Scallops with Arugula and Peas

Name: Catherine Mellinger

Age: 36

Tell me about the person who died: 

I met Vick when I was 28, after starting a certificate program in Expressive Arts Therapy in Toronto. She was one of my classmates. The program was a three year program and over the first two years, Vick and I began forming a friendship. Vick was a flame. She has this incredible curly red hair, a deep voice, intense eyes. She was honest, exceptionally intelligent, utterly kind and caring. I remember first bonding with her over California–she was from there, and my sister was living there, so I would go at least once a year to visit. I would randomly run into her on the streetcar and we'd talk about writing and what the process of making art was like for us. It was a slow build of just getting to know each other. 

During the second year of the program Vick experienced a lot of upheaval in her life. She switched jobs, and she announced that she and her husband had decided to separate. She decided to leave the program after second year, to focus on her work and her family, as well as her health. She had never had any major health issues but she suffered from intense migraines, some of which caused her to have slight seizures. 

We made an effort to stay in touch. A few months after she left, she contacted me to tell me that she wanted our friendship to be sustained outside of the program, and she wanted, point blank, to be friends with me. I told her I felt the same and that year our friendship flourished. She invited me over for meals, and I chatted up her son about Harry Potter. She told me how her separation from her husband was going, and how she was exploring her sexuality after realizing she was much more in her own skin when she could explore bisexual relationships. She talked about going out with women she had crushes on and how happy it made her. We celebrated her 50th birthday over Thai food. I celebrated Passover with her and her son.

During that year, as we bonded, she began to have more frequent migraines and fatigue as well as a lot of anxiety. She took a health leave from her new job and decided to begin writing more. We began working on a project together where I sent her some of my collages and she wrote short poetry to go with them, which ended up being used in a small exhibit I did. We had plans to make a children's book together, and to illustrate and write together more often. 

I hadn't heard from Vick in perhaps a couple of weeks, and I wrote her an email to see how she was and ask if we could meet up for tea. Less than 48 hours later, I got a message from one of the professors at the school we attended together. Vick had died. Suddenly and unexpectedly. I don't know that I've ever felt such shock. She was just gone, and I had no idea how, or when. All of the students from the school were sent details of her funeral and invited to attend. 

It wasn't until months later that I even found out where or how she had died. Her parents were visiting and staying with her. She hadn't been feeling well. She told her parents she was going for a run and asked them to watch her son. She didn't come back for quite some time and her parents called the police. They thought she'd gone out to run and something must have happened. The police told them that they couldn't file a missing person report until 24 hours later, but that the family could go out looking for her. I'm not sure how they thought to go down to the basement, but it seems someone did, and found Vick there, beside her treadmill. She hadn't gone outside to run, she had gone downstairs to her treadmill. They think she had an aneurysm, passed out while running and just died, then and there. They don't know how long she'd been lying on the floor. I can't even think about it without tearing up again. None of it made sense.

It felt so odd being at the funeral, standing at the back of the room with other students from the class just trying to digest it all. I recognized her son and ex-husband but knew very few of her friends, and none of her family, who had all come from California. It seemed like a strange dream in which I was an impostor who had just lost someone that I had so much more to do with, so much more to know about.

What has your experience of grief been like since your loss? How did it change over time?

Vick's death and the process of grieving was so different from previous losses I’ve experienced. It felt like an assault, like something was stolen from me. It felt harsh and heavy and violent. I was a complete mess when I heard the news, and I had an enormous sense of anger that I carried with me for a number of months afterwards. I remember bawling heavily for hours. I had no idea what to do. I had no one to reach out to. I didn't know her family, I didn't know her friends, I just wanted to reach out to her, to Vick. I was in shock for the better part of six months, not knowing where to put my grief other than on my now husband's shoulders. Mentally I felt confused, lost, mudded. Physically I felt tight and wound. Emotionally I felt angry, horribly sad, and somehow empty. It was a friendship so new yet so meaningful, with so much light and connection and promise, and it was just gone.

