Roasted Marshmallow

Name: Ali Miller

Age: 39

Tell me about the person who died:

My mother died on the morning of March 3, 2013, in bed at her home in White Plains, New York. She was 66 years old. She’d been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma about two years earlier, and nine weeks prior to her passing she’d had a brain hemorrhage while flying home from India, where she was vacationing with my father. She’d been doing fine, mostly symptom-free, until she started vomiting violently on the plane. We assumed it was food poisoning at first, but soon discovered through a scan in a London Emergency Room that it was much worse: the cancer had spread to her brain. This was the diagnosis we’d all been dreading since learning about the typical course melanoma takes. She was medevaced over the Atlantic Ocean, from London to Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut. Thankfully she arrived alive and conscious, but she was, in many ways, a completely different person, unable to walk and hardly able to talk. Permanently altered, but still here.

I flew from San Francisco to meet her, my dad, and my sister at the hospital, spent that night alone in the ICU with her, and then, along with my father and sister and the hospice team, took care of her in our family home. Her prognosis was three weeks to three months. Putting my life and work in California on hold, I took up residence in the house where I had spent my high school years, devoting myself to spending this precious time with my mom and to doing everything I could to make her comfortable. I bore witness to her dying process and, after she’d been bed-ridden, brain-damaged, and in and out of lucidity for nine weeks, watched her take her final breath. Watching my mother gradually die before my eyes was both the most meaningful and most traumatic experience of my life. I’ve yet to experience anything as challenging or profound. I consider it the greatest blessing of my life that I got to have that time with her and to be with her so intimately in her final months, weeks, days, hours, and, most importantly to me at the time, her final moment.

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

In a word: complicated. Since my mom died I’ve also been through two very intense breakups, so it’s hard to separate out which feelings are tied to which events. What stands out the most to me is how, on a very core level, I feel much more alone than I think I ever have.

When I came back to Berkeley a couple of weeks after her funeral, I moved in with my boyfriend at the time. He took care of me as I gradually adjusted to being back in California, back at work, back “in the world,” after having spent nine weeks hardly leaving my parents' house. The primary way he took care of me was by feeding me: planning meals, cooking them, and literally handing the bowl or plate to me as I sat curled up on the couch or on the patio in the sun. When we broke up five months later and I moved into my own apartment, feeding myself became a huge struggle. I often felt like an infant longing for her mother’s breast, longing to be effortlessly nurtured, held, and cared for. The emotional pain of not having a mother anymore, but also of not having the support I’d been getting from my boyfriend, was excruciating at times. I spent many moments feeling extremely hungry but not being able to get out of my bed to feed myself, full of resentment that my body needed to be fed and that it was my responsibility to feed it. I ached for someone to take care of me. I still struggle with feeding myself sometimes, but not nearly as much, because I got professional help from an Ayurvedic Health Coach who has helped me take better care of myself. It’s not easy.

Every night before I turn my light out to go to sleep, I look at a photograph of my mother, and every night I shake my head in disbelief. Over three years have passed, and I still am dumbfounded every time I look at that picture and contemplate the reality of her being gone. Since I live in California and she lived in New York, I’d been used to not seeing her regularly, so it’s still really hard to believe that I’ll never see her again (at least not unless I get to see her when I die, which is what I wish more than anything).

In the first six months or so after my mom died, I often dreamt about her. In the dreams she would be alive again, but it would be clear that she was going to die again, so I’d always feel this mixture of joy that she was back, and dread that I’d have to go through losing her again. About a year ago I had my first dream of her where she wasn’t dying, and I was so happy, but then I realized that I was dreaming, and I woke up sobbing.

For the first six months or more, it was hard for me to be with other people and not have my focus be on the fact that my mother had just died. Wednesday was my favorite day because that’s the day my grief group met. I liked being with other people who “got it” and where the intention of our gathering was to talk about what was in the foreground for all of us. It was such a relief to not have to put it aside. Nothing was interesting to me for awhile, other than death and grief. Everything else seemed insignificant. Now it’s more in the background. In fact, a few months ago, at my 20th high school reunion, an old friend greeted me and said, “I’m so sorry,” and it took me a few moments to even know what he was referring to.

About two-and-a-half years after my mom died I got a dog, and she has been the best thing for my grief. After dealing with so much loss, it has been such a joy to gain a new love in my life, someone to take care of, to keep me company. The “Who rescued who?” bumper sticker says it well. She follows me around, always has her eyes on me, and clings to me in a way that gives me a deep sense of mattering. She’s my family. She’s about one-and-a-half years old, and sometimes I find myself believing that she’s my mom reincarnated. I find comfort in that thought, that my mom wanted to come back as a creature with whom I could share such an intimate, uncomplicated, loving bond. My mom and I, like most mothers and daughters, certainly had our fair share of complicated dynamics. But underneath any conflicts we had, there was always a bone-deep sense of closeness, mutual admiration, and unconditional love. I especially miss her hugs and the physical affection we shared. 

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?

Cold. Lonely. I feel helpless. I’m a baby calling out for her mama and her mama’s not there. A desert. Thirsty, hungry. 

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

A roasted marshmallow. When my mom was in hospice, she was on a steroid to keep the swelling in her brain down, which gave her a massive appetite (plus, after a lifetime of worrying about her weight, I think she was like, “Fuck it! I’m eating whatever I want now!”). She would “place orders” with me, my father, and my sister, and we’d serve her whatever she wanted. I remember one time she asked me softly but anxiously (her memory functioning was severely disabled), “Did I order my food already?” I couldn’t tell if she was confused and thought she was actually in a restaurant, or if she was being playful. In any case, one of her favorite foods to “order” was a roasted marshmallow. My dad had mastered the art of making the perfect roasted marshmallow by putting the marshmallow on a chopstick and holding the marshmallow over the electric burner on the kitchen stove, just the right distance from the burner so that the heat could create a flame on the marshmallow. He taught the method to all of us, and you’d often see us going back and forth from her bedroom to the kitchen for “one more” marshmallow. She kept asking for “one more,” not with words, because she could hardly speak and did so very sparingly, but by holding up her pointer finger and conveying desire through her eyes as soon as she finished the one she was eating.

