It has been one and half month since Patrick Swayze died caused by pancreatic cancer. Lisa Niemi, 53, his grieving wife spoke to public about her feeling at the Grief, Healing and Resilience panel at Maria Shriver, Women’s Conference on Tuesday in California.
With Niemi joined Elizabeth Edwards and Susan Saint James. Elizabeth Edwards lost her son, Wade when he was 16, Saint James lost Teddy, her son who died at the age 14 and Maria Shriver lost her mother Eunice Kennedy Shriver and her uncle Ted Kennedy.
Dealing with loss for Niemi is the new thing to deal, “I thought during the 22 months of my husband’s illness that it gave me all this time to get used to the idea of losing him. I found for myself that when I actually got to this point I said, ‘No no no’… it wasn’t the same at all.”
She was not prepared to deal with Patrick Swayze’s death, “The actual loss is like an animal all of its own. It made all sadness and grief previous to that look like an intellectual concept.”
Married with Patrick for 34 years, Niemi describe her feeling when the actor’s death on September 14, “I’s almost when the grief takes over, your body is not your own…I know I just go through with it, and it’s going to take as long as it’s going to take.
Grieving process takes time and need somebody to share, “I never knew what to say to people who lost somebody and, boy, I have a good idea about it now.” She explained that having girlfriends who she can call at any time of the day or night has helped her deal with losing her husband of 34 years: “Sometimes just the act of reaching out helps to ground and connect you back to life and love and other people.”
At some point she “feel like I had the courage to go on and have a good life. And in the first few days after Patrick’s death, I felt like that would almost be a betrayal. That I would be letting him down somehow, and of course everyone’s saying to me, ‘Trust me, this is what he would have wanted.’ And it’s true….in a way, I would be letting him down to not to do that.”
“It’s a brutal truth if you have to go on without that person, but unfortunately, that’s what happens in life.”
Niemi said of Swayze, “Cancer may have taken him but it never beat him.” She said that part of the grieving process has been dealing with regrets and beating herself up over the little things. She told the panel, “I’ve spent two thirds of my life with him. … My regret is that I didn’t tell him that I loved him enough over that entire 34 years. … I am so grateful for what I had and my connection to him, and part of me believes that I will see him again and I’m just going to have to go on until then.”
She said that appearing on the conference has a way for her to try to help others in her position: “For me to learn to reach out and connect with other people was a huge thing, and it enriches the whole tapestry of life when you connect with other people.”
Edwards, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, says that she doesn’t fear death, in part, because, “For me it’s not as scary in part because I have to believe that there’s a chance of reunion of some sort with Wade so death offers me that, which life doesn’t offer me.”
Niemi will have her first one-on-one sitdown with Oprah Winfrey on Friday.
I saw excerpts from your conference on Good Morning America. I live in Staten Island, New York and my story is also unique. Almost seven years ago, I lost both my father and my husband both to cancer. They became ill within a couple of months of each other and died 3 days apart. My father died on my 49th birthday and my husband died the morning of my father’s funeral at only age 50. We do have to go on after death and I especially, also as a woman, had to hold it all together for my mother and my children as I now became head of the household. It was not an easy task and left me little time for grieving, having to work and take care of everyone else.
The result and part of healing therapy for me was that I wrote and published a book about my life and the tragedy of our family and the aftermath of loss and grief titled “Mother and Daughter (no more soup) by Louise Joy. I have since spoken at bereavement groups localy sponsored by pax christi hospice, have book signings scheduled and have my book featured here in a program sponsored by New York City at the Greenbelt here in Staten Island.
If you have any conferences scheduled in New York, I would love to be a part of it and share my story in helping others as well. You can view my book and all the info on my website at http://www.LouiseJoy.com or call the number also listed on my website.
Networking to discuss grief is a wonderful and healing process
Louise Joy Smoler
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