Art Supplies

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Art Supplies, 2016

Name: Molly Mackay

Age: 45

Tell me about the person who died:

I grew up in a small village called Kilmalcolm in Scotland, and my grandfather was my closest friend when I was a child. He died when I was 7 on New Year's Eve. Every evening, my grandfather would ask me,”What shall I bring you home after work, Molly? Art supplies or chocolate?" Every day when he returned from work he would have something for me. We would sit in his room, talk about the world, and tell jokes, and he would talk about his life stories and ask me about my day. We would share a glass of Irun Bru or Lucozade (British pop drinks) and say "Cheers Beers” as we would clink our glasses. To this day I recall the sound of his voice. He was a tall, distinguished man, quiet, kind and a good friend to a small girl. I will always love him and remember him.

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

When my mom came into my room that New Year's Day to break the news that my grandfather had passed away I was devastated. I let out a loud scream.

The strange thing is the day before my grandfather died I had a sense that he was going to pass away. Even at age 7 I knew this. I have a memory of playing in the backyard and thinking to myself, "I need to go upstairs and see my grandfather one last time”. He was very ill and was too weak to get out of bed that day. I remember opening his bedroom door and asking him if he was ok and would he like a pencil and paper to draw with because drawing always made me feel better. He said no, that he just wanted to rest. I told him I loved him and closed the door. The next morning he passed away.

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? 

There have been some dark clouded mountains to climb but also sunny memories to reflect upon.

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

My family didn't handle grief very well because they didn't acknowledge it. It was never spoken of or discussed after the person passed away. I guess in a weird way that was their way of coping with it. I have always been more of the kind of person who thinks talking about grief and letting yourself go through it is far healthier.

I was seven years old so I dealt with my grief through drawing and doing art every day. This helped me greatly.

In general since then, although I do cry and talk about it somewhat when I lose someone, I deal with grief mostly on my own. That way it slowly makes sense and I can eventually accept it. I spend time thinking about the person, how they lived, my sadness at losing them; I do eat a vast amount of chocolate while doing this.

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

In Scotland we have the tradition of having the person who has passed away lie in their home for 3 days. The person is laid in their coffin as an open casket and friends and family members pay their respects to the deceased. It is cold enough in Scotland that doing this in a home is no difficulty at all. The belief is that the soul of a person lingers for 3 days. Thus the soul is present when family and friends come by to pay their respects.

This tradition wasn't done for my Grandfather but it was done for my Grandmother. I found it gave me closure and I was able to say goodbye.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

I learned to take each day as it comes and to try and not take life and the people you love in your life for granted. I also learned that even though the ones you love will pass away they never really leave you.

Molly MacKay was born in Scotland and moved to Canada when she was twelve years old.  She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario with her husband and her cat Toby. She enjoys playing her cello, ukulele & harmonica, painting from her home studio, and teaching art to children.

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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

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

Fork

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Fork, 2016

Name: Rebecca Merchant

Age: 29

Tell me about the person who died:

My sister Alicia was one of the smartest people I know. But she could be a bit of a jerk sometimes. It’s a difficult concept to explain if you don’t know her. I keep thinking that the only way I can explain it is that she was a jerk in the way your pets are jerks. They do things that annoy you, things that aren’t cool, but you can’t help but love them anyway. She was unapologetically honest and outspoken, and she almost never admitted she was wrong.

When Alicia was 19 and I was 13, she moved to Montreal to go to school. Although we wrote and spoke to each other during her six years there, she had her life and I had mine, and we lost touch a little. When I turned 19, she asked me to move to Toronto with her and I had the pleasure of getting to know her all over again. Our family isn't big on being super close and open, but Alicia and I quickly grew out of that. We didn’t need to share every little detail of our lives with each other, but we were without a doubt the most important part of each others’ lives. We even joked that we had sister “Spidey sense.”

Alicia was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 23, and she was 34 when she died from the recurrence. She learned the cancer had recurred a few months after her 30th birthday, and lived through treatment for the last 4 years of her life, switching from one trial to another hoping something would work. But I don’t like saying that she fought a battle. People don’t fight illness, they live with it, and it becomes a part of them–she was a writer, and language meant a lot to her.