This marshmallow image is joyful for me because I loved watching her enjoy herself, and the roasted marshmallows seemed to give her so much pleasure. The juxtaposition of all the suffering with the joy of a dying woman delighting in eating a roasted marshmallow, made by her devoted family members, in a hospital bed in her home… kinda says it all.

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

My boyfriend at the time was very helpful. He was in California while I was taking care of my mom, so I would call him most nights and fill him in on what was going on. He was a touchstone to my Berkeley life, and helped me remember life beyond the walls of my parents’ house-turned-hospice. He and some of my friends generously moved all of my stuff into his apartment so that when I returned I could live with him, rather than in the house I’d been living in with housemates with whom I was in conflict. 

Two of my closest friends, both of whom knew my mom, have also been hugely supportive to me in my grief. Their loving presence in my life over many years, their interest in the details of my inner world, along with their love for my mom, has made a huge difference in my grief process. I feel less alone because of them and the love of other friends and family members as well. 

Another big source of support has been connecting with my mom’s friends, some of whom I’d never met until they came to visit her. These were people who knew sides of her that I didn’t have access to, and who loved and cared about her very much. After she died, staying in touch with them has helped all of us keep her alive, in a way.

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

My parents met when they were 12 years old and became childhood sweethearts. They celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary on January 18th while my mom was at home in hospice care. I was worried about my dad losing his lifelong partner, and I was both shocked and relieved by how he handled it. He started going on dates with various women shortly after my mom died, and became much more social. Before I knew it, he had a girlfriend. He was really happy and full of energy.

While I wanted to go to grief counseling, write about the experience, and really focus on my feelings, he wanted to move on and focus on creating a new life. While I was clinging to my mom’s clothes and anything I could find that would remind me of her, he was donating and consigning her wardrobe. While I was trying to hold on to her in every way I could (reading her notes in the margins of her books, trying to figure out which passage in a book was meaningful to her on a dog-eared page, memorizing the lyrics to her favorite song, reaching out to her friends, taking dance classes, writing classes, and singing lessons to feel more connected to her since she was a writer, dancer, and music lover), it seemed like he was trying to let her go. 

While I’ll only ever have one mom, he’ll have other partners. At times this has been hard for me, especially when I start to think his moving on means he doesn’t miss, love, or respect my mom, but then he’ll say things like, “She was the love of my life,” or I’ll visit and see that he still has pictures of the two of them together, and I feel relieved. It’s strange but also sweetly connecting when he tells me about his love life, his dating adventures. I’m getting to know a side of him he’d never shared with me before.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

Being public about my grief has been very helpful for me. Right after I returned to Berkeley, I joined a writing class that my boyfriend was teaching, so that I could begin to write about my experience, hoping to share it somehow. When the class ended, I joined a writing group. I had visions of doing a one-woman show to tell the story, but that hasn’t come to fruition yet. About a year after my mom died, I spoke at a Service of Remembrance put on by the hospice where I received grief counseling. I had written a few pages about my “grief journey,” and I found it very gratifying, though nerve-wracking, to share it with other grievers.

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

My family is Jewish, and my mom considered herself agnostic. I would say I’m agnostic, too. So I often find myself wondering where she went after she died. A lot of people have convictions or even certainty about what happens after death, but I just have a deep curiosity. The questions “Where did she go?” and “Where is she now?” have been with me continuously since I watched her stop breathing that Sunday morning. The other question that comes up a lot is, “Will I ever see her again?” I hope I will. It seems curiosity and hope are all I’ve got—no beliefs or faith.

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

One of the things that has been most helpful is connecting to my mom through physical objects. I wear her wedding ring and diamond studs nearly every day, and on most days I’m wearing at least one article of her clothing and/or shoes. I like to feel her close, and this is one way that works for me.

As the three-year anniversary of her death approached this year, my goal was to memorize all of the words to Waters of March, which was one of her favorite songs. Two of her musician friends sang it at the funeral, and it has since become one of my favorite songs as well. The version by Susannah McCorkle is my favorite, and the beautiful lyrics capture for me the bittersweetness of life, which includes the mundane, the profound, the joy, the sorrow, and everything in between: from “a sliver of glass” to the “joy in your heart.” On her anniversary, I sang the song and made a little video that I shared with my best friend. I think it was the start of a yearly ritual.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

I think it’s made me more compassionate towards other grievers, and also towards myself for the many losses I’ve experienced in my life. For a while after my mom died, I was way more accepting of others, way less judgmental. I remember thinking often, “Judging others doesn’t even make any sense anymore. Our time here together is so short, why waste it being critical of others?” Unfortunately, that sense of acceptance didn’t totally stick!

Ali Miller lives and works in Berkeley, CA. When she’s not out frolicking with her little dog, Bella, she’s most commonly holding space for people in her therapy office as they grapple courageously with their own unique versions of this challenging human condition. She wants everyone to have the inner and outer resources to unabashedly enjoy the roasted marshmallows of life, and is doing her small part to contribute to that being a reality.  BefriendingOurselves.com

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This post is part of Grief Landscapes, an 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. 

Bathrobe

Name: Nancy Goldstein

Age: 70

Tell me about the person who died:

Her name was Millie K. Markison and she was my mother. She was very smart, kind, compassionate and remarkably generous. She was "an intellectual,” reading all the time—usually non-fiction (history, biography) and always the daily paper. She loved classical music and musical theater and had a lovely singing voice. She was an engaging conversationalist. 

A daughter of immigrant parents, she grew up in poverty and never forgot those who still lived there. She told me that when she was a child, she had one dress and had to wash it every night to wear it to school the next day. Sometimes she’d come home to an empty house, with everyone and everything gone, one step ahead of the landlord, whose rent the family couldn’t pay. She knew the drill: sit on the front step and wait for one of her older siblings (she was the fifth of seven) to come and get her to take her to their new home.

Despite (or perhaps because of) this precarious life, she had a wonderful sense of humor and the ability to make people laugh. She appreciated comedy that was sophisticated and quick-witted; she wasn’t a fan of slapstick or sarcasm. So many comedians and TV shows made her laugh: Jonathan Winters, Ernie Kovacs, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Steve Allen, Peter Sellers, F Troop, All in the Family, MASH.  Because she was an insomniac and enjoyed the company of her children, she made sure we stayed up late to watch the comedy shows with her. I think I was about 5 when I started joining her. Mom often babysat for our son, and one night my husband and I came home at about 11:30 pm to find Mom and our son, age 4, watching The Benny Hill Show.

