To be young again...
Six years seems like forever ago!! So much has happened in the past 6 years but when I think about November 5th, 6 years ago it feels like yesterday. When I think back on November 5, 2011 the visions of MGH are still in vivid color, the smell of sanitized hospital equipment burns the back of my nostrils, my chest collapses forward from the pain in my heart, the salt from my tears overwhelm my taste buds, my knees go numb and tremble from pure exhaustion and the sound of you crying in pain pierces my ear drums. Six years, six frican years and it still plays inside of me like a childhood movie on repeat, except this one is a horror film.
I was 24 when you died, I felt old at the time because I was living independently in the city and had a big kid job. Now that I’m the BIG 3-0, I realize I was just a baby and I still am. I remember asking you once if you ever wished to be young again. You said only if you could still have the knowledge you have now. I was in high school at the time so my first thought was “yeah that would be sweet because you could get a good SAT score if you had the knowledge of an old person.” I have since come to realize that being older doesn’t make you smarter.
For instance, this summer Jen, Jonathan, Jason and I volunteered at this amazing camp called Camp Erin. Camp Erin is a free, weekend long bereavement camp for kids age 6-17 who have recently experienced a death of someone close to them. This was my first time at camp and although I have have grief work experience from working in the addictions field, being a grief counselor for a cabin of 14-17 year-old girls for a whole weekend intimidated the crap out of me!
As expected, when all the campers arrived there was a nervous energy in the cabin. To help break up that energy I had the campers share one thing they were worried about and one thing they were looking forward to this weekend. All the girls shared similar sentiments about what they were worried about- being away from home, sleeping in a bunk bed, the food ext. They also shared similar sentiments about what they were excited for-meeting new people and trying new activities. One girl, started to share that she was excited to meet new people, paused, thought for a minute, and continued to share that even though she has tons of good friends that she can talk to about the death of her loved one, she was excited to meet girls her age that have gone through similar experiences. She further explained that it’s hard because her friends don’t really understand and she feels bad sharing stories or talking about the death all the time because she can tell they don’t know what to say or how to react. For some reason something clicked in my head and my anxiety about being at camp disappeared. I realized that my job at camp was not to make some crazy life altering experience or to do deep trauma therapy- my job was to facilitate an environment where these young women felt safe and comfortable to be themselves. An environment that was free of judgement, free of people saying “I’m sorry”, and free of feeling like everyone is looking at them like “the girls who lost her dad, mom, sister, brother ext.” Suddenly my role at camp seemed much more manageable. The girls just wanted to feel normal and luckily for them the death of a loved one IS normal at Camp Erin.
By the end of camp, after only one weekend, the girls had cried together, laughed together and trusted each other with stories and emotions that I wish no kid ever had to experience. What they may not recognize now is that learning how to navigate their hardship and the roller-coaster of emotions that comes with it, including being able to both laugh and cry at the same time has made them wise beyond their years.
I am grateful for the lessons I have learned from losing you Dad-I have learned so much about myself, life, priorities and relationships. However, If I could go back to being younger and have you back I would trade this knowledge in a heartbeat.