She had a huge heart, and when she was on your side, she would do anything for you. Even at her sickest, she made time to know what was happening in her friends’ lives. She was not afraid to reach out to other young cancer patients; in fact she was quite active in a lot of communities, not only involving cancer. People often remarked that they were unaware she was sick because of how full of life and love she was. But she also wasn’t afraid to call people out on their bullshit.

In September of 2014, we were told she’d have 6 months left, but she died within 2 and a half. Her time in hospice was the first time my parents had been in the same room since their divorce. Alicia and I had talked about this possibility, and we would often think about the logistics and tried to imagine what it would be like. Thankfully, we had nothing to worry about.

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

Every day I see something that reminds me of my sister and I get that deep ache you only experience after a loss. But there is one thing that stands out the most–a fork. Any fork. 

Our first dinner out together after I moved back to Toronto, we ended up at a restaurant in Kensington Market. We were both new to the city and had just wandered around until we found something open. We decided to share a Caesar salad and order separate mains. The salad arrived and was placed in the middle of the table. I held my fork up in an attempt to offer it to her so she could use both forks to serve herself, but I couldn't formulate words to explain what I was trying to do. Alicia looked at me holding my fork awkwardly in the air, and clinked forks with me in a cheers. We both burst into laughter at the ridiculousness of it, and for the next 9 years, we would yell “Sister Power!” or “Fork Power!” and mock-clink our forks all the time. We could never tell the story without falling into fits of laughter.

What was your experience of grief like after your loss?

Even though Alicia knew she would likely die young, she was never very organized. After the obligatory heavy drinking with my friends in the wake of her death, I threw myself into trying to organize what was left of my sister's life. There were many moments of frustration and anger, usually directed at some poor soul trying to help me. I had to go back to work shortly after she passed, where I would try to hold back tears while dealing with the mundane details of my job. Ultimately, I kept my friends close. I talk about Alicia all the time, trying to keep her memory alive, because sometimes it feels like she was never here and that feeling is the worst. It's been a year, and not much has changed. I still see things I want to buy her and stories I want to share, and I send her direct messages on Twitter. I miss her dearly.

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?  

Dark, suffocating, tumultuous, but also light and freeing. I realize now I had been grieving this loss before Alicia even died. 

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

The relief I felt. I don't think I realized how hard the last four years with my sister were on me, because I had been so focused on her. She was in so much pain, and although she hid it well, I always knew. So I was relieved that she no longer had to have the horrible side effects of her chemo drugs. That I wouldn’t need to be super concerned if an unknown number called my phone and left a voicemail. That I wouldn’t get calls anymore saying Alicia was in the hospital again for X, Y or Z reason. I never fully grasped until she was gone how much I was putting her first. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.

I was also surprised by all the new friends I made. Alicia knew a lot of people, and many of them became de facto friends and provided me with a lot of support.

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

My friends surrounded me with love. They comforted me, drank with me, helped me clean out Alicia's things, cleaned my house, made me food, and kept me busy. Despite all the support, I still felt like I needed to do things for other people, rather than things I wanted for myself. It was frustrating that it was so hard to communicate my needs and have them be heard. Like going home for Christmas that year–it was important for them to have me near, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to surround myself with my friends. In the end, I went home, and although it wasn’t all bad, it was super tough, probably harder than staying in Toronto.

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

There were so many people—I think every possible reaction was experienced by someone. There was a lot of anger. I didn't experience anger, just profound sadness. Lots of shock, lots of drinking, but also a lot of support from and for everyone.

I have found that people often only want to remember the good in people, and don’t want to talk about the faults that make the person human. Thankfully, I have a couple friends who are more than happy to swap stories of Alicia not being on her best behaviour.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

I felt like I had to be so strong in public that I never fully let myself grieve in private the way I needed to. Due to Alicia's prominence in the Toronto storytelling scene, I felt like I always had to keep it together, despite knowing that people wouldn’t care if I just lost it. Even private moments would be interrupted with the need to be public ready at a moment's notice.