Along with all these wonderful qualities came frequent bouts of major depression and constant anxiety, untreated in the 1950's, especially in women, who were simply given Valium and told to sleep it off. She was often incapacitated by these ailments, making family life challenging, to say the least. I never knew, as I walked in from school, if I’d have to make dinner because she was still in bed. I’ve been broiling chicken since I was ten.

I’m sure her ability to laugh helped alleviate her depression. As clichéd as it is to talk about laughter as an antidote to sadness, it’s also true. It’s really hard to feel sad when you’re laughing very hard. I think she took refuge from her depression in the laughter all those comedians brought her. Who knows how much worse it would have been if not for them?

She died of metastatic breast cancer in 1990 when she was 72. She'd been in the hospital for three months, at which point my father decided to move her to a nursing home. She died the night she was moved there. I'd been at the hospital during that day, had gone home that evening, and learned at 6:00 the next morning that she'd died.

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

Although I'd anticipated her death, seeing her body that morning in the nursing home was shocking. It was just that—a dead body. She—who she was and had been—was gone, no longer physically in my world, and I wept. I couldn't imagine life without her. 

The acute pain of her death is long gone but she’s never far from my thoughts. When she was alive, we spoke almost every day and I still go to the phone to call her when something happens I'd like to share with her. There’s so much she’s missed.

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

She wore her simple, white, terry cloth robe whenever she was at the beach, and did she ever love beaches! The robe reached to the middle of her calves, had long sleeves, and a terry cloth tie—like those robes you occasionally find in hotel rooms when you get upgraded. I have the robe, and it's in my closet. I'm never going to wear it, but I absolutely can't give it away.

Since she also suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder, her depression would worsen as the days shortened. But for the last ten years or so of her life, she was able to spend winters in sunny places, and she relaxed and her mood brightened. I like to think that finally, she was happy. Imagine! This woman, who’d grown up impoverished, could now spend time enjoying the warm sun and beaches in the winter. She never took her great good fortune for granted.

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

At first I'm slowly climbing a mountain of grief. Then I come to a high plain and I stay there for years, and perhaps am still there. But amid the fields of corn and wheat are occasional bursts of color: sunflowers, maybe lavender, and I talk to her spirit about the miracles occurring here--the hilarious things my grandchildren say, the new additions to our family, the things I hope she somehow sees too.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief? 

I was surprised at grief's ability to ambush me, even after years of coping with it. I still get tears in my eyes when I see a young woman pushing a child in a stroller and an older woman is walking beside them, just as Mom used to walk beside me as I pushed her grandchild’s stroller. Even as recently as a few years ago, I teared up while reading an article in the food section of the newspaper. The writer described a restaurant where she and her mother had enjoyed a lovely lunch the week before; it was a restaurant my mother and I had enjoyed too.

I also began to understand that a death can have unintended consequences. My mother's family is large and some months after her death, I realized I no longer knew what was happening in the rest of the extended family. No one was telling me the news. My mother had been the family switchboard operator for me and the switchboard was no longer operating.

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

The Jewish rituals of shiva (a week of mourning) and Kaddish (a prayer recited at synagogue services for 11 months) observed after a death were immensely helpful. Our family sat shiva for Mom for the full seven days, during which time friends and relatives brought food for us, said prayers with us and talked about Mom with us. I felt tremendously supported and cared for.

After shiva ended, my husband and I went to our synagogue every Friday night after dinner so I could say Kaddish. We'd been members for a while but had not attended services there so often. That regular attendance led to many new friendships and a real feeling of belonging. I could share my grief and feel supported in doing so. I still think of Mom whenever I hear others reciting Kaddish at services.

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

Often, my personal rituals continue to remind me of her. She was very shy and hated the idea of speaking in public. Whenever I speak to a group, I wear a bracelet she wore and as I approach the front of the room, I touch the bracelet, take a deep breath and say, “Mom, this one’s for you.” When I try a new ethnic cuisine I know she would have loved, I take a forkful for her. I think of her when I cook a brisket. When I attend a family event, her handkerchief is in my pocket, and I’m wearing her earrings. It makes me feel she’s there with us, as she would have wanted to be. When people compliment me on her jewelry that I’m wearing, I can talk about her, which is something I love to do. 

And I made sure to stay up late to watch Johnny Carson’s final night as the host of The Tonight Show in her honor.

Nancy Goldstein is a retired clinical social worker who continues to use her clinical skills as a hospice volunteer. She loves to travel and unless they have to cross an ocean, she and her husband Mel prefer to drive, if possible, as in: to Alaska...from their home in Maryland. She loves to cook, to laugh, and more than anything, she loves the company of her absolutely delightful grandchildren.

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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.

Shandy and Vodka and Coke

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Shandy and Vodka and Coke, 2016

Name: Leigh H.

Age: 21

Tell me about the person who died:

On Sunday, September 19th, 2004, at the age of ten, I lost my father to terminal lung cancer. I remember being pulled out of my grade five class to find out that we had to make a decision whether to "pull the plug" by Sunday night. I was not present for the decision, but I was informed on Sunday evening that my family decided to take my father off of life support upon the doctor's advisement. 

Flash forward nine years to early morning on Monday, March 4th, 2013; I was 18. I had spent the previous night with my mother on the palliative care unit at the hospital, just waiting for the gurgling to cease. She was steadily declining in health, since she could no longer swallow food or water. The doctor informed us that she had about a week left to live. But two short days after we were told this, the moment I left her to go home and shower, my mum passed. 

Both losses were equally significant, but struck me in entirely different ways. I’ve attributed the differences to the ages at which I lost them. I had more time with my Mum, and we had to fast forward through time as if we were running against it. I went from rebelling against her, always up against a wall, to taking care of her in her darkest days. The times she wept because I needed to be there for her and it was painful for her. The things I didn’t expect to hear until I was at least forty. Whereas with my Dad, it’s not that it didn’t hurt, it’s that I didn’t know. I was too young to comprehend what was going on around me, and I was kept in the dark because of my age. To me, the deaths are united by a feeling of incomprehensible loss, because when I lost my mum, I lost my father all over again. My world fell apart with an unavoidable immediacy.

