Growing up in Grief - Part One of Many

The teenage years are the most formative ones of your life. Every gust of wind pushes or pulls you in one direction or another towards who you will eventually become. Every shade or nuance shapes our views of the world… of ourselves. We are truly a product of our environment. With all this change, it’s an understatement to say that the transition from childhood into teenager land can be a tough phase of life – no salt added.

For the most part, many of us share similar experiences and often the trajectory doesn’t deviate too much into adulthood beyond the “normal” rites of passage. But then, sometimes, for better or for worse, that is not at all the case.

Two decades ago, give or take, I was an impressionable thirteen year old. Although bullied and teased for being different, I found solace and safety at home as much as it was tumultuous at times… Then, the unthinkable happened.

It was then the line of my life was delineated. More like t-boned by a semi, actually.

December 19th, 1997 is a date I will never forget as long as I live. Life was never the same from that point on. Like an anniversary, this day comes back to remind me exactly of that fact – it is the original trigger of every tumbling domino since.

That cold night I found out my mother had cancer with an expiry date.

I can recollect everything in vivid detail. The yellow glow from the kitchen light above me. The heat from the furnace behind me and the short bursts of cold air rushing in from the front door opening and closing. People coming in, people coming out. The faint hospital smell lingering on their clothes. My mom unpacking her purse and bags; the bottles of prescription pills lining up on the round wooden kitchen table. The incessant flow of ever-so-casual conversations in attempts to distract from the elephant in the tiny dining room.

Most importantly, I can remember how I felt. While my aunts, uncles, mom and dad tried to pretend like nothing had just happened… As though it was just another Friday night… I was grossly appalled at their indifference, at a loss for words. Their attempt-at-hope didn’t encourage me, in fact, it angered me more. From the beginning, I was well past being shell-shocked. At no time was I confused; I was all too aware what all this meant. In the kitchen where I stood, my relatives milled around like ants. Incredulous and silently contemptuous, I stood there for what seemed like hours waiting for one of them to acknowledge the gravity and the reality of the situation. I questioned their sanity as I wondered, “How could they act like this?! Why were they pretending?!”I knew this was a big deal, so why didn’t they?!

The minute I heard the prognosis, it was real to me. But, it was the veiled indifference they paraded that bothered me most in that moment. I was ready to talk about it immediately while they were still sauntering down Denial Boulevard. I can still feel the heat behind my ears as I was reaching the point of emotional ebullition. Suddenly, I couldn’t handle all the intense emotions erupting inside me. At 1000 Freak-Out-Fahrenheit, all I wanted was to escape. I didn’t want this! So, I did the only (un)reasonable thing I thought I could and ran outside into the cold Manitoban winter to silence the buzz, to cool down the fury and to simply, breathe. I found the one person I could stand to be around. My cousin and best friend (who was coincidentally moving away that same day) met me half way down the gravel road that separated our homes and let it all out.

I had never felt numb quite like that in my life. It was a mixture of overwhelming confusion, anger and sadness that I can’t begin to describe other than a blur of heaviness frozen in time as the world raced by.

In hindsight, I realize my family was just trying to be positive for mom while trying to maintain some form of normalcy in the wake of the hurricane; batten down the hatches. I feel selfish about it now, but that moment, I was incapable of empathy as I could hardly process my own experience let alone fathom someone else’s, including my mother to whom it was legitimately happening first hand.

To this day, this is the single most important piece of information I have ever been told and I have been trying to process its profound impact on my life ever since.

I can replay that evening in mind like a movie. It allows me to freeze the frames long enough to process at my own pace through different filters acquired by age and life experience. A luxury I didn’t have when this actually happened. Now, I can see beyond the white noise and recognize the significance of this day in my life. Looking back, I can intensely recall the moment when the tectonic plates shifted apart; when one era abruptly came to an end and a new world of uncertainty was born.

Losing a parent is never something you can prepare for. It’s an unchartered territory – a place sectioned off and quarantined; accessed only with a high level of clearance. People who’ve never been there can only imagine what happens there. It’s a level of hurt and emotional anguish I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. It lingers, makes itself comfortable and sometimes, takes up long term residency. Without support, it can be detrimental on many levels. I don’t have a psychology degree (yet), but I’ve lived with this first hand for more than half my life and what I’ve learned is that grief can accomplish three things: make you, break you or become you.

Behind the heavy curtains of grief exists everyone’s personal emotional fight club.

1. You don’t talk about grief.

2. You don’t talk about grief!

It has taken me two decades to decide that those rules were meant to be broken unless I planned to live my life, broken, in a deafening silence.

Even though we have a long way to go and things are much improved, there definitely was a stigma about mental health and wellness back then. It just wasn’t something you talked about. Support networks and resources seemed inaccessible and vulnerability, a sign of weakness. These were not the days of Brené Brown. No, back then, at least where I came from, people seemed to think kids were immune to grief or not old enough to understand it. But trust me, I wasn’t and I know what I felt. I often felt embarrassed and misunderstood if I did talk about it as my friends would look at me with blank stares because they just didn’t know what I was living through. How could they? I’ve received more sympathy than I could ever deserve. Other times, it was unsolicited pity, which, did more harm than good… All I needed was empathy, perhaps a little compassion. Someone, anyone, to actively try to help me get through it.

So, I did the most (un)sensible thing I could do, and buried it. Only in my writing could you see the darkness through the cracks of the paper. Behind the smile, there was a lot you couldn’t see, a lot I wouldn’t let you see. It didn’t change the fact that I was still grieving, still hurting and without noticing, allowing it to weave permanently into the fabric of my person.

One event in my life has defined the way I’ve lived it, who I am.

I have lived a dual life – the one you see and the one you didn’t.

This is the first time both have appeared in public together.

I grew up in grief and by sharing my story with you, I hope to reach others like me.

I hope to finally let it rest in peace.