Tag Archives: grief

Death is hardest for those left behind

The 2nd anniversary of Owen’s death was last Wednesday, Oct 24. Angus and I took the day off, and decided to go to the Toronto Zoo.

Both boys loved going – we used to live about 10 minutes away and had annual passes. Sometimes we would just pop in for an hour to wander through the butterfly habitat or look at the turtles. Some years I think we went at least once a month. So this excursion was about more than just doing something Owen would have liked – for both of us it was like walking through a living memory simulation. Although the exhibits change from time to time, the smells and ambiance and general zoo-y-ness of it all remains the same from even when I was a kid.

We recounted a million different ‘remember the time when!’ episodes, including when the deep fryer in the fast food restaurant boiled over just seconds after I’d handed over my money, scattering the patrons and employees in all directions while I stood there hoping someone would return my twenty dollar bill. Or the time I held up Angus to see the tropical birds and unbeknownst to us Owen was rolling down the hillside with alarming speed, barreling towards the concession stand. Or the time we discovered that the ugly, big-lipped white fish in the Malaysian Pavilion was also named Owen, at which point the monstrous, unblinking creature instantly became more charming and less gruesome.

Owen the fish died a couple of years ago. This is Oscar, his replacement.

;

I enjoyed the day and loved hanging out with Angus. Yet, as a day of catharsis and the marking of a significant anniversary, it felt meager and unsatisfying. I want to do more, remember more, feel more, but there’s just not enough space or time. I don’t mean just logistics and busy life and all that (although that’s also true) – I mean that it seems there is no container big enough or process enlightened enough or time span long enough to significantly alter the heaviness and sorrow that has settled permanently within me.

Having said that, I do acknowledge that the passing of time makes daily living easier. I don’t cry in bathrooms or in my car very often. Owen’s spaces in my house are fully reclaimed. And I don’t feel the need to explain to strangers who Owen was, as though his life somehow explained his death. Or vice versa.

I don’t really have a further point to make. Just noticing that death doesn’t leave.

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A very close family friend, “Aunt Pat”, died this week after a long decline. She was my mom’s decades-long best friend, colleague, neighbour, confidante and travel companion. She was a steady fixture in our lives, always with us at celebrations, holidays, even family vacations.

She was moderately old-fashioned and proper (appropriately so – she was in her mid-80s when she died), yet an unlikely (and probably reluctant) feminist role model. Never married, Pat was dedicated to a career in nursing and healthcare, eventually becoming the Chair of the Diploma Nursing Program at Conestoga College – the role she was in when my mom applied to become a teacher at the school. Pat was also instrumental in bringing midwifery to Ontario through her contribution to establishing the St. Jacob’s Birthing Home, in the 1980s.

I remember attending her retirement party from the college when I was a teenager. Bored and fussy, I didn’t really care to go. But by the end of the night I found myself in tears, overwhelmed with her level of accomplishment and amount of respect she had earned from her colleagues. In those days it took a lot to shake the foundation of my youthful arrogance and high self-regard, but this did it. I left that party with a new respect for Pat and an appreciation for what diligence, commitment and hard work can bring.

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I hope those who loved Pat are not offended that I include this small tribute at the end of a post about death being hard for the living. There is much talk about Pat’s memorial tonight being a Celebration of Life and I intend to honour the spirit of the gathering. But I also know there is a tough road ahead for those who miss her.

Sick Kids

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I was a panelist at a symposium yesterday at The Hospital for Sick Children, in Toronto. I was very much looking forward to participating as it merged two significant areas of my life: social media and patient advocacy. It all went well; I felt useful and learned a few things.

However, I had completely underestimated – or rather, didn’t anticipate at all – how difficult it would be to return to the hospital itself. I hadn’t been there for over a year; certainly not at all since Owen died. As I walked the halls, ate lunch in the cafeteria, visited old friends on the wards – I felt like an outsider looking in. I hadn’t ever minded going to the hospital for appointments – it was familiar and friendly. Where our peeps were. Overnights and procedures were a different story altogether – but it was a love/hate relationship that was more love than hate. And now? I was just passing through.