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

Something that I’ve noticed about grief is that it has no boundaries whatsoever. It will invade every crevice of your mind, bones, heart, and spirit. It is a circular staircase, where you climb each stage of grief and then end up at the bottom stair again, because you never truly stop grieving. It is an ongoing process.

My grief has exacerbated my everyday anxiety and “depression,” whatever that constitutes. But what is grief if not the experience of loss? What is anxiety if not the fear of losing something? What is “depression” if not feeling as though you’ve lost your vitality, your source of content, your entirety, and ultimately your soul? Few understand this, and if this can’t be understood, how can my grief progress? How can I climb the stairs without falling on each step? 

I’ve been made very well aware that the losses I’ve experienced are rare for someone my age. It’s not that I desire for anyone to comprehend my loss in the same way—I would never wish that upon anyone. I do desire that my grief be understood, and a few years ago, I would have never expressed this. But recently, I have found contentment in sharing my grief with others. How else could I become comfortable with this experience if I didn’t speak about it? The stage that I have reached is “acceptance”–the top stair–but I will end up on the bottom stair again soon. It’s a natural process that is marginalized and dismissed, but in actuality, bereavement is essential to our well-being.

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?

Encompassing darkness, overwhelming confusion, skin crawling, desperation, melancholic, discontent, anger, red, black holes, tunnel vision, irreconcilable rage, tingling sensations, lost/sinking/falling, dizzy, light, hopeful, angels, emptiness.

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

We used to all gather in our basement for family time. I remember vividly the image of them at the basement bar—a shandy (beer and ginger ale) filled to the brim for my Daddy, in a distinct glass cup he had. He would be behind the bar pouring my mum a vodka and coke, or a Baileys, preparing for the evening. We would listen to music—they enjoyed American Graffiti and other oldies too. “Distant Drums” by Jim Reeves always made my mum tear up, as it reminded her of my dad after he passed. We would have ice cream, chips, and drinks. And play darts. My childhood, encapsulated.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

The most surprising thing was when my grief officially settled with me. When I was younger, it was difficult for me to wrap my head around everything. But I distinctly remember a point where I felt guilty for continuing on without my dad as I was a kid. Guilty for carrying on like everything was fine. And this feeling only grew after I lost my mum. It truly is life-shattering to lose your parents, and to pretend to be brave at times when you feel the most vulnerable. Grief allowed me to realize that it isn’t even the big things anymore; it’s not the holidays or the birthdays, it’s the little things. It’s my inability to run to my mother to share with her my day, how I’m doing in school, to gossip or cry on her shoulder. Or to share with my father a boy that I wish for him to meet, or to have him mold my everyday actions—and not just to have him influence me, but to hear him say what I’ve done right and wrong. To have that sink in.

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

The most frustrating thing for me with grief is that there is a skewed and widespread conception of grief being disordered if it goes beyond, stereotypically, six months. Some jobs only allow a few days off for grieving. How is this humanly possible? At what point did we tear death away from compassion and humanity? At what point did grief become something we get over, or move on from, because someone is still “with us” or “would be proud” of us?

Another substantial frustration for me is that people often don’t understand the sensitivity of the topic. For instance, I understand that some people do not get along with their parents. But when people complain to me for hours on end about a parent who, for the most part, is genuinely kind and treats them well? I become enraged, jealous, and selfish. This is the worst side of grief.

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

Something that I have noticed is that people try to compare grief experiences, but each experience is unique. The meaning you pull from it is simply your own. Even the role of the individual in your life contributes to the meaning you gather from their death. I found that with my mum, I couldn’t speak to her about the loss of my dad, because it was her husband. It wasn’t until she lost her dad that she truly understood. But the intimate love she had with my father formed her perspective, and I can’t disregard that. Similarly, these are my parents, and no one will understand the depths of my grief. However, they may relate to my grief in some ways, just as my mother did when she lost her father.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

The funerals felt like bombardments. I had chest pains. It felt like everyone and their mother was there, but the most important people were notably missing. 

I received comfort from people for about three weeks after the funeral. People ask you how you are, if you’re holding up okay, how your relationships are, and offer assistance. But when I really needed it, a year later—when I realized how difficult it really is to carry on—it wasn’t there. The mourning I experience now occurs privately since I’m past that “acceptable” time frame for grief.

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

I asked my mother to connect with me in any medium she could, to reassure me. She has visited me in dreams, and I’ve felt her energy. She has visited me more than my dad, and I believe this is because I was so young when he passed and he kept me in the dark with his illness. I was his little girl, and he didn’t want me hurt. He still doesn’t, and while he’s come a few times with my mum, I know this is because of her spirit.

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

There was a Christmas tree ceremony at Durham Hospice. Putting an ornament on the tree in memory of my parents, I felt as if they were there. I also wear a necklace and a claddagh ring my father gave to my mum, as it makes me feel connected to them.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

My grief made me appreciate life for all that it is. I’ve used my parents’ strength to bring me to where I am, and understand my weaknesses as acceptable in my journey—a journey I begin every day, in a physical sense, without two of the most important people in my life. They both passed young, and recalling all of my memories with them—good or bad—makes me value the time I have with them, and with anyone. I strive to believe that everything happens for a reason, and that people come in and out of your life for a reason, too.

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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. 

Belt

Name: Dave

Age: 43

Tell me about the person who died:

My mother’s name was Lynn. She died January 15, 2015 from Hepatitis C due to drug use. Our relationship was a violent and unhealthy one, as she was an abusive parent from my earliest memories. During her last few years of life, we did not have a relationship because I had finally grown to a place where I didn't feel guilty about it anymore. There was no obligation on my part. There was only self-preservation.

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

The object that reminds me of my mother is her belt. This is not just any belt. As a child, when I was 'bad', she would make me go and get the belt and bring it to her, so she could punish me. I was not hit with it in a standard way, as children in the past have been; I was whipped with it. She didn't just whip my bottom, she also whipped my back, and especially the back of my knees, while holding onto my head. Once it even wrapped around me and hit my crotch. I also recall, that as a young child, I would go get the belt and practice whipping my stuffed animals, so I could make sure that I did it right when I became an adult, because I thought that was part of being a parent.

