Many of us are amputees, struggling to go on living with half a heart, half a soul, and no more dreams for the future with certain people with whom we wrapped all of these dreams around. If you know someone in this position, take them under your wing. I, like many, had people say they would communicate daily, ensure I was okay, visit, help me through. They said they’d do whatever they can so that I didn’t feel alone. This is often an empty promise, as I came to learn. Death sweeps in, and then at the same time so do people who love you. However, your grief and aching heart can’t possibly dissipate at the same rate those people do. Those people are gone in days, if that, and stop the contact in months, if that. And there you are, left in it, and those people with those promises, back to life, work, their reality. Now you are left with yours. This is my story.
I do not resent people who have been unable to be who they wanted to be for me. But I have new promises that I make to myself, and those all involve spreading this understanding around and always being what I want to the people I love. This is a new world for me, I own a new pair of eyes. If I love you now, I’ll love you always and I will walk the path with you. This is a phrase I am taking from a friend who expressed to me, as my mom was dying, that she couldn’t walk my path with me. I thought at the time this was another loss for me. Another person to grieve. It wasn’t. It was a loss for her and a loss of a friendship that won’t ever let her down. I will walk whatever path I need to walk for people I love. And it doesn’t mean destroying yourself to help others. That doesn’t happen simultaneously unless you let it or are incapable of helping others because of your own pain. I am in a lot of pain but I know I am capable of so much love. I didn’t expect anyone my age to be able to support me in any other way than emotionally and even then, most people my age don’t really know what to do or say. Their life just looks very different than mine. That’s okay. I do understand.
For 23 years on this planet, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve seen a lot. I’ve been so many different people - a caregiver and nurse being one of those people. Full time. My mom wouldn’t let people see her. That was her wish and I respected that. But what that took from me was the possibility of support as well since I was there at all times. I am horrible with nurse-like things. It would be one of the last paths I would choose as a career. I had no choice. In fact, any nurses we had come in almost always expected me to carry out their job.
When my mom was diagnosed , I immediately got someone to take over my apartment lease and moved home from Ottawa. I bought a juicer. I took her to every appointment, a notebook in hand. I got her cannabis oil. I tried everything everyone told me, I thought I could save her life with food, supplements, love, a God I didn’t believe in. We had so much hope. When my mom was admitted to hospice, I stayed every night until she passed. I quit my job. I refused to believe it was over. When all was said and done, and my mom slipped on by mid morning on February 8th,I finally had the famous “burn out”. But i didn’t have time for that. I had decisions to make, a box to pick out, a celebration of life to do. I had people to call and inform. I had her bills rolling in. The work really doesn’t stop. It still hasn’t.
I can’t thank Tammy & Rob enough. For showing me compassion every single day. For giving me a place that feels like home after I lost mine the same day I lost my mom. I, like them, never gave up or forgot the pain they faced after losing their son and my friend. We had that understanding, that bond, we weren’t going to let each other do this alone. I honestly don’t know how I’d even be able to go on without their help. I am cleaning out an entire condo filled with my mom’s stuff, my stuff, our family memories and treasures. Some of these memories aren’t even my own and yet I don’t have the heart to throw them away. I don’t have a place. I have to store all these things in my dad’s garage. I am making phone calls and sorting through things and possibly understanding 60% of what I’m doing and saying, if that. Being an executor of a will....they don’t teach you this stuff in school. They don’t set you up for this at 23 in any way, shape or form. My life can’t just go back to “normal”. I define my new normal.
I don’t feel sorry for myself although I’m sure that’s how it comes across. I am disappointed that people aren’t better educated on something that we ALL experience. Every single person in your life you’re going to lose. And if you don’t, it’s because you’re dead. This is the only truth that is 100% accurate. So why has our society stopped that conversation? We’re scared to think about it and that causes so many issues. We aren’t open to it. We aren’t ever prepared. And then we don’t know how to deal with it. I want to help people like me. And I want to inform people like my family and friends who simply just didn’t know what to do or say. There is so much information out there to educate you on ways you can be involved. Things you can say. Things you can offer. I found this article to post so that no one has to feel the way I felt in the last four months. Like I was expected to take care of this on my own or that someone would step up so you wouldn’t have to. I felt like I was just a burden that no one had the energy for when really, I’ve been handling this overwhelming emotion with grace and soaking in everything I still love in this world. I am not a fucking burden. I have had burdens passed to me. And it makes me stronger and makes me a better friend and family member and someone anyone would want by their side when they have to face what I did.
My mom would’ve been so disappointed. In the hospice people and how they treated me. In the lawyer she had and how impersonal and ageist he and his assistant have been towards me. At insurance companies. At the condo corporation. At basically most people I’ve had to deal with. But mostly, at her own family. At my family. At friends. This isn’t me being hateful. This is me speaking to what I experienced and trying to spread awareness so that people at any age never have to go through this alone!
I want to open the conversation up. If anyone wants to talk to me about how to be supportive to a friend or family member that has lost someone, I would be more than happy to help. I have many suggestions on things to do and say to show your love and commitment to someone in such a horrible place.
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