Over time it dulled and softened, and went more inward. I learned later that the University of Toronto had erected a commemorative bench for her on Philosopher's Walk on campus, just outside of The Royal Conservatory. I was often at the Conservatory, as I work there occasionally. It felt so special and perhaps even a bit kismet that her bench was right there. It felt like a sign that our friendship was real, that it actually meant something. Whenever I would go to the offices for meetings or classes, I got to sit on her bench, have my lunch, have a tea. She felt so far away yet somehow a little closer, knowing her name was there. 

I've realized that every year at the end of May, I can't stop thinking about her. I start to remember our friendship and the things we talked about, the meals we ate together, the streetcar rides we took together either by chance or because we'd planned to see each other. It's when I remember that this was the time of year that she died. My son was born in May, and every year, after his birthday, I'm overcome with thoughts of Vick again.

If you had to describe your grief as a literal landscape, what would it look like and feel like at different points since your loss?

Initially the grief was a hard and dark brick wall. It was physically painful to come up against. Thinking of Vick was like knives in my chest. Hard, heavy, not cold, but hot, sweaty even. Eventually it started to ease and turned more into waves, like sitting on an ocean and feeling like you wish you could connect with what was on the other side, whoever is out there, wherever they are. It's windy and comes and goes.

Tell me about an object that reminds you of the person who died, and why? 

Vick loved to learn to cook new things and one night she invited me over for dinner. She said she was really into this Jamie Oliver cookbook. That night she made me scallops sautéed with arugula and peas. It was one of the best meals I've ever had made for me. We sat, we ate, we drank wine, we chatted about our shared crush on Jamie Oliver. Anytime I see one of his cookbooks I think of that meal, I think of Vick, and it makes me smile.

How did the people in your life support you in your grief? What was helpful? What was frustrating?

I felt like there weren't many people with whom I shared my grief. I shared the most with my husband, Joel. Within the first two years of our being together he held me through the loss of my cousin, then Vick, and then my grandmother. I couldn't believe how understanding he was. He just listened when something came up. 

What was the hardest for me was feeling like I didn't have anyone else to talk to about it. None of my other close friends really knew her. Our relationship was quite private I suppose, perhaps because it was still new. It felt strange speaking about it to people who didn't know her. My classmates were good about it too, and we talked about her passing in class for a couple of weeks after. Then it all just seemed to fade for them, yet for me it didn't.

How did people who were grieving the same person respond to the death compared to you? What similarities and differences did you notice?

I felt disconnected from others who were grieving, because I didn't know her family and or many of her friends. I had connected with her brother at the funeral and told him about the project we'd been working on; that she'd written poetry for my pieces. He gave me his email so that I could send him some images. I emailed him and told him I would be honoured to send him a piece, as a gift. He chose one and I mailed it out to him, but we didn't really speak after that. 

At one point, perhaps a few weeks after Vick’s death, I emailed her telling her that I missed her, and that I wanted to write to her because I didn't know where else to talk about how I felt about her death. It felt somehow satisfying to send out that email into the void. And who knows, perhaps her family or her ex had access to the email and read it, I don't know. But if they did, they never wrote back to tell me.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

My grieving was all private. Where the grieving had a chance to be public was perhaps at our graduation from the program. I asked the class if we could honour Vick by putting out a chair for her with ours during the ceremony. The staff spoke about her and we took a moment. It felt nice, but like a token. Something to honour her as much as that setting allowed.

Were there any personal or public rituals or structures that helped you in your grief? 

I really immersed myself in my collage work; Vick’s death sparked a huge commitment in me to be the artist I wanted to be. To keep going, to make it my life, my profession. I loved that Vick was not apologetic about who she was or how she felt. She didn't apologize for wanting what she wanted. She made me feel like I had a voice that deserved to be heard, and that my art was worth seeing. I'm endlessly thankful for that.

A couple of years ago at this time, I remember a night when my husband took my son for dinner at his family. We had planned that I would stay home and do some studio work because I'd barely had the chance since my son was born. I went out and bought myself some scallops, and I made a dish similar to the one that Vick had made me. I brought it into my studio and I poured myself a glass of wine and I worked. I toasted Vick and I collaged. It made me so happy, and it made me feel connected to her again.

How did your loss and your experience of grief change you?