I moved out and moved on when I was 15, and I hadn't thought about that belt again until the day after she died, when I found it while cleaning out her home. I was instantly in shock upon seeing it and grabbed it and took possession of it because it was mine...because it was ours together. I didn't know what to do with it. I brought it home and showed it to my wife and told her the story of the belt. The second night, I got completely drunk, overwhelmed with confusion and questions. All I could think was, she hasn't fit in this belt, or worn this belt for years–why did she keep it? It was in a drawer of keepsakes. There were birthday cards from her grandchildren…and this belt. A memento, like she wanted to remember what I couldn't forget.

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

I was told about her imminent death and I didn't want any part of it. I didn't want to make amends. I didn't want her to apologize. I didn't want to apologize. So I ignored it. I love my sister and my grandmother though, so when I was told that my mother could no longer speak and she was on her death bed, I went to the hospital. Trying to be a better person than my mother, I decided to go there for my sister because she was having to deal with the loss of her relationship with her mother, which had always been far different from mine. My sister said that she would give me a few minutes alone with our mother, so I could tell her what I needed to tell her, and left the room. I didn't say a word. Not one. I didn't think she deserved it. 

A few hours later, as we knew that our mother was in her final moments, my sister sat on her left side and I sat on her right, each holding her respective hand. As I held her right hand in mine, I realized the irony that I was holding and comforting the very hand that had hit me and brought me so much pain. 

The moment she died, I was instantly relieved that it was over, that she was gone. But then I felt that I had to fall into some sort of an acting role for my sister because she was devastated. It was a difficult situation because I wanted to dance a jig, but I couldn't because I felt I had to be somber. So I didn't give anything away. I was robot-like. 

The first night after Lynn died, I had guilt because I wasn't feeling grief, and that perhaps I should have been. Everyone was saying that she was the “only mother I will ever have,” so I kept trying to stir things up for myself, but nothing came. I felt like something was wrong with me.

The second day, I was feeling something, but I didn't know what it was. Upon exploring this with my wife, I realized that I was feeling a loss of some sort, but rather than grieving the mother I had, I was grieving the mother that I should have had, the mother that I deserved to have and would never have.

I no longer feel guilty. Something was telling me that I needed to feel grief, but I don't. I have a much better quality of life now. I can go out in public without worrying about bumping into her. I can be with the rest of my family at holidays because I don't have to worry about her showing up. I have my family back because she is dead. Most importantly, I have been able to reestablish a relationship with my 91-year-old grandmother, which had been impossible for years because of her daughter.

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?

It would look like a hurricane was just clearing, with all the wreckage and fallout barely visible, and with the sun and a bright blue sky following soon after. Chirping birds, water flowing, everything that represents life after a storm. Light after being in the dark. New life.

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

My wife helped me to understand that for my own sake, I needed to make amends with my past. That absolutely did not mean that I had to forgive my mother for all of the abuse and pain she had inflicted upon me for so many years, but perhaps I could forgive her for not being able to be the mother that I needed and deserved. That helped to shift my pain immensely, to a place that made more sense to me.

My sister and grandmother were both consistently trying to see if I was okay. They had the best intentions. But again, I felt as if I was acting, trying to be sad because they were or felt that I should be, or both. It wasn't helpful nor harmful, it was just very weird. I have always allowed my sister to talk about her grief, and I nod and give her space to grieve, but I cannot relate to her feelings. 

When others tried to comfort me, that was annoying. I have lived a life of lies. By giving up my relationship with Lynn many years ago, I stopped lying, so I didn't want people to feel sorry for me because I wasn't sorry. It was a bad relationship and it is over.

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

My mother’s relationship with other people changed over the years and she did become a better person towards those people. Therefore, they grieved far differently from me.

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

There was no formal funeral or memorial service for Lynn. From the time I was 5 years old, her wishes were to have her ashes scattered in the Niagara Gorge. Last summer, me, my wife, my sister and her kids hiked down to the gorge, found a private spot, and did exactly that. I did it for my sister, and for myself I guess because I had made a promise to my mother when I was a young boy that we would do that.

As a child, even being beaten by her, I loved my mother. I didn't know that what she was doing was wrong. When you are a child, there is no distinguishing between good and evil, you just love. When you are told that you are bad, you just think that you are bad, but you still love. It's not until you're an adult that you have the ability to quantify and qualify what went on.

How did your loss change you? 

It freed me. It freed me from being a scared 42-year-old man, from going out, from doing anything. The end of her life was a new beginning for mine.

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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. 

Irish Cape

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Irish Cape, 2016

Name: Merri-Lee Agar

Age: 43

Tell me about the person who died:

At the time of her death, my mum Sandy was my best friend and biggest fan. It wasn’t always that way; she and I butted heads from the time I was a teenager into my thirties. She’d had lung disease for decades, for so long that I don’t think any of us actually believed she would die from it. She was an incredibly strong woman who was much sicker than she ever let on. She lived for her family; her husband, her kids, her grandkids, and her one great-grandchild. Her family was everything to her and that was what kept her going.

A few years before she died, I started a Mother’s Day tradition where all the mothers and daughters in the family went out for brunch together. My Mum loved the idea and added her own touch to it by bringing a corsage for each of us: a single red carnation to be worn over your heart if your mother is living, and a white carnation if she has died. Being the matriarch, she was the only one who wore white. In the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day in 2010, she had not been feeling herself; she asked me to pick her up for brunch as she didn’t feel well enough to drive. 

As we drove the 20 minutes to the restaurant, she reached for my hand and told me how she had been to the emergency room the night before because she couldn’t breathe. Based on her history and her symptoms, the doctor had run tests and confirmed that her pulmonary disease had progressed to congestive heart failure. It was time to get her affairs in order; she was dying. While it was difficult to have confirmation, a part of me already knew. I told her that I would be there for her and would help her in any way I could, and she said she knew that. We spent the rest of the drive in silence, holding hands with tears streaming down our cheeks. At the restaurant, as she pinned the red carnation over my heart, we exchanged a look of understanding that the following year, mine would be white. 