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

We grew up Baha'is, and although Alicia and I stopped practicing, there were several aspects that felt calming, familiar and grounding in a time of turmoil. My mom and our family friend, Vikki, were involved in some aspects of a Baha'i burial (namely the prayers) and when I went back to Kelowna for Christmas, the Baha'i community there wanted to have a little ceremony for Alicia. Being with people I’ve known my whole life and falling back into familiar patterns was extremely calming.

How did your loss and your grief change you?: 

It's made me realize that I need a career change. I'm thinking that I might make a good death doula, which is ironic, because I initially moved to Toronto to become a midwife, which didn’t happen. It really showed me that I am a caregiver deep down, and that is my true calling.

Rebecca Merchant moved to Toronto from the Okanagan Valley in BC shortly after graduating high school. She is currently working in research, but hopes to one day pursue Death Midwifery. You can read her sister Alicia's story at bombinmybelly.typepad.com and alittlebitworse.wordpress.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 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

Vinyl Record

Name: Jennifer S.

Age: 47

Tell me about the person who died:

My best friend Michele died of a heart attack in January 2015, at just 46 years old. She had struggled with health problems her whole life and I knew I would outlive her but I didn’t know that my time with her would be that short. We met in college and were best friends for 28 years, and I will be forever changed and empty at losing her. Luckily I’m also very close with her family and even call her mother “mom.” Her mom and I have mourned together and shared our sadness as well as our appreciation of being lucky enough to have had her in our lives.

I know I'm biased but she was seriously the most selfless person I knew. She always put everyone else first and was like that even as a child and throughout her life. Sometimes I think I unconsciously took advantage of that. 

What was your experience of grief like after your loss?

Shock for the first couple of days and then I sprang into task mode thinking of all the ways I could help the family with the funeral arrangements. We had two services, one in Portland Oregon (where she resided) and one in New York (where she spent the majority of her life). Helping the family really helped me emotionally and made me feel like I was doing something for Michele. In the months since I have felt such an emptiness in not being able to talk to her and share life with her. I dream about her quite a bit and talk to her in my head.

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?  

A black hole morphing into a desert. I was emotionally blank at first and slowly I've come into the light but I'm searching through an emotional desert that seems to have no end.

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

Michele loved music and vinyl, and Prince was her absolute fave. She dressed in purple in high school and had those big round sunglasses. She also loved The Knack. In high school and college she had this great old 1970s 8-track; she would play “My Sharona" on it over and over, blowing out the speakers.

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

My husband was incredible. He helped booked my tickets to Oregon and New York and other tasks that were needed. He was very upset as well because he really loved Michele but he put my grief before his and supported me emotionally throughout and still does to this day. My family was also wonderful. Everyone knew Michele and loved her so there was a lot of grief around.

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

Culturally our family doesn't show emotions in public and saves that for private times which I know I echo. In public I didn't show any grief. It's hard for me to do. Only my family saw that side of me.

I've never subscribed to any particular religion but I have been studying the bible for a year or so now for the first time in my life. I had joined my local Unitarian Universalist church before she died, and having a newfound faith and church community definitely helped me cope with my grief.

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

I prayed for her family. This gave me some internal peace.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

I feel more alone in life. I trusted Michele implicitly and she knew me better than anyone on the planet. She was the closest person to me and no one else will ever be that close. That will never be replaced or replicated.

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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

Armani Cologne

Name: Francesca S.*    

Age: 46

Tell me about the person who died:

James was my husband, my soul mate and the bravest man I ever met. I loved everything about him: his laugh, his hands, his intelligence, his irreverence, his sense of adventure, his hunger for life. He was big and bold and the most fun I have ever had. He was the best and scariest rollercoaster, the best song, the deepest belly laugh. He made me feel I was capable of anything, that I was finally fully alive. We accomplished more in our years together than I can fully comprehend. He was ready for anything, loved by all, and had dealt with more physical pain and illness than anyone I know. Every day was a triumph and a struggle. Born with hemophilia, he was given tainted blood and co-infected with HIV and HepC. He died suddenly of a heart attack one hot summer night in 2008, not long after we married and a few months short of his 40th birthday. I will never be the same. 

