATE OF MIND IN TERMS OF YOUR GRIEF?
Variable, with a chance of precipitation.
I have really moved through A LOT in the last several months, from where my grief pretty much defined me, to where it is no longer the first thing I have to talk about when you meet me. I owe much of that progression to walking the pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago for a month through Portugal and Spain last fall. Yet despite the shift that occurred during that (inward and outward) journey, I am still frequently blindsided by moments of intense grief. The holidays, yes, were an obvious trigger. As can be a random song, or memory.
It’s not like I thought I would be “over it”; I know this grief will always be a part of me. I’ve heard people say that your grief never gets less intense, it’s just intense less often, and that’s been pretty accurate in my experience so far.
I think it’s notable that something changed for me around the one year mark, because as anyone who has experienced grief will tell you, the one year thing is total bullshit. Except that it’s not, at least not entirely. The first year contains a year’s worth of firsts: first birthday, anniversary, Christmas, etc. Having survived those… well, the second Christmas was pretty hard too, but it wasn’t like the first. In some ways it was even harder, but, different. What I’m trying to say is that grief doesn’t get easier after one year, yet there is something about that unit of time that for me marked a shift in how I thought about it. It’s about finding a balance between looking back and looking forward, and my relationship to the grief I carry.
Still, some days, some moments, I feel overwhelmed by a sense of, “What the fuck just happened… and where did my best friend go?”
DOES DEATH HAVE A GIFT? DOES GRIEF? WHEN THINKING ABOUT FRANCES’S DEATH AND THE EXPERIENCE OF YOUR GRIEF, WHAT DO YOU KNOW, SEE, FEEL, OR EXPERIENCE NOW THAT YOU DIDN’T OR COULDN’T BEFORE?
I think that death and grief have shaped me in ways that I am grateful for, though I never would have chosen it. Again referencing the loss of my mom, I feel I “grew up” a lot faster than I would have otherwise. With the loss of Frances I’m now compelled by the urgency to do the things I want to do and see the friends I care about before they or I pass too soon. As the Flaming Lips song says: “everyone you know, some day, will die”... and we don’t know when.
WHAT DO YOU THINK FRANCES WOULD HAVE SAID WAS HER LEGACY? WHAT WOULD SHE HAVE SAID ABOUT LEGACY IN GENERAL, AND THE NOTION OF THINKING ABOUT ONE’S LIFE IN THAT WAY?
I feel fairly confident that she did not have a sense of legacy, nor would she have wanted to live that way. She once said after she was diagnosed that she did not want to have her “best year,” she just wanted to live a good life (this in response to what a doctor had told us: that regardless of how long she lived, the next year would be her best).
All that said I believe she did indeed leave a legacy. One of a mentor and friend to many, a person who cared less about her own successes than in bringing people along with her.
Some tributes from people who saw her as a mentor are grouped in a collection in my IG profile here; I love reading how she touched other lives.
DO YOU HAVE A SENSE OF WHAT FRANCES WOULD WANT FOR YOU NOW, IN THIS WORLD WITHOUT HER?
Oh god, yes. She wants me to live life to the fullest! She wants me to make music, to dance, to travel, to meet people and have new experiences every day. I felt her with me on my Camino hike, she was so happy that I was doing it.
In the midst of her illness taking her down, she would always call me out when she saw me becoming overly melancholy, or absorbed in a song of loss like Autumn Leaves or Nothing Compares 2 U. She did not want me to be lost in sadness, so I feel compelled to fight that urge, despite my own desire to sometimes play that part.
WHAT IS OR WAS BEAUTIFUL OR RESONATE ABOUT FRANCES’S FUNERAL OR MEMORIAL?
It was one of the most beautiful days of my life. I truly feel we honored her in the best way possible.
In the days and weeks leading up to her memorial, I engaged with friends who had all worked with Frances in some capacity, as her assistant or colleague in relation to her jewelry making business; most notably with the woman who had managed our boutique with me throughout Frances’s illness. Together we assembled an incredible retrospective of her art and the backstory of the work that went into it.
In telling her story I mentioned that so many people seem to think that creativity flows from artists like nectar and honey when in reality it is incredibly hard work, and I think that the exhibit we put together demonstrated that. Frances’s sister assembled a slide show that still mesmerizes me, showcasing the life of an incredible human being. (The slideshow can also be seen in my IG feed here.)
What was most compelling though was the gathering of people who loved her—by far the largest group of people I’d been in since the start of the pandemic—all of whom were so obviously moved by her presence in their lives.