June 29th will be six years since she died, just seven weeks after Mother’s Day and my last red carnation. She was 71.

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

I had a considerable amount of anticipatory grief. Not only over the several years of her declining health, but especially over those last seven weeks of her life. As soon as Mother’s Day passed, the busy work started: updating finances, advance directives, wills, funeral planning. I will never forget the day I watched her choose her casket and urn. Sitting in the selection room, she had a look on her face I had not seen before; a combination of peace and pain. She was tired of the struggle, and yet she knew that her peace meant our pain. That was one of the hardest days of my life.

It was her wish to die at home so her doctor educated us on what to expect and how to keep her comfortable. On June 26th, she became bedridden but was still completely lucid and we were still checking off her ‘to-do-before-I-die’ list. She had me email distant friends and relatives to thank them for their love and wonderful memories and we called the family home to say goodbye. We even had a minister come to the house so she could have last communion with her husband and four children—equal parts beautiful and emotional. I never left her side.

She was having more difficulty sleeping at night due to increasing discomfort, and I was sleeping in her bed with her, so we talked to distract her and pass the time. One night, I found myself confessing every “bad” thing I had ever done in my life, and found that she already knew about most of them! We laughed until we cried, and then she talked to me about dying. She wasn’t afraid, because she already knew where she was going. 

It was a story I had heard my whole life. She had hemorrhaged giving birth to me due to a rare and serious pregnancy condition that had gone undetected. The doctor was forced to perform an emergency hysterectomy to stop the bleeding and she was clinically dead for four minutes before he got her heart beating again. In that time, my Mum recalled seeing her own body lying on the operating table as she floated up towards the ceiling. She spoke of the bright light and feeling completely enveloped in an almost overwhelming feeling of warmth, peace and love. She heard a distinguished and welcoming voice speak to her, and she bargained for her life, saying that she had to go back; she couldn’t leave my Dad to raise three kids and an infant. He granted her enough time to raise her kids and see them grown and happy, but she wouldn’t live to be old. Because of that experience, she knew the beauty and the love there, she knew she wouldn’t be alone and she had so much gratitude for the 37 “extra” years she had been granted. 

The afternoon she died, she wanted to have one last euchre game with her friends so she decided to nap. I went out to the living room to go through albums to choose pictures for the funeral home slide show. As I came across one group photo, I placed my palm over her face to try to imagine her not here. As I did that, I heard her call to me, “Chumley, I need you” (Chumley was her pet name for me; mine for her was Mumley). What was incredible was that there was no way I would be able to hear her call to me from all the way down the hall to her room and with her door closed. I had heard her in my head, and I knew that it was time. 

When I got to her room and opened the door, her eyes were closed and she was moaning quietly. I went to her side and took her hand in mine and asked her what she needed. She opened her eyes and moved her hand to cup my cheek and said, “Just you.” I placed my hand over hers and told her that I wouldn’t leave her again. My sister looked in and I nodded to let her know that it was time, so she lightly rubbed her back while I gently stroked her hair, both of us trying to comfort her. Silent tears ran down our cheeks as we watched her skin change colour, from her toes towards her torso. While we knew it was her circulation ceasing, it seemed almost as if we could see her soul gradually leaving her body. Moments later, she turned her face towards us, and said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” and then she was gone. The person I had known to be my mother for 37 years was nothing more than an empty shell of a body. It was palpable.

In spite of all of the planning, reasoning and preparation I thought I had done prior to her death, nothing can actually prepare you for losing someone you love, especially a parent. It is impossible to contemplate what your life will look like without someone in it who has been there since you took your first breath. It felt like I had dreamed it all and I just wanted to wake up. I remember feeling confused and then angry that the world still looked the same and still sounded the same, and yet it was completely different. Birds were still singing and the sun was still shining. How dare they? I questioned everything. Was I still her daughter? Was she still my mother? Who was I without her? I felt that a physical piece of me was missing. As much as my Mum and I fought, any time I needed her, she was always there, and now, when I needed her most, she was gone. 

Weeks later, my husband gave me a grief kit and in it was “The Mourner’s Bill of Rights” by Alan Wolfelt. I was stunned by what I was reading. Everything that I was feeling that I couldn’t put into words was right there in front of me, and it made me feel less alone. I also saw the grief counsellor from the funeral home for a few months, and it helped me immensely. I learned from both that I didn’t have to let my Mum go entirely, that I was allowed to bring her with me in my life. I was allowed to talk about her and love her and keep her alive in memories and stories. I learned that death doesn’t end a relationship, it changes it. I began to heal. I still keep her close to me. I feel her with me, I talk to her and she is still the compass that guides me.

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

Her Irish cape. Her father was born in Ireland and came to Canada as a young lad, and she was very proud of her roots. She loved her drink, she loved to dance, and Murphy’s Law has always been quite prevalent in our family. It was always a dream of my Mum’s to go there, and it was always a dream of mine to get her there, but it didn’t happen.

But she will get there yet. My husband and I are planning a trip in 2017 to celebrate our 45th birthdays and I will be bringing some of her ashes with me to share with her father’s county and anywhere I feel she would love to “be”. Her cape is as green as any Ireland landscape, as were her eyes—as are mine. She only wore her cape on special occasions, but each time she wore it, she beamed with pride. So when she died, it was one of the few things that I wanted.

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?

Before my Mum died, with the anticipatory grief, I felt as though I was looking at a horizon way off in the distance, with gradual darkness leading to it. It turned out not to be far off at all, and after her death the terrain was more edgy and jarring than I expected. Almost immediately it seemed I was falling into a deep, dark pit. That was okay, as I wanted to be alone there and not have to deal with anything. So I did, for the first year–—it just seemed easier to get through all of the ‘firsts’ cold and numb. 

Then I started to climb back to civilization, only to find that what I thought was the top was simply a plateau, and that I had a much higher hill to climb. The second year was worse than the first year for me, because it was all about realizing that this was my new normal. I gradually climbed the rest of the way out into a more forgiving terrain, mostly warm, sunny, green and lush, though with bumps here and there.