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

James was smell to me, deep spicy smell. He was a smoker, a secret one, always trying to quit and keep it from his family. He smoked on the back deck and in his car, so whenever he was about to see his family, he would stop in a random parking lot, spray the car and then himself with Febreeze, and then douse himself in Armani cologne. He had a bottle in his car, one in mine, one in his bathroom and others littered through the house. Everything he owned smelled of it, and his iPod and his watch still give off the scent. The bottle was important too, big and black and bold with a gold top with just a little bling, like James. I cannot think of him without the smell of it permeating my memories and I cannot smell it without thinking of him, closing my eyes and breathing deeply.

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

It has always been a completely embodied experience. I hurt all over, my skin peeled off my limbs, I could not eat, and I soiled my pants in the emergency room when they told me he was dead. The experience was sleeping in his t-shirts and putting his huge ring on a necklace around my neck. It was falling to the floor and sobbing uncontrollably everywhere and anywhere. It was quiet at times and full of resolve. It was remembering that he wanted me to go on, and it was confusion and hurt. It was the roof leaking and the ceilings coming down in the months after. It was the dog I adopted and who was the only living thing I could be with after he died. It was wanting to die a lot of the time and then wanting to live for him–at exactly the same time. It was deep anger and no memory, nausea and panic. 

The panic started slowly at first and then grew into full blown panic attacks that lasted for five years and still visit me to this day. That became not wanting to be in groups or with people who didn’t know him, not being able to work much but being able to teach. It was also very spiritual. In the year or so after he died, the tv and the lights on the bookshelf he had installed would turn on by themselves, and he appeared to me once, not fully, but I saw his outline standing in the dining room with light behind him. I knew it was him, and my dog, who was standing on the sofa and barking her head off, knew it was him too. He also woke me up one night, shaking the whole bed to get my attention. So I visited a medium. She allowed me to “talk” to him, and he told me how much he liked the orchid I put by his side of the bed and wanted to know why I had changed the duvet cover he had made. He said he was sorry for scaring the dog. 

A year and a half after he died, another medium led me to information that sent me into a tailspin and deep mental and emotional distress. I went quite mad. But it was the only thing that set me free from him, let some light in for another relationship to happen. And happen it did. I married again, to a happy, strong, loyal and protective man with a knack for the truth. But my grief makes me hyper vigilant, and I worry still that it will all end again.

My grief for James remains embodied. I still smell him from time to time, I feel him (though less), and I talk to him. The grief is quieter, like someone tired after sobbing too much. I could not be more grateful that he chose me, so I take what he taught me: how to laugh, how to live big. I do it as best I can.

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

It was a jungle at first. Hot, humid, wet, murky, dark. I hate humidity now as he died on a hot night and my body starts to tense up the minute it gets hot in the summer. Then it was very, very cold, with many mountains that I could not go around; I had to go over, alone, with my pup. I would take rests and then keep climbing, and sometimes think of going to sleep in the snow. I was so tired. I could not get warm. I wanted to just stay in bed, but I had to go out again and climb. I actually got over the mountains, and now it’s gentle hills. Some bad weather from time to time, but mostly gentle hills, open skies, and sun. Just like James would like it.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

The panic. I knew I would be sad, and I knew I would be mad, but I was unprepared for the terror that gripped me. I felt as if I was going to die every day from a heart attack. I felt my family were all in danger too. I worry over my second husband too much, and I still have deep panic at the slightest physical symptom–because I should have been more vigilant about James, because I should have prevented it. 

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

Some people were incredible. My parents, my brother who came for the weekend to help with all the stuff,  my old friend who came to stay with her new baby, my former PhD supervisor who had lost her husband. A group of widows I met. A neighbour. The friends who kept sending food. The people who have lost their ‘most important person’ understood. James’ friends were incredible. They made me go to yoga and the movies. 

