How to Survive the Loss of a Loved One

1. Rent the movie My Dog Skip, especially if you’re the sort who never seems to cry when it’s appropriate, and everyone keeps telling you how important it is for you to cry. You’d have to be the most callous person on earth not to cry enough to fill a reservoir while watching this film. Extraordinarily cathartic.

2. Read Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin. This will be the only time you’ll ever be able to make it to the end of this well-conceived, but oh-so-poorly-executed novel. For some unknown reason, you’ll really want to make it to the end. And one of the greatest comforts you’ll experience during this time is the knowledge you could’ve taken the same idea and done it so much better.

3. If you don’t already have it, subscribe to caller i.d. During times like these, you really can’t be held responsible for the sorts of things you might say to someone calling to ask you to do a telephone survey about the hospitals in your area (I’m not kidding. Yes, SNL skits immediately came to mind when I received this call). If it’s an unknown caller, even on your business line (after all, if it’s a business line, you’ve got voice mail) DO NOT answer the phone.

4. Start making friends now with someone who will be willing to cook comfort food for you. If you’re someone who hates to cook, you’ve already done this. If you’re someone who loves to cook, you’ll be surprised how you lose your capacity even to make toast and spread some peanut butter on it.

5. Speaking of food, get yourself some Xanax, or some similar type of drug. You’re going to need it to control your urge to punch out every single person who keeps telling you how important it is to eat, since your appetite will have gone off to some deep, dark crawl space under the house where no one’s ever been and where none of these well-meaning people is ever likely to go to help retrieve him for you.

6. Surround yourself with as many people as possible who are willing to tell funny stories about your loved one. Avoid those who are nothing but doom and gloom. This is the most sane way to survive the whole ordeal.