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

My husband had never seen me in that state and didn’t know what to do for me, so he just held me, which was exactly what I needed. My daughter was 14 when my Mum died and she and I were already going through our own mother-daughter teenage crap. But she was hurting and so was I. She has never been a big communicator, so she would come into my bed and snuggle with me and we would just hold each other and cry together. I was thankful for that as I missed the snuggly little girl who used to be my daughter and I missed snuggling with my own Mum. I think it even gave me hope that one day my daughter and I would be as close as my Mum and I were—something to look forward to. And Panther, my cat and constant companion for 12 years at the time, could sense my pain and never left my side.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

Companioning my Mum at the end of her life inspired me to change my career entirely. She taught me that there is so much to learn from the dying–the stories that need to be told, the need to make meaning, the need for reconciliation, the legacy of their lives, and the beauty in all of that. So I became certified in Bereavement Education and Grief and Trauma Counseling, and became an End of Life Doula. I dedicate several hours a week to volunteering for hospice, providing respite to dying people in the community. People who are dying are alive in ways that we are not; it is an honour to work with each of them. While pursuing my education, I realized that my Mum not only chose me to journey with her, but had in fact groomed me my whole life to be comfortable with death and to care for the dying. This is what I was born to do, what she raised me to do. I could not feel more blessed or grateful.

Merri-Lee Agar lives in the Niagara region of Ontario with her husband and daughter. She is a Reiki Master and incorporates the healing energy into sessions with both grief clients and end of life clients to help make living and dying more meaningful. When not working or volunteering, Merri-Lee loves to be in nature, especially near water, and spend time with those who matter most.

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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 more submissions and for a range of experiences, so please share widely! Learn more about the project and submit your story. - Mindy Stricke

Crab Claw

Name: Erin McReynolds

Age: 39

Tell me about the person who died: 

In July 2004, when I was 27, I found my mother's body under a blanket on her bed. She had been stabbed in the neck by her boyfriend during an argument, and had been missing for three days. I had a locksmith let me in when the police wouldn't break into the apartment; I didn't know she was in there, but I knew I'd find some clue as to her whereabouts. Likewise, I didn't know her boyfriend was capable of killing her, but I knew—for a long time I knew—that something terrible was going to happen. To her, to me, it's hard to say; I grew up with a feeling of dread, and it hardened into something flexible and helpful as I got older. It's what made me clear-headed and capable of action when I moved the pillow on her bed and saw her hand there. I knew not to pull the blanket back further, not to see the rest. That it was not going to serve me, what was under there. That I was my mother now, and hadn't I always been? And that mother pulled me out of the room and let me rest on her home’s cool, terra cotta tiles, which she and I had painstakingly coated with sealant when she first bought the place, her first homeownership, when she was still employed, before she met him. I got down on those tiles and felt End wash over me. I heard it as a galaxy-sized book slamming shut. I saw it as an imprint of her hand, her right, white, soft hand, hanging limply in space, whenever I closed my eyes. To realize something you think you may have always known—to come to a moment you knew would always arrive but kind of hoped wouldn't. It felt like my own death.

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

Grief came in little springs, bubbling up in still moments, when I wasn't talking to police, to victim's services, my family; when I wasn't making lists, dialing strangers, ordering funeral arrangements; when I wasn't relaying the story to everyone I met: the clerk who sold me the makeup that would go on her face, the kind mortician who let me sit and talk because I was vibrating with trauma, someone in an elevator I think. I remember after taking stock of everyone who had come to say goodbye and show support—friends from my mother's better days, friends of mine from college whom I hadn't seen in years, my high school crush, my dad's side of the family—and I let myself fall on the casket in this kind of dramatic way that felt right and good but my brother pulled me off and held me instead. I kept saying I was sorry. And then we had a big party. And all the people came and we sang and danced and drank and laughed. We couldn't believe what we had lived through, and we celebrated that we did live through it. I woke up the next day and it was summer-hot and my dad had crashed on my couch and we both had monster hangovers, and I never felt more alone, more empty. It was the day I would begin to pick up and move on, and I had no idea how.

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

My grief is so intrinsically tied to trauma. I don't feel one without the other—one feels cool and heavy while the other is hot and spiky. About two years after my mother died, I went to a yoga therapist who moved various parts of my body and had me describe the resulting sensations in terms of color and texture. I described something green-gray in my chest, something smooth and glassy, and when she asked me to name it, I surprised myself with: Grief. Until then, I didn't know I had grief. I thought I had only trauma, anxiety, loneliness, hope, lust, and a number of other responses and motives, but not grief. As soon as I said it, something began to shift in my life. I broke up with a boyfriend who wasn't treating me very well, and met the man who would become my husband. I think what happened that day was I began to feel compassion for myself, for the very first time.

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

When my brother and I were kids, my mom came back from a trip to Ensenada with a crab claw she'd found on the beach. She used it to do an act from Señor Wences, a ventriloquist comic who was on Ed Sullivan when my mom was a kid: "S'alright? S'okay. Joo want to talk to my crab?" It made us laugh and laugh. She was so wonderfully silly, so adorable. To this day, I can't look at a crab claw without hearing that voice, and it always makes me smile—a little joke between me and her, wherever she is.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

How much beauty there was in it. Time slows way down, so you can see things happen in these tableaux. So much happens that you would otherwise miss: the way the flowers we threw in the ocean made a red, blue, and yellow path to Catalina island; the specks of blood on my grandfather's tissue as he hacked into it on the boat, and I realized what it meant for parents to outlive their child; how my mom's dog and I cried and threw our bodies against the bars of her cage at the shelter until someone opened it, and I knew I might never again share that howl of need with another animal.

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

Nobody knew what to say—of course they didn't—and when they stood there in silence, looking with that awful expression that says "I am beyond words for you but I am so sorry this is happening,” I felt loved and safe in a way I couldn't articulate then. I tell people now, when they say they don't know what to tell someone who is grieving, to just show up. Hold them if they want to be held, bring food they will not eat. Eleven years later, I remember the Indian food my friend Sara brought the day after, though I couldn't touch it. I remember my friend Brett, after the service, sent me Nick Drake's "Time of No Reply" and it was everything about loss. I remember my kind boyfriend's cool hand stroking my head, many, many times. I remember the mortuary wrote "professional courtesy" next to zero dollars owed on the pink bill. I do not remember a damned thing anyone said.