But there were many who had no idea what to do or pretended it didn’t happen or said ridiculous, minimizing, dismissive things. I had no tolerance for bullshit. I lost people. I think I was blamed for his death. But people go mad after death. I see that now. I see my own role in the cycle too.

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

One person who loved James deeply has not celebrated Christmas since he died. There have been major illnesses in his family since, and more death. The pain seems unrelenting there. His friends get together to talk about him and grieve him and laugh and I love them for it. There is also a social media space dedicated to him.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

They were very similar. I let them seep into each other. It was part of the healing to allow the tide to come and go out when it needed to. I think this freaked people out. I didn’t care. I got very bold with my grief. I mourned big.

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

James was Greek Orthodox and I really appreciated it. Not at the funeral, which I did not understand. But the traditions of marking particular days were all very important to me. They allowed the grief to have space and time. At the third-year mark his Dad told me I could love again now. That I was ready. I felt it. I also loved the sitting stone we made for him that says ‘He taught us how to live’. I sit on it and talk to him. The sun always comes out.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

Everything changed. I feel people’s grief now. I respect it. I research grief. I write about it. I respect mediums. I respect grief rituals. I have patience for grief. I have patience for anger. I have patience for panic. I feel like I have been chosen to help people free themselves of grief limits or ways in which they are not allowed to grieve.

*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

Crescent Wrench

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Crescent Wrench, 2016

Name: Mark K.

Age: 63

Tell me about the person who died:

My father was a family practice doctor who retired early, at the age of 60. He continued to consider himself a doctor, though, until his recent death in January at the age of 93. He had many health issues and after his retirement he spent much of his time diagnosing his own infirmities and felt that he and the doctors were working as a team—and I think he considered himself to be the lead doctor. 

My dad was born on a farm in Iowa and lived in small towns his whole life. His father owned a John Deere tractor dealership and my dad learned early on to fix things, build things and grow things. He defined himself as a doctor, a father, a husband—someone who made decisions, worked hard and got things done. When he could no longer work, and later as his other hobbies and his role as a provider became more difficult, he became depressed, feeling that he was no longer useful, as if he was losing his identity. At the same time, he became more philosophical and spiritual and, at times, less authoritative and judgmental. We could have “meaning of life” conversations and he enjoyed some of the quirky stories that I would write. He even tried his hand at poetry—this from a man who didn’t really see the point of reading fiction or watching movies, perhaps because it meant paying attention to a “made up” story.

In his last years he could barely walk, even with the help of a walker. He loved it when I would take him on drives, though. He had a special fondness for Fairfax, California, a small town near our home. It amused me that he liked it so much, being that he was such a straight-laced Midwesterner at heart—Fairfax is sometimes known locally as “Mayberry on acid.” He would see little cottages on small lots on narrow lanes and observe mountain bikers and joggers coming and going and exclaim, “I like this place—these people know how to live, how to get outside and enjoy nature and live in homes that are just the right size.” In fact, he told me once that as he started to get a bit of dementia and have trouble remembering things and distinguishing between reality and imagination, “Fairfax” became a special word for him. If he could still remember “Fairfax,” he knew that he was still thinking clearly.

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

There’s a lumber yard in Fairfax that has an area in the back with used tools, lumber, doors, windows, fixtures and the like. It’s called “The Away Station,” maybe because that’s the place you take things that you would normally throw away. When I first took my dad there, he said that he thought he had died and gone to heaven. He wasn’t able to make it upstairs to the rooms with used tools, but he would have enjoyed that. He had quite a collection of tools and cried the day that he gave them up and moved them to my brother’s house. The one item that might represent his passion for building, fixing and being useful would be a crescent wrench. It couldn’t be just any old adjustable wrench, though. My dad always told me that the Crescent brand was really the only kind of adjustable wrench that was worth owning.

