Patti Merrill knows what it’s like to grieve deeply, and she is turning that grief into something beautiful.
“Grief does not need to be fixed; grief needs to be witnessed, acknowledged and accompanied,” Merril told Serve Daily.
One year ago, Patti Merrill of Santaquin, lost her husband, Roland Merrill, to terminal cancer, after what she described as decades of health problems.
“Roland was sick our whole marriage,” Patti said. “We were married in ‘88, our oldest daughter was born in ‘89, and Roland was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in ‘90. It was ulcerative colitis that eventually led to his diagnosis of colon cancer.”
A few years after her husband’s initial diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, an unimaginable tragedy hit the Merril family. The couple’s third daughter, Laurie Ann Merrill, age 2, drowned in the family’s backyard pool.
“Laurie Ann was born in 1993,” Patti said. “She loved to play outside. She loved to go in the garden with her grandma, and she loved radishes. She also loved bugs, and 90% of the time, she would fill her pockets with bugs. If you had a shirt with a pocket, she would look at you and say ‘all gone.’ She thought that if you had pockets, then surely you had bugs in them. She was a cute girl, and she was a climber.”
Patti explained that at the time, they were living with extended family. She emphasized that the pool was above-ground, and that it had “all the provisions it needed” to protect children from getting in, including a gate and tall fence area.
“She climbed the gate and got into the pool,” Patti recalled. “Roland found her. He did CPR. He was CPR certified and wasn’t able to revive her which caused a lot of internal chaos.
This May will be 31 years since Laurie Ann died.”
Patti said that the “internal chaos” that her husband experienced after that experience, exasperated his health issues. She said that as his physical health declined, so did his mental health. And over the next few decades, her husband grieved the loss of much of his physical, emotional and spiritual health.
“I saw a decline in all of these things with Roland,” Patti said. “His physical health started to decline. He had always been very healthy and fit. The loss of the ability to be physically active was a huge loss. And then he had more ruptures with the death of our daughter, which caused a lot of emotional problems, which led to spiritual problems. He once said to me, ‘I don’t think God loves me, otherwise, why would he allow this?’
“That affected him,” she continued. “He didn’t want to socialize anymore. He didn’t want to be in group settings. “I think if we could have helped him better with those other things, his physical health might have improved.”
Rolland’s physical health didn’t improve, and even after having his colon removed, he developed Crohn’s disease, which led to primary sclerosing cholangitis, and then cirrhosis of the liver. After having his gallbladder removed, cancer was found inside it.
Patti said that when the cancer was found inside the removed gallbladder, that doctors believed that all the cancer was removed as well. This opened up the possibility of a liver transplant.
“His liver was done and it was time to make the decision to have a transplant,” Patti said. “I let Roland answer for himself, and I thought he was going to say no because there was no guarantee that it would improve his health longterm. He surprised me and said, ‘I think we have to do it.’
“My worry at the time was, what if it works, and he’s miserable the whole time?”
Patti recalled going to the hospital with her husband and going through all the initial screenings to make sure that he was a viable candidate for the transplant. She said that she experienced mixed emotions as she worried that even with a transplant, that it would only prolong her husband’s suffering.
“I remember praying to God, and the story (in the Bible) of Abraham and Isacc came to mind where Abraham was asked to make this tremendous sacrifice,” she said. “I felt the same way. I felt like God was asking us to make this huge sacrifice to continue his life in this way. I thought that if it’s what God was asking, then we would do it. But I remember wondering what our ‘ram in the thicket’ would be. If God gave Abraham a ram, then surely he’d give us a ram, too.”
While waiting for test results to come back, it was discovered that Rolland had swollen lymph nodes. When the doctor came in, Patti said she could tell “it wasn’t good.”
“It came back that it was cancer,” Patti said. “I looked at Roland, and said, ‘That’s your ram.’ Just as Abraham did not have to go through with his sacrifice, neither did we have to go through with our sacrifice of continuing Roland’s life in that way. It brought me so much peace that this was God’s will.
“Roland was put on hospice and we brought him home. Two weeks later, he passed.”
Turning her own grief into healing
Patti said that even though only a year has passed since her husband’s passing, that she believes the worst is behind her. She added that even before her husband passed, the two of them had talked about her finding a way to help others through the grieving process.
“Part of me feels like the worst of it is over,” she said. “I don’t know if many widows would feel like that at this stage. We’re coming up on a year. I think the heaviest portion connected to Roland, was while he was alive and so sick. There’s a guilt that comes with relief.
“Before Roland died, he and I had talked a lot about this desire I had to create a grief center,” she continued. “I thought about being a grief coach, but I had settled on the idea that I wanted to become a chaplain.”
Patti said that ever since her daughter died, she had the desire to help others. She said that at first, she wanted to help parents who had lost children. As her grief intensified over the years as a caregiver and then as a widow, she said she saw many areas in her life that caused her grief. She said that she has now evolved to wanting to help others no matter what their catalyst for grieving might be.
“Throughout my life, I have realized that there are a lot of things that bring grief to us; not just death,” she said. “There’s the loss of identity. I’ve had both my parents die. I’ve had a sister die. I’ve made difficult (geographical) moves and there was grief involved in that. I’ve come to realize that I don’t just want to help bereaved parents or spouses; I want to help anyone who’s grieving in any way for any thing.”
Patti said that her eventual goal is to have a facility where those grieving can receive support and love in a variety of ways, including therapy, coaching, yoga and more. For now, and as she works toward that, she said she has cleared much of her schedule to be a listening ear for those in need. She also posts videos on her social media pages and is in the process of launching a podcast with guests from a variety of backgrounds related to grief.
“I want my grief center to be a safe place to come and be with other people who are grieving, and for them to know that their grief is safe,” she said. “Nobody’s going to silverline it for you or say, ‘She’s in a better place,’ or ‘At least he’s not suffering anymore.’ These things are not helpful to say to someone who is actively grieving; it’s very dismissive of their pain.
“Grief is a long, slow journey and I don’t think we ever move on. We can learn to move forward while we carry it, but I don’t think we ever leave it behind, but we move forward with it.”
In addition to sharing helpful resources on social media and through her podcast, Patti will be speaking at the BYU Life after Loss Conference on March 27 at the BYU Conference Center.
“I want this to be accessible to everyone,” she said.
Patti Merrill’s podcast will be found on her website, thewaitingplacefoundation.org. She can also be found on Instagram @thewaitingplacefoundation.