It all felt a bit dreamlike. Sad and full of reminders: Owen used to roll through these halls. We used to look out that window. That’s where we always sat to watch the glass-encased elevators. There’s the store where we bought his feeding supplies.

I awoke from the haze long enough to assist a young mother, who was struggling to position her daughter over a toilet in the public washroom. The little girl had had surgery on her leg and was crying, her new box of purple sparkle ponies offering little relief from the discomfort of the cold surfaces and internal pressures. I didn’t do much but it felt good to be involved; the mom carried her daughter to the change table and I wheeled her chair over and gathered her things.

As her mother adjusted her clothing the girl eyed me suspiciously as I stood by, holding her box of ponies. I placed the box on the change table near her head, moving slowly like I had been told to drop my weapon. I withdrew my hand and bent down to her eye level, keeping a respectful distance. I held her gaze and said softly, “I really like your ponies.” I wasn’t sure if I had crossed a line with her or not – she didn’t respond right away. She looked at me for another short moment, then at the ponies. Then back again. A big slow grin crossed her face. “Thanks! I like them too!”

It was enough to do me in. I left the washroom and took the elevator down to P3, my usual parking floor. I sat in the car for a while, and cried.

Ongoing lessons in impermanence

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Early morning (2008)

The process of writing the book has taken an emotional toll. And you might think this reaction is odd, but: I’m surprised. I had thought, “It’s my story anyway, I already lived it, shouldn’t be hard to just write stuff down.”

So, as with everything, yes and no. The writing part was easy. The difficult part was the evening or morning following a big writing burst. I felt like I had run a marathon or had been chopping wood all day or had been teaching an all-day workshop. The writing has not been energizing as some writers might experience; it’s been draining. (Which is different than saying it hasn’t been satisfying, which it has been.) Now that I’ve been away from the text for a while (it’s in my editor’s hands) I feel an internal collapse. I went straight from intensively writing to the holiday in London (which included Owen’s birthday), and now a busy week of work-related tasks. Plus Angus’ birthday is on Monday and I still don’t know what to get for him, which is really irritating me. All distractions from the simple truth that I am still so sad.

Puppy (2008)

Just over 10 months since Owen’s death and my sorrow has not lessened. At all. It surfaces less frequently and I am quite functional – so much so that no one asks me how I am doing anymore. But the pot bubbled over last night (figuratively) and I cried until I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t optional – I suppose I had put my sadness aside for too long and it was going to have its time with or without me.

The sadness brought with it something else I know to be true but rarely look at it: I hate everything about this. I hate that Owen died, I hate that he is gone, I hate that this is happening to me. And worst of all, there’s a feeling that fills me with despair and desperation: I wish things were different.

____________________

Arts and Crafts (2008)

I learned so much from my life with Owen. I grieved briefly for the child I didn’t get and quickly moved on. I accepted and eventually embraced my new reality. I thought my life lessons were hard won and I felt richly rewarded for ‘getting it’. I congratulated myself for discovering life’s big secret: wishing things are different is what creates unhappiness. Change it or accept it. In Owen’s case, acceptance was the only option. And to be really enlightened about it: I celebrated his life, his differences, his weirdness. Not because of their charms (although charming they were) but because it was real and happening and actual fact. Love what is!

And now, infuriatingly, my options are the same.

On many levels I have accepted Owen’s death, but embrace? Really? A superhuman, or non-human, feat. Surely. Could it be I might eventually love what is? Sure sounds a lot more peaceful than this.

It’s enough to break your heart wide open

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Protector of free speech, outraged critic of injustice and defender of Bubbies everywhere.

Angus is his champion, his pal, his biggest fan. More than this. He is his brother.