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

My dad was in pretty good shape up until about a week before he died, when he must have had a small stroke which made it harder for him to communicate. His eyesight was almost gone and he started to hallucinate. He expressed his fear about dying and described being transported up a hill on a train, moving toward a door. This really bothered him and I worked and talked with him a lot, trying to make the end easier or at least less fearful. I even tried to give him metaphorical tools to make the train stop if he wasn’t ready. I spoke of things he was familiar with from his lifetime of fixing and building—brakes, welding, chains, locks, a roadblock. We slowed the train a bit and it even went back downhill for a while. Eventually, after two days of this restlessness, he became unconscious and then finally the end came.

My mother and sister and I were with him at the end. It was at the same time the most difficult thing I have ever done and the most natural. I’m glad that I was there with him, and I hope we helped make the transition though that gate he feared a little easier.

My grief started with a profound tiredness, and images of his last days that were hard to get out of my mind. The tears still come from time to time and I catch myself saying, “Oh, I need to ask my dad about this,” or “Dad will get a big kick out of this,” and then I remember that I can’t share things with him anymore.

Has anything surprised you about your experience with grief?

Maybe I’m surprised at how I was able to be present and calm at the time of passing. I’m a little surprised that I suggested that we break out some brandy moments after my father’s body was taken away, and also that my mom and sister agreed that it was a good idea. 

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

It’s been very comforting to me when people say kind things to me about the passing of my father. I wrote a little something and posted it on Facebook and it was nice to hear from people in my life today as well as students from long ago, relatives from Europe, and friends with whom I had lost touch. Some people apologize for taking so long to say something, but I actually like that—it’s like the support is spread out over a period of time. 

Some reactions are a little odd, though. Sometimes I’ll tell someone that my dad passed away and they don’t really say anything—they talk about other things, almost like they haven’t heard me. Maybe they feel that they are saying it without saying it, but are too uncomfortable to come right out and address the issue. A couple of people who were once close to me haven’t responded at all—and that makes me sad.

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 is experiencing a fair amount of regret along with her grief. I have felt some of that, but mostly I feel pretty good about how my relationship with my dad was at the end. I don’t think there were any unsaid “I love you’s” or apologies. He wanted to end his days at home under hospice care, around his family, and that’s exactly what we did.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

I wouldn’t say that it’s too different. I thought that I might be breaking down in front of people, but that tends to happen only when I’m alone. I’ve learned, too, that there are some tender personal things that I can’t share with everyone, so I only talk about those things with people who I trust and I think will understand. I’m coming to realize, though, that there are more of those people in my life than I thought.

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

My dad was Lutheran and the rest of the family is Catholic. He seemed to become more religious as time went on, and said that he was spiritually comfortable with his death and confident he would go to a better place. As much as I want to believe in the same way, I am not as certain of all of these things. It was ironic, then, that I found myself reassuring him of his faith during his final days.

I do find the rituals and prayers of my Catholic religion comforting during the grieving process. I have long put off deciding what, exactly, my faith and religious practice is all about, but my father’s passing will probably lead me to examine this more carefully. 

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

We decided to have a small prayer service just for immediate family right after my father passed. To my surprise, my brothers, who both live quite far away, decided to come as well. We set up a table with photos and mementos from my dad’s past—there were tools, his old doctor’s bag, a microscope, a John Deere hat, a picture of a street car that he had rebuilt, and a carpenter’s apron. Someone said that looking at that table gave you a good picture of what my dad was all about. It turned out that that ritual was very beneficial to all of us—we put it together very quickly, but it helped us to process what had happened and support each other.

I had planned a trip to Yosemite with a couple of childhood friends and we went ahead with the trip just a few days after the memorial. That was the perfect thing for me at the time—good friends who knew my dad, lots of laughs and stories. We played music and spent time in nature. It definitely helped with the healing.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

There is something profound about being with my dad when he died—talking with him and comforting him and talking about his faith, even when he wavered and was fearful at the end. It made me feel like I could be present with something that uncomfortable and unsettling without being afraid. It confirmed something that I hoped was true about me, but I wasn’t sure about. It made me want to be present to comfort others when they are fearful or hurting, and it made me hopeful that I can face my own difficulties and the end of my life in a peaceful way.

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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

Crib Rail

Last week, I posted the story that inspired Grief Landscapes—my friend Lindsay's account of losing her young son. This week, her husband Adam shares his perspective.