It made me very aware of hidden grief, in others and in myself. When Vick died I felt I was selfish for being so upset. How could I feel so violated when her family must feel even worse! How could I admit to my grief without feeling I was being dramatic? The privacy of my grief really made me aware of the "circles" of a death. There is the family, and there are the close friends everyone knows about, people who may have known the individual since childhood. But then there are those that you may not think are affected, yet aren't they? You never know how something will hit you, and you can never know how many people it hits. It's taken me a long time to grieve Vick I think in large part because I never felt seen in it by those who knew her best, because I didn't know them.

It's all feels so complicated really, and it's still hard for me to really accept and be OK with how much I miss her, how much I crumbled when she died. To accept and feel OK about knowing that our friendship mattered, that it meant something. It's like a secret I carry, my loss of Vick.

Catherine Mellinger is a mixed media collage artist, art facilitator and certified Expressive Arts Therapist who lives in Waterloo, Ontario with her husband and son. She is currently working on a visual/literary collaboration with Toronto writer Marianne Apostolides titled Deep Salt Water, which will be published by BookThug Press in Spring of 2017. For more information on Catherine's work, visit her website.

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This post is part of Grief Landscapes, an evolving art project documenting the unique terrain of people’s grief. Participants share an experience with bereavement, and I photograph an object that evokes the person who died, transforming it into an abstract landscape inspired by the story.

Music Box

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Music Box, 2016

Name:  Julie Fitzpatrick

Age: 38

Tell me about the person who died:

Elizabeth was my first friend. Literally. My folks were driving me home from the hospital after I was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and stopped off at the Rigneys’ house on Three Corners Circle Road so that we all could meet. Elizabeth was just over a year old at the time.

I can't remember not knowing her. We carved pumpkins each Halloween, went to church together, went to the beach together, were always at each other's houses, went to Friendly’s together. Elizabeth was in many ways my opposite. She was on time; I was late. She was neat; I was messy. She was clear and direct, while I was often indecisive and uncertain. Elizabeth knew who she was from day one, it seemed, and I only knew what I wanted for lunch. That was a major crossover point for us: lunch. Food. We'd gab for hours over ketchup and fries, or ketchup and microwaved melted grilled cheese. We’d pour a mountain of the red sauce into the center of our shared plate and then dip away.

Elizabeth said "what" all the time since she was deaf and I was not. I filled her in on what was happening around us in the hearing world, and she kept up by lip-reading with remarkable accuracy. She spoke in a loud funny accent and often beeped because her hearing aid needed adjusting. “Elizabeth, you’re beeping,” I’d say, and she’d nod and raise her arm to twist the knobs at the top of her hearing aids and then she’d suddenly go quiet, the whistling kettle sound silenced. I remember someone asking me if I minded filling her in all the time, and I didn’t at all. Elizabeth grounded me. In many ways being with her gave me a sense of purpose. I was her conduit to the hearing world and she made me feel like I had a place in the world in general. Elizabeth was a straight shooter, very frank. This was refreshing for me because my family was incessantly polite and politically correct. I knew where I stood with her. In many ways I was the deaf one.

Elizabeth had a host of physical problems that really caught up with her in high school: she had a kidney transplant freshman year and then struggled with heart problems in the next few years; eventually her lungs stopped functioning. She died the day after my birthday in 1999.

What was your experience of grief like after your loss? How did it change over time?

I have to say I was pretty numb for a long time. I was in college when Elizabeth died and I always thought she'd just be there. She had been such a fixture in my life. It was like she had a sensor on her car for when I returned to our hometown. Moments after opening the front door, I'd hear her car in the driveway. It's Elizabeth - she knows I'm home, I'd think. And lo and behold, there she’d be. After she died, it took me a long time to stop checking the driveway for her car. I’m home, I wanted to tell her. Come over. Drive on up. I’m here.

I don't have that many girlfriends with whom I am still close; I have many friends, but no one as close to me as Elizabeth was. I was so comfortable with her, so seen and understood. Elizabeth was great at giving me basic instructions throughout our childhoods: do this, Julie; do that; clean your comb, put on lotion daily, read, keep things tidy, write letters and save your pen pals’ notes in stacks tied with ribbon. It was simple wisdom that Elizabeth knew innately, but it helped me. 