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

My grandmother was sedated, and her eyes, which are very light blue, went near transparent with grief. Later, she was angry, and that hardened in her and wore her out. I was annoyed by her anger then, in part because I couldn't locate mine, so I didn't understand it or its usefulness. My father talked, like me, a lot. He worked it out with his head, and could only let his big heart feel so much before he switched to head again. My brother—it's hard to say, because I project like crazy onto my brother. I made him call me every day when he went back across the country to finish school the week after it happened. He was more of a loner, so he didn't reach out to people. I remember he got this girlfriend not long after and when I asked if she was helping him through things, he said he hadn't told her, even after they moved in together. I worried endlessly about him; made myself sick with it. I made him promise me he would be okay, that I needed him to be okay. We're not great at being family, is the thing. We don't show our vulnerabilities to each other, and griping is our shared language. Griping and laughing bitterly. We're great at turning tragedy into a laugh.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning? 

I did nothing in private that I didn't write down with the intent of sharing it publicly. I wrote an essay the week after we took my mom's ashes to sea and applied for an MFA program with it. I knew I needed the right tools to tell the story. There is no private: I've been a diarist since I was eight years old, and a showboat, and a ham. I am an artist, so everything is grist for the mill. There's a scene in Contact where Jodie Foster is trying to describe to NASA what she is seeing, through the wormhole to the other side of space, and she says, "They should have sent a poet." That's how I feel every day I try to write about what happened. I went to the other side of space and I cannot make the words to convey it. But that's what I want my life to be about.

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

As early as the funeral, people were coming up to me to report where my mother was now, in what form. My very Catholic stepmother said she was with God, which my mom would have hooted at. "I am God, and so are you," she probably would have said. Her brother's girlfriend said she put a glass of red wine, my mom's favorite, on the mantel and was visited by her that night. Mom would have enjoyed that, too. We didn't go in much for ghosts. But she did believe in some kind of spirit—that we come from and go back to some enduring force. When I put her ashes into the sea to disperse and become totally lost to me, but part of everything, it was my form of prayer for that to be true. I believe in DNA and in the mind, and she's embedded deeply in both, so she is always with me, and that's been more sweet than sad.

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

Writing and reading. Reading and writing. I read Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, which nailed grief for me even though our circumstances could not have been any more different. That's the thing about great writing: it transcends mere relatability. I read Thomas Lynch's Undertaking, essays by the poet mortician of a small northern town. I read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, the book of short stories about war and trauma and loss and writing about war and trauma and loss. I read Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, because the things that are larger than words have to be wrought from words somehow. I flung myself across the page like I did across that casket, and I wrote my way into every part of it, sometimes elegantly, sometimes clunkily. The clunky times came when I forgot feeling, when I forgot the beauty of those slowed-down tableaux. When I tried to make it make sense. It doesn't make sense. Death will go on without your making sense of it, thank you very much.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

Here I will refer to the words of the poet they should have sent. Anne Lamott, spirit mother to all writers, said this about grief: "You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination." To this I would add, if you want it. And I did, right from the moment I saw her little hand there. And I knew she'd want it (joo want to talk to my crab?) for us all, too.

Erin McReynolds is the managing editor at Audible's online magazine Audible Range, and the web editor at American Short Fiction. Her fiction and essays have appeared in North American Review, Memoir, Split Lip, and others. She lives in NYC and is working on a memoir.

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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

Roses and Hydrangeas

Name: Lynn B.*

Age: 30

Tell me about the person who died:

I lost both my mom and my stepmom within months of each other. I was very close to both of them. My mother was a smoker from about the age of 11. She developed lung cancer and kept it from the family. We found out on the 4th of July in 2008, and it soon metastasized into her brain. She passed away 2 days after Thanksgiving that year. 

I was finally pregnant with my first child after having had two miscarriages, and my son was born on Valentine's day of 2009. I was still grieving the loss of my mom and coping with how to be a mom without having mine. Then on March 19th, 2009, the phone rang and I was told that my stepmom had died suddenly of a heart attack.

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

Looking back I don't remember a lot of my son's infancy stage. I was quite numb. We had moved to a different state for my husband’s job just before finding out my mother was ill and I had no friends or family out here. I sought out counseling and that's when it all seemed to click: that I am a mom alone without any moms left to guide me. That for my son I had to think about what my moms would do and be the best I can be for him and make them proud. A year later I gave birth to my daughter. My grieving heart was still on the mend, but my children helped me through each day. 

About two years later my best friend called me up asking if everything was ok with me and my husband. It turned out that her husband and son had seen my husband on a date with another woman and he had been making out with her in public. I am now divorced and happier that I have been in years. I have two beautiful children, friends that are like family and while I miss my moms every day I know that they are still with me and are proud of me.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

Yes, and apparently I surprised a lot of other people too including my therapist. I never asked for help with the kids. I did everything myself. I was wise beyond my years when it came to compartmentalizing. I didn't know how I would make it from day to day. It was extremely difficult.

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

My family was grieving as well, and they all became very quiet. We didn't speak much. My husband told me to get over it. He was tired of hearing about it. There is nothing that can be done about it, nothing to bring them back, so why dwell was his standpoint. That upset me, and that's when I sought out the outside counseling, which helped a lot.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

I didn't want others to know I wasn't ok. I held it together and would only cry at night. I didn't want the look of pity or sorrow from others.

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

My moms were very opposite people, so finding just one thing to represent both is a challenge. They both liked flowers, although my mom had a green thumb and my stepmother had a black thumb. My mom loved hot pink roses and my stepmom loved hydrangeas.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

It taught me that I am stronger than I ever thought I could be. Grieving my moms taught me how to cope with the "loss" of my husband of ten years as well as how to help my kids with the changes. How to turn a horrible situation into a positive impact on my life.

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

My life is like a forest with a very small stream running through it. When a tree falls down it feels dead, but the forest bed sees it as food and life and grows from it. The stream running through the forest brings with it change and new life like frogs and tadpoles. The water slowly changes the earth, not because it is forceful but because it is persistent.

*Name has been changed.

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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