WHAT IS SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL THAT SOMEONE SAID OR DID OR SAW OR RECOGNIZED ABOUT YOUR GRIEF?
I have received countless cards and messages from people who simply recognized and shared my loss. This has meant so much to me… and it has made me a person who sends cards, having recognized the effect. A few long time friends have begun calling me out of the blue (something most people don’t do anymore!) just to say hi and check in on me.
WHAT DO YOU NOW SAY OR NOT SAY OR DO OR NOT DO WHEN YOU KNOW THAT SOMEONE IS EXPERIENCING GRIEF AND DEATH?
I will never tell anyone that “I know what it’s like because…” Everyone’s grief is their own, and even if you also have experienced grief, it is not the same as theirs.
As real as your grief is around losing your grandmother to Alzheimer’s, please don’t tell me (even with the caveat that you “know it’s not the same”) that you understand what I’ve been through losing my young wife to it. You don’t. Nor do I understand what you’ve been through.
Also (this relates more to my experience in the ambiguous grief when I was a caregiver for her) I will never say “let me know if there’s anything I can do to help” or “call me if you need anything.” Saying that does not help the person you are saying it to, it gives them a job: now they have to figure out what you can do, and they have no idea if your level of commitment is to make them a sandwich or to build an addition on to their house. Instead I try to offer what I can and am willing to do, then ask if that would be helpful.
WERE THERE ANY BOOKS, MOVIES, MUSIC, OR ART THAT HELPED YOU DURING YOUR MOST ACUTE TIMES OF GRIEF? ANY THAT ARE HELPFUL FOR YOU NOW AS YOU CONTINUE TO GRIEF?
After Frances died I began reading voraciously about grief, and most of what I found completely disappointed me. Books on grief seemed to focus on how inconsiderate people can be, and how terrible that can feel. I couldn’t help feeling that these authors need to find better friends! It’s true, people sometimes say unhelpful things, but this is true in all areas of life. I am grateful that my friends continue to give me the space—and share that space as appropriate—that I need to grieve in my way.
That said, I have found a couple of helpful books. Steve Leder’s The Beauty of What Remains comes to mind, as does Anne Lamott’s Stitches.
IS THERE A LYRIC OR A MOTTO OR A QUOTE THAT’S BEEN WITH YOU DURING YOUR GRIEF?
Well… to quote Ani DiFranco, “every pop song on the radio is suddenly speaking to me”. It’s amazing how many songs are about losing love, even if they were not intended by the writer to be about death or grief. So many lyrics and phrases catch me almost every day. Not the least of which is Tom Waits’s snarky “Christ, you don’t know the meaning of heartbreak buddy, come on, come on”.
Perhaps the most prevalent though, is from Frances’s favorite, Bill Withers. His song “Lovely Day” captures all that I am feeling: the daily struggle that bears heavy on my mind, and the lightness that I find in (the memory of) her smile.
Another quote comes directly from Frances herself. During her memorial, several of her sketchbooks were on display for people to look through. The 12 year old son of two of our close friends flipped through one and found a page on which she had scrawled in the margin: “Just keep going!” I know she was writing this to herself and I now feel that she is speaking directly to me as well.
HAVE YOU DEVELOPED ANY RITUALS OR TRADITIONS AROUND YOUR GRIEF OR AROUND FRANCES’S DEATH?
During the last year of her life I started a morning meditation/breathing exercise. Since she passed I’ve incorporated mantras of the qualities that I believe she embodied: her joy and light, her spark and drive, and her love of other people. I try to focus on feeling these expressions flow from her through me and out into the world.
DO YOU HAVE A GRIEVER’S “P.S.”? SOMETHING YOU MIGHT LIKE TO SHARE THAT I DIDN’T KNOW TO ASK?
To anyone who knows someone who is grieving: please be patient. Be available and open and loving, be present without prying. DO call and write and text and check in, don’t avoid them. Be comfortable talking about the person who has died, and share your loving memories if the griever is receptive—which may be more likely than you think. Understand that the person grieving may not grieve in the way that you think they should, or in the way that you think they (or you) would.
To anyone who is grieving: you are seen and you are loved, and while your grief is your own, you are not alone. Take the time to find your own balance, being careful to neither rush through “the stages” (which are also total BS) nor to lose your future self to the past. We have so much to live for now, in this, our brief window of remaining life, before someone else is grieving for us.