My folks were pretty much done with teaching kids how to do things. I was my mother’s sixth child, though a brother had died before I was born, and I think they just trusted I would figure things out. In many ways, Elizabeth helped me to do that. Her mother often told me that Elizabeth looked to me for an entry into the hearing world, and she’d tell me what a good friend I was to her, but I don’t think that’s the full story: any help I gave her, she returned to me tenfold. I didn’t get the chance to tell her that–I mean I think she knew but I wish I could just sit with her over some melted cheese and thank her.

If you had to describe your grief as a literal landscape, what would it look like and feel like?

A windswept field with cattails blowing in the marsh and a few wildflowers popping up here and there. Elizabeth loved Anne of Green Gables and Prince Edward Island and I love Irish countrysides so in my mind, my grief picture is a blend of those two scenes: harsh and beautiful, with a sense of emptiness and loss.

Tell me about an object that reminds you of the person who died, and why?

There was a shelf above her bed that ran the length of her wall, and on it, Elizabeth had a collection of music boxes neatly lined up one after the other. There was a trolley and a ballerina and a circular one–different compact boxes with lids and cranks. She’d turn the crank and watch them spin. Of course she couldn’t hear them but perhaps she sensed the vibrations. I’m not sure what it was about them but their delicate designs fascinated her. She dusted them and treasured her collection.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

Just that it continues. I guess love is like that. What also surprises me is that it still surprises me that Elizabeth is no longer alive. How can that be? Someone as bright and funny and opinionated and detail-oriented as Elizabeth? She’s not still here? She’s not in the kitchen in the house her parents no longer inhabit, putting marshmallows in her hot chocolate and writing notes on the margins of her books in pencil so that she’ll remember everything?

At the time of Elizabeth’s death, I was relieved for her that she was no longer yellow with jaundice and could breathe comfortably in heaven–her body had gone through so much and it was tough for her to constantly visit doctors. But I was numb to the reality of her absence. I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind and carried on with my busy collegiate things.

Now, the Friendly’s where we used to ketchup-dip has morphed into a bland cafe and I can’t believe we haven’t tested their fries and rated them against their predecessor’s. I’d like to sit across from her there, or anywhere, and talk to her about how my marriage has broken up and how I have a little boy who loves to do the alphabet in sign language and that I am rethinking being an actor and what does she do when she gets down? Can she remind me? She was a good friend to me as a child and I wonder what we would be like as adults. I would have brought her to the recent Broadway production of “Spring Awakening” with deaf and hearing actors lighting up the stage. I would bring her to a church I’ve found with a deaf community and an interpreter where we could listen to the priest together. I want to hear about how she is as a woman–what kind of work she is no doubt excelling at, and if her heart still beats for Jeff Marcino.

How did the people in your life support you in your grief? What was helpful? What was frustrating? 

I think my parents said the right things, but they were pretty wrapped up in their own grieving–my brother was hospitalized for mental illness during the same time and my sister had gotten sick with breast cancer. It’s like we were separate orbiting agony balls that couldn’t align with one another. We couldn’t see past our own atmospheres.

How did people who were grieving the same person respond to the death compared to you? What similarities and differences did you notice? 

I was kind of shocked by how her family members seemed to shut down about her passing. Perhaps they were too sad to fathom talking about her or staying in touch, but her older brothers seemed particularly reserved when she died. I ended up writing a performance piece about my friendship with Elizabeth several years after her death, and after her family saw the show, one of her brother’s wives told me, “He never talks about Elizabeth. This was good for him. Thank you.”

Was there anything about your cultural or religious background that affected the grieving process for you? 

Not really. I pray now and I prayed then. I suppose now I think the line between here and not-here is thinner though, so I have a sense of her presence even to this day and for that I am grateful.

Were there any personal or public rituals or structures that helped you in your grief? 

I call her mom every year on the 10th of December, her birthday. Somehow I often miss the 22nd, her death day. I tell myself I will call Sue then too, but I often don’t. The day Elizabeth was born feels so special and the day she died, so confusing, sad and ugly. I call Sue and we talk and catch up and this year she said, “Oh, you called. All of my kids called.”

How did your loss and your grief change you?

I have gone on to study sign language and have been involved with two productions that include signing and deafness as themes with deaf and hearing characters and actors. I feel so at home when I hear Elizabeth in the deaf voices around me or when I experience their candor. I am learning that is a common trait amongst deaf people: honesty and directness. And devotion and loyalty and good humor and incredible expressivity. Or maybe I am just projecting her on all of them. Probably.

In many ways I think I’ve shortchanged myself in the grief department. I am still pretty sad about Elizabeth and haven’t given myself a whole lot of room to feel that sadness. I am good at compartmentalizing and forcing myself to show up for life even when I probably ought to take a pause. 

Elizabeth really cared about me and took care of me in many ways. I think that sweetness of her in my life is still changing me–she continues to move me and sometimes that takes the form of sadness and sometimes that looks like delight. Elizabeth never spent time dwelling on her waist size or her hair style. She was staunchly who she was and I found that calming and kind to be around. We championed each other. So if my grief changed me, it made me sad, and also very glad for having known her.

Julie Fitzpatrick is a mother, actress, writer, and car salesperson-in-training based out of New York City. She grew up in Guilford, CT near a family car dealership where she has recently been working and enjoying herself learning about cars and the business world. She is grateful for this opportunity to share a slice of her friendship with Elizabeth Rigney in Mindy Stricke's Grief Landscapes Series and she would welcome hearing from readers at julie@juliefitzpatrick.com.

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This post is part of Grief Landscapes, an evolving art project documenting the unique terrain of people’s grief. Participants share an experience with bereavement, and I photograph an object that evokes the person who died, transforming it into an abstract landscape inspired by the story. 

Purple Cardigan

Name: Carly-Jay Metcalfe

Age: 39

Tell me about the person who died:

I grew up with the genetic disease cystic fibrosis and as of this year, have lost around 75 friends to it. I lost my first “best friend,” Ineka, on September 9, 1988, when I was eleven. The day before she died, I was allowed into the “dying room,” as we all called it, where I was able to sit with Ineka as she lay dying. I remember walking into the room; she was lying on her right side. She knew who I was and tried to whisper my name, but I just said, “Shh, you don't have to talk. I love you so much,” to which she replied, “I love you, too.” To have that love reflected back to me is something that will always be with me. Ineka and I were very close, though she was four years older than me.

I still have a photo of Ineka on my shelf today. If I had a photo of every person I'd lost to cystic fibrosis, I'd have no wall space.

Tell me about an object that reminds you of the person who died, and why?

Ine's mum, Trish, was a brilliant knitter, and I remember watching her create this beautiful purple cardigan for Ine about eighteen months before she died. As I said my final goodbyes and “I love you’s" to my friend, I walked back into the tiny hospital ward kitchen where Trish presented me with Ineka's cardigan. Trish, my mum, and I came together in a loving embrace, all of us howling about the loss we were about to experience. I knew right then the profundity of Trish handing over the cardigan she had so lovingly made for her daughter, and that night and for many nights after, I slept with it. I still treasure Ineka's cardigan and it still fits me (thanks to the baggy look preferred in the 80’s).

What was your experience of grief like after your loss? How did it change over time?

Immense. Heavy like a sodden blanket, but I felt lighter when I had Ineka's cardigan with or on me. I used it for comfort, for calm and to feel ‘near’ her.

During this time, I wasn't complying with my medication regime or my twice daily physiotherapy. I was eleven, and wanted to be a kid without the burden of having an illness that I felt was out of my control. Also, being punched in the chest for physio is painful. I loathed having to take my medication at school because I was called a junkie, but to be honest, most of the time I would just forget because I was trying to live like a normal kid. A social worker hoodwinked Mum and Dad into believing that I was morbidly depressed, and needed to be admitted to the “Child and Family Therapy Unit,” which was just another term for the psychiatric ward. The social worker also thought that sleeping with Ineka's cardigan was abnormal, so it was taken away when I was admitted. But all I was doing was processing my grief just as I'd always done, in a very customary way for a child. Sleeping with Ine's cardigan made me feel close to her and as though my grief was something tangible, something that I could touch.

I was in this ward for just short of two weeks. My family could only see me at certain times of the day. My door always had to be open and I had to have supervised showers because I was on suicide watch. When my Dad’s brother Garth died, I remember being in the arts and crafts room when my Dad came in. I knew that Garth was in intensive care after a heart attack. The day he died, Dad marched in crying. I had never seen him cry before. I even remember what I was painting—a Donald Duck plaster cast—so when Dad walked around the corner with tears in his eyes, I knew we'd lost Garth. He broke me out there and then, and when he was questioned about when I'd be back, he said, “She's never fucking coming back to this place.”

If you had to describe your grief as a literal landscape, what would it look like and feel like at different points in your journey? 

It was like a thick, gelatinous river, struggling to make its way through a pinprick of a hole in a mountain. I seemed to sink and climb deeper into myself with each death. I’ve always appreciated the allegory of drowning, in that this is what happens with CF. You essentially drown in your own mucous. 

Something broke within me when I lost Ineka. Death breaks you open in a way where you can never be the same again. The deaths wouldn’t let up, which felt like a cannonball puncturing my spirit each time. I felt quite alone in my grief, unless I was talking about it with my CF friends. None of the children at my school (barring one lovely girl who is still my best friend) were aware of the losses I was experiencing, though my teachers knew and were always very kind to me.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

Ineka’s death solidified the fact that I could die at any time from this disease. Even though I was quite healthy in terms of my CF, I seemed to be in hospital constantly. Ineka felt like a watershed moment, in that I lost dozens of friends after she died. It was as though Ineka had been the starting point—the lesson—and then everyone seemed to die. I have a photo that was taken when I was seven at a CF camp, and by the time I was 13, everyone in that photo was dead. It wasn’t a wake up call, as such, just another reminder of how insidious this disease could be.

How did the people in your life support you in your grief? What was helpful? What was frustrating?

It was so important that I was surrounded by my CF tribe, because they were the only ones who truly understood—at least, that was what I thought at the time. Looking back, I can see how my mum really suffered the loss of Ineka, as did my sister—a lot of my friends were her friends too, and I believe that Mum felt a responsibility with some of my friends to be there when their own parents couldn’t, whether physically or emotionally. 

I look back now and feel very selfish about my grief, because my whole family was feeling it—even my Dad, as much as he may have trouble admitting it due to his stoicism. Whether the deaths were a reminder that I may have a shortened life span, or because of the suffering, I know it affected my family greatly. 

How did people who were grieving the same person respond to the death compared to you? What similarities and differences did you notice?

When I would speak to my friends about how they felt, it was interesting to gauge their emotions. I was always a very curious little girl, and this made me more curious and so that’s when I started my first social experiment with grief. I didn’t write things down, as I usually did, because I felt that was a betrayal of my friends’ trust, but I kept everyone’s responses in my head and heart. There was a consistent thread of sadness, shock and disbelief (even though the deaths were often “expected”), and worry for other friends who were seemingly edging towards death. I would have to say overwhelming sadness was the emotion that united us.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

As a child and an adolescent, I was a private griever. While I was fearless in my nature, I always felt vulnerable and weak when I manifested my grief in a physical sense, such as crying. I thought it was up to me to be strong, and so my public grief response was a façade, whereas when I grieved in private, I’d always lock the door or ensure it was a dark place so that no one could see me crying. Even when I was on my own, there was always a degree of shame when I cried.

That's something that's only changed within the last five years. I am now an out and proud crier. I have reclaimed my tears and grief and have spun them into gold, and feel much lighter in my being. Writing over 100,000 words of my memoir while doing some really hard spiritual work has healed me to a point. I do not believe that time heals all wounds though; it numbs them, and you learn to live around the sadness.

Was there anything about your cultural or religious background that affected the grieving process for you?

In the 80’s and 90’s, there wasn’t a funeral I went to that didn’t have some injection of “God” and the scriptures, whether it was the Lord’s Prayer or singing a well-known hymn like “Amazing Grace.” 

I always felt cheated on behalf of my friends when a priest launched into a religious diatribe, because my friends and I had talked about death, but never had they mentioned religion. Then again, perhaps that was a private thing for them. 