Would he have developed self-consciousness about Owen? Would he ever have become embarrassed? He was ten when his brother died and it hadn’t happened yet. Friends have warned of it yet there has never been a whiff of it.

He stroked his hair, held his hand, soothed him, entertained him. Sought comfort from him. Never shied away from introducing him to his friends, holding his wheelchair when walking down the street, engaging with him on his own terms.

Angus rarely cried before Owen died. In the months following, even less. Until recently.

Sometimes at night, he weeps. At first I would try to comfort him but it was awkward, hard to get close. I was ordered to go away.

We have moved through, agreed on a system. Now I sit at the foot of his bed on Owen’s beanbag chair, pretending to write but really just listening. I wait for the right moment and get him a tissue or a glass of water. As I sit and listen and peck at the keyboard my heart breaks for my remaining son who must now live out his days without his brother. Sometimes, after the tears, he will say something.

“I wish he didn’t die. The world was better before.”

I think about Angus becoming a teenager then a young man with all of this behind him. He will date, travel, meet people. I think about him moving away, going to college, getting a job, falling in love. How will he carry this? How will this loss shape his relationships, his life?

Maybe his partners won’t know right away. Maybe he will hold his brother close to his chest until the time is right. Maybe he will wait until trust is earned and hearts are connected. Sometime between the initial crush and his commitment of undying love, maybe he will say,

“I want to tell you about my brother.”

6 months. Already. Only.

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Owen died on October 24. A Sunday morning. 6 months exactly to Easter Sunday.

I’m not the sentimental type and I rarely even note birthdays, never mind half-anniversaries. The day did not arrive with any dread and it did not pass with regret that I didn’t do something more. Maybe the idea of 6 months is bigger than the moment of the day that marks the 6 months. If you get what I mean.

I wrote and thought a lot about Owen’s eventual death before he actually died. I said once, last summer, “When Owen dies, I’m going to spend 6 months in a cave.” Carsten asked, “Why a cave?” The 6 months wasn’t questioned.

I suppose I imagined 6 months was what I would need to become functional again. That I would hide for a while, bawl my eyes out and then be… what? Ready? For…? Of course it was easy to say then. From that place that doesn’t exist anymore. That place I was in and the person I was before it happened. When Owen was alive and my musings were safely theoretical.

Turns out I didn’t go to a cave. I have been alternately out in the world and lying on my sofa – leaving each place only when I can’t stand it anymore. Owen’s life and death are in me and around me and moving through me so continually I can’t distinguish between grief, acceptance, relief – it’s all there, all the time. A cave wouldn’t have made a difference.

And the 6 months? The event of his death feels like a while ago. Sure – like 6 months. It’s his life that was forever ago and yet somehow continues. I don’t think there will be a time limit on that.

A little help from his friends

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The day after Owen’s death, before Angus returned to school, Ms. M gathered the children and told them that their beloved classmate Angus had experienced a tremendous loss. This class was a new formation; a blended class of children aged 9 to 12, and not all of them knew Angus even had a brother. Those who knew Owen were invited to share stories and thoughts with the class, so everyone could have a clearer image of Owen and his place in the world.

A candle was lit for Owen and was allowed to burn throughout the day.

Later that week, anticipating Angus’ return to class, Ms. M gathered the children again. She knew that his return might be overwhelming for him, and perhaps for his classmates, so she offered a suggestion: upon Angus’ return, they would offer their condolences all at once. Expressed in unison. So that Angus could receive the support and love of his friends and together they could simply move on with their day.

Ms. M also knew this was an unusually experienced class; two of the children had lost their mothers in the past year. She invited them to speak about what was helpful and what was not. Surely a deeply supportive experience for those children as well as for Angus.

They then worked diligently on cards for Angus, each child offering words of sympathy and beautiful drawings directly from themselves.

Angus returned to class to a chorus of well-wishes, a group hug and a stack of cards, bound in twine. A candle was lit for Owen, and the class moved on to Main Lesson.