Get a hobby to help cope with grief

I send out frequent email "updates" to my family and friends. These are just reports about what's going on here with me, and things on my mind.

Well, one day in response, my sweet brother Nic advised me to "get a hobby" because he thought I was writing too much about cooking and what I was cooking. And sending too many photos of food. We grew up together one year apart so knows me well.

So my response was, "Cooking is a hobby! "

We usually think of hobbies as something children do. Adults have "interests" and "activities." But I have several hobbies that are fun, and occupy me in a positive way.

Hobbies are needed for healthy coping with long-term grief.

Seven or eight years ago, I would have said my hobbies were international travel, going to plays, music, and reading.

Of course I still love music and reading but now I would say, cooking is a main hobby.

This strikes me as funny because I didn't learn to cook until I got married in my late 20s.

It's a hobby that keeps me busy as I learn different techniques, try new recipes and shop for key ingredients. And since people like to eat, it's a great asset for entertaining friends, and preparing holiday meals, and just eating well on an everyday basis.

So now my email updates sound like my Aunt Virginia, a wheat farmer who lived until 95 in Oklahoma and wrote us long rambling handwritten letters about what she was cooking, her church activities, family gatherings, her quilting group, and the crops.

My husband Baheej was an excellent cook. And along with my sister-in-law Noelle and with letters from his mother, he taught me to cook.

When Baheej was growing up in Nazareth, in the Holy Land, boys didn't cook, but they hung around the kitchen and watched. So he knew a lot about recipes, techniques, and how to arrange the food attractively on flat plates.

So I became a "specialist" in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine. I still make all these things - leg of lamb, stuffed chicken, sautéed fish, grape leaves, stuffed squash, kabob, kefta, green beans with lamb shanks, tabouli, tahini, hummus, all of it.

Lots of nice smells and spices - cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg. A great rice called hashweh (stuffing) made with sautéed lamb, sautéed pine nuts, and those spices is used as stuffing or as a side dish.

Cooking also links to another hobby of mine - entertaining. It's lots of fun to cook and have friends over. I'm planning just that on the Fourth of July, although I will serve mostly American barbecue food. But it's the gathering of friends that's important.

As you find your way back to living following the loss of a loved one it is very important to "invite" and also to "go where you are invited."

There is an old period movie I like about families and social life in New York City set in the early 1900s. In it, there is a woman who is rather out of favor with the local social circle. One afternoon her cousin asked her, "Why are you going to that dinner party?" implying it was not a suitable destination. Her answer was, "I go where I'm invited, otherwise I'd be lonely."

This stuck in my head. And it's true - to cope with long-term grief, it's important to be open to new activities, new places, new foods.

Maybe it's not something you would have done or eaten in the past, but try it - you may like it. It's about the people and camaraderie not just the event.

So my advice is - keep or get a hobby, invite, and go where you are invited. You'll probably be more cheerful and life more interesting.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a Ph.D. in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@comcast.net or see her blog longtermgrief.tumblr.com.