Name: Adam J. Fleischhacker

Age: 40

Tell me about the person who died:

Miles was my boy. He was exactly sixteen months old when he died. He went to sleep at day care, and basically never woke up. I’m so thankful that his passing was peaceful. He spent about 24 hours on life support but we believe he was already gone. When we turned off the machines, I held his little body in my arms until his heart stopped. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever done, but so very important to me to have done it.

Miles was a joy. My favorite thing to do was to hold him face-to-face while we just shouted with each other. A joyous, life-affirming shout-off. He had crazy good dance moves, the most charming smile, and the brightest eyes you could imagine. Of course he could be a real crab too. He loved his bottles, and demanded them all night long. He didn’t have very many words but he said “Dada.” He was just starting to walk. Miles was a colicky little guy in the first six to eight months or so, and I always believed it was because he wanted to move. He wanted to get up and go, crawl around, explore, do stuff! So when he first started standing on his own and taking steps, he would get this amazing delighted look on his face like “Holy shit, I am walking! Can you believe this?!” It was magical to witness. That was Miles.

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

Miles used to stand at the foot of his crib and bite the rail, then shift his weight and rock side to side, sliding his bottom teeth back and forth. He left these nice big scratches in the white finish. People assume it’s sad to talk about your lost loved ones, but I love to talk about Miles. However, one of the things that’s hard about losing him at only sixteen months is that not very many people knew him, so there are fewer opportunities to recollect him with others. What I love about these scratches in the crib rail is that he quite literally left his mark. He really was a guy that wanted to take a bite out of life (distinct from his brother who was more cautious and laid back), and along the way he added some nice texture to his crib rail. 

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

At first I felt shock and numbness. That sort of became a fog that lasted probably a year. At the same time, I felt mentally clear and focused as far as what needed to be done for our surviving son, Miles’ twin brother Reed. I was open to accepting help, even ready to ask for it, which is normally very difficult for me. I didn’t want to be alone. I was so grateful for the family and friends who descended on us and I was scared for them to leave, so I spaced out the visits from all the people who offered to travel to see us.

Then there was the anger. There was no one to blame but I was (and sometimes still am) just furious at the world. If life were a game, I didn’t want to play anymore. I wanted to quit. Not hurt myself, I wasn’t suicidal. I just didn’t want to do anything or be anywhere. I wanted not to exist. I was tired, and slept a lot. Found it hard to focus or do any kind of work. But slowly I became more and more focused on what I wanted my life to look like moving forward. 

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

It’s empty and dark. Endless, yet also impossibly confining.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

I was surprised to be able to communicate and share. I didn’t feel the need to protect others from my grief. The profound darkness was surprising in a way—I guess that I could have the will to continue in the face of such horror was surprising. Also it’s surprising that it can open you up in a way. Open you up to accepting the love that you feel pouring in from others. Open you up to be more patient with your fellow human beings—especially strangers you encounter who might otherwise have frustrated you with bad driving or inconsiderate grocery store etiquette for example.

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

Just being there is the number one thing people can do. Be with you. Then of course there’s helping with the logistics and all the administrative BS. People from work were bringing food constantly. That was amazing, the volume of support and the number of people who wanted to pitch in. It was frustrating when people shied away. Or worse, when they tried to bring up their grief as a way to relate. I think my number one pet peeve is anyone who tries to talk about a miscarriage as a way to relate. It’s apples and oranges. I can’t comment on or judge anyone else’s pain, but losing a child that you knew and spent time with who had a personality is much worse than a miscarriage. It just is. 

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

My wife took it very hard, of course. She spent the first three days or so sleeping almost the entire day. She couldn’t eat at all. She just shut down completely. We were both just devastated obviously. But we were also grateful, right from the beginning, that he did not suffer, that no one missed anything, or was neglectful. That we truly felt nothing could have been done. My parents and siblings were devastated but I didn’t notice much beyond that, I was too consumed by my own grief. I didn’t feel much obligation to notice anything about what they were going through.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

They were pretty closely linked I think. I probably tried to keep the public mourning more shiny than the private mourning. Show my resolve to go on. Be strong and all that stuff. But I have many close friends that I was very comfortable being open with; and I knew, maybe instinctively, that it would ultimately be good for me and for them if I tried to be as open as possible.