Ineka planned her own funeral and it was the most beautiful funeral I’ve ever been to. I remember being surrounded by an abundance of blooms, as well as a palpable love and light. It was a celebration of her life, which is what Ine wanted. Of course, a great sadness pervaded the event, but there was an overwhelming sense of love on that day where everyone had come together to truly honour her life. She also wrote her own epitaph, which says, “Don't be too sad—just remember me at my best.”

Carly-Jay Metcalfe is an Australian based writer of literary fiction, poetry and memoir. She is also a death midwife and secular pastoral carer. Fragments of her life and work can be found at www.bruisesyoucantouch.com and www.carlyjaymetcalfe.com. In 2014, Carly-Jay spoke at TEDx Brisbane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYaBlW9sSYQ

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This post is part of Grief Landscapes, an evolving art project documenting the unique terrain of people’s grief. Participants share an experience with bereavement, and I then photograph an object that evokes the person who died, transforming it into an abstract landscape inspired by the story. I’m accepting submissions until June 15th, 2016. Learn more about the project, share widely, and submit your story. - Mindy Stricke

Racquetball Racquet

Name: David Goldstein

Age: 43

Tell me about the person who died:

My friend Michael McLaughlin died in 2009 at the age of 38. He was in Tulum, Mexico, on the first day of a vacation with his wife’s family. He went out snorkeling by himself in the bay and somehow drowned. His family saw him being tossed by the waves and kayaked out to save him, but it was too late.

I had known Michael for 13 years. We met as counselors at a summer camp for gifted students, where we were engaged in the task, as Michael put it, of “Giving rich, privileged kids the leg up they so desperately need.” When I decided to move to New York a few months later, I crashed at his pad, a postage-stamp-sized apartment in the West Village that he and his roommate, Jordan, called the Tiny Happy. I look back on those months as one of the happiest, or at least funniest, times of my life. The Tiny Happy was a center of culture for Michael and Jordan's friends, with frequent open mic nights and a rotating cast of people crashing on the futon. We were all stressed about what we were doing in New York—how we would make money, whether we would find love, what we should do with our lives. But Michael brought to all of those fears a kind of fierce, funny love that made everything vaguely hilarious. Michael wrote later in life that “In the Tiny Happy, comedy was love.” I think that was true, but not just in the Tiny Happy. It was true of Michael’s whole life. The humor that permeated his soul wasn’t a defense against bitterness or cynicism. For him, art was a kind of sharing, the constant possibility of potential friendship. 

He was a prolific and phenomenally creative artist, who hadn’t yet achieved the recognition he deserved. He was a talented puppeteer whose plays included puppet versions of Sartre’s No Exit (Tagline: “Hell is other puppets”) and Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (in which, when asked by the devil to name the thing he most desires, Faustus shouts, “Shower me with Jujubes!”). His thesis film, Shadow Puppets of Doom, stands as a masterpiece of the puppet horror-comedy genre—although granted, it may be a genre of one.

We became close to each other’s families—I have spent many happy hours with his parents and siblings, and mourned with him when his father died. We vacationed together with our spouses. His widow remains one of my best friends. He surrounded himself with the kindest, gentlest group of people you could hope to meet. I was privileged to be part of that group.

Tell me about something that reminds you of the person who died, and why?

At the summer camp, Michael urged me to try racquetball. I’m not much of a sports guy, but I fell in love with the game, and it became one of my favorite activities. When we lived in New York together, we played a couple of times a week at Columbia University, where he was getting his MFA. Playing with Michael was wonderful because we never managed to work up much of a sense of competition; we spent most of our games laughing. We made valiant attempts at other gym-related activities—I think we dragged ourselves once or twice around the indoor track and played a single ludicrous game of basketball—but always came back to racquetball. After each game we would go out for dinner or a drink, or just walk around campus discussing art and life. We debated the movies he was trying to make and the dissertation and poems I was trying to write. And we talked endlessly about love and relationships. So those racquetball games were often preludes to scenes of intense intellectual and emotional connection. 

After he died, his wife gave me his racquetball racquet. I’ve since moved to Canada, where everyone plays squash, so the racquet sits inside a basement closet.

What was your experience of grief like after your loss?

Because of the unexpectedness of his death, I experienced a moment where life goes from being totally fine to totally not fine. This moment came in the form of a phone call from a mutual friend of Michael’s while I was at dinner with friends and family. I knew, somehow, what he was going to say before he said it. Just the texture of his voice was enough to tell me that Michael had died. As the knowledge entered me it took over my entire body. I could barely stand or speak. But at the same time, I felt one step ahead of myself in the process. Since somehow I already knew what had happened, it was as if I was already grieving, and I was feeling myself respond to the news.

If you had to describe your grief as a literal landscape you've been passing through, what would it look like and feel like?

Many people talk of water when they talk of bereavement. In this case, it’s inescapable. Michael died in the sea, but he also strongly associated himself with water. He always had a deep respect and love for water, but knew its power. On our first trip together, we went backcountry camping in Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California, near his childhood home. We didn’t have a permit, and I was worried we would get stopped by rangers. In the middle of the night, I awoke with a ranger’s flashlight shining, I was sure, directly in my eyes. It turned out to be a full moon, which washed the beach in cold light, and spotlighted the gray fox breaking into our packs. We ran up and down the beach for hours. After he died, we scattered his ashes out over the sea near that beach.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

I’m sad that for all our history together, I find myself forgetting more and more details about him as his death gets farther away. His existence, which was so rich and complex, gets winnowed down to a handful of representative moments, quotations, gestures. I suppose it's just the nature of memory—how can you keep a whole other person in your consciousness?—but it still feels like a betrayal.

How did your people in your life support you in your grief?

My grief experience is unusual, especially in the case of losing a friend, because of Michael’s strong and intimate community of friends stretching back to childhood. When Jordan, who was not just his roommate but also his best friend from high school, died in 2002 of cancer, this community supported each other intensely. Michael’s death galvanized us in the same way. We were sad that we knew how to do this so well, that we’d already had the experience of losing a friend. But it was also comforting to know that we knew how to take care of each other. We were really able to mourn as a community in a way that I think was probably common when people lived in small towns and knew everybody. In concert with his family, we held memorial services in New York, where he lived, and in California, where he grew up. We talked frequently, and gathered on the anniversary of his death to mourn (we still do this when possible). Our lives have taken us in different directions but we still share an unwavering bond.

How did people who were grieving the same person respond to the death compared to you?

At one of those gatherings, a year after his death, two of my friends talked at length about how angry they were. Hearing that made me realize how little anger I feel about Michael’s death. Immense sadness and compassion, but not anger.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

There was no division. Because the community was so present and intense, the public display of mourning around his death was just a natural extension of what we were all feeling. Those public markers—memorials, scattering the ashes, gatherings, conversations—become a visible manifestation of private trauma. And with those people there never has to be a discussion—there’s always an understanding that his loss is there, and that it shapes us. Since we don't have to talk about it, we do, quite often, in an easy and fluid way. His death and my memories of him are integrated into my sense of self. My grief feels permeable, moving through me and out from me. Some part of me thinks of him almost every day, in mostly tiny ways. He’s simply present.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

Much of what I do is touched by his loss. My son is named after him. All of my artistic work is done with him somehow in mind. I recently sat down to start writing a new series of poems. A slew of water imagery suddenly poured out on the page, and I realized I was writing about Michael again. And it’s not just an artistic influence. I often find myself channeling his humor, especially his penchant for creating absurd monsters. He wrote a series of radio comedy sketches called “The Rubber Monster Factory”. Whenever I act out a funny monster for my kids, it’s his voice that comes out of my mouth. 

David B. Goldstein is a poet, critic, and food writer, whose books include Eating and Ethics in Shakespeare’s England and the poetry collection Laws of Rest. He lives in Toronto with his family, where he teaches English at York University.

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This post is part of Grief Landscapes, an evolving art project documenting the unique terrain of people’s grief. Participants share an experience with bereavement, and I then photograph an object that evokes the person who died, transforming it into an abstract landscape inspired by the story. I’m looking for many more submissions and for a range of experiences, so please share widely! Learn more about the project and submit your story. - Mindy Stricke