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

Culturally I think we have a completely warped view of death and grief. We try to ignore or bury it. I did that too before this happened. It’s ridiculous. We are all going to the same place, so why do we pretend that something’s gone wrong when someone dies? We all die, we are supposed to die. I’m not saying it’s not tragic, and that loss is not painful. But the idea that life should be free of pain and grief seems to be a cornerstone of our culture; the idea that loss and death are an aberration - it just makes no sense.

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

We held a super small memorial service with just close family a few days after he died, and it felt essential to set aside that time to gather and commemorate. At the one-year anniversary of his death we travelled to New York and had a memorial with our closest friends, most of whom we had not seen since he died. That was extremely helpful to me. To have everyone come together, acknowledge his life, acknowledge our loss, and have our friends stand by us and say “Your loss is our loss too. We carry this burden with you.” To pass the one-year mark, to face all those people, to accept their support, and to remember Miles in that way, I felt as though I’d been through a portal on my grief journey.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

Losing Miles broke my heart, permanently. But it also broke my heart open. I think I’m more sensitive, more patient. I feel stronger (some of the time – there are still times when I am completely crushed, devastated beyond all reason). I feel more focused. I think the little worries in life bother me less. I’m no longer afraid of death. I want to be around to raise my other son, and there’s a lot of things I’d like to do in this lifetime, but I’ll be glad for the relief from this grief when I shuffle off. And although I don’t believe in heaven or any kind of afterlife that we can possibly understand—maybe I’ll be with Miles again, even if it’s just in oblivion. I guess the simple version of that is: either I’m wrong and there is an afterlife and we’ll be together, or I’m right and I’ll be gone so it won’t really matter. 

Adam Fleischhacker is a director, editor, writer and producer of film, television and video. He spent twenty years in New York producing and editing television, making independent films, and creating and hosting a web series for Food Network. He recently returned to his hometown, Cleveland OH, where he continues his work, karaokes with his wife, and plays with his son.

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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

Sneaker

Name: Lindsay F.

Age: 47

Tell me about the person who died:

Miles was one of my 16-month-old twin sons. Our struggle to conceive was a long one, and at 44, I was thrilled to be having twins, as I knew it was my last chance. My boys were both born big for twins, but Miles was bigger than Reed at 7lbs 8oz. He was always hungry, very colicky and seemed totally miserable until about 3 months, when he started to emerge from his alien-like infancy and grow into the bubbly, curious and fearless little boy whose barrel chest, stocky body, and cherubic face made it impossible to stay mad even after he’d destroyed all he could get his chubby fingers on. He was a terrible sleeper, but I got so used to his wake-ups that sometimes when he actually slept for a long stretch, I would secretly wish for him to wake up just so I could hold him and look at his long eyelashes and his face, round as the moon, while I fed him a bottle. He was joyful, bossy, and exuded a willful love and interest in life that was magnetic. He loved to be held and tickled, and was incredibly tuned into others’ reactions to him—he was 100 percent extrovert, and gazed into my eyes with all love and connection I could ever ask for.  

On the day that he died, in September 2014, I kissed him goodbye in the morning as he went off to daycare, and got a call just after lunch that he had became unresponsive during his nap. They eventually got a pulse, but had he survived he would have been brain-dead, and he died within 24 hours. The autopsy is unclear—he had a routine virus in his system—adeno virus C—and severe pneumonia. The lab lost the sample of his cerebral spinal fluid so were unable to determine whether the virus had spread to his brain or it was the pneumonia that killed him. There were no signs that he was sick—the daycare reported that he had a good morning and ate a full lunch. And then he just died, without a hint that there was anything wrong. I was told by several doctors that it was a perfect storm of catastrophic events in his body—a one-in-a-billion circumstance.

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

Though our boys couldn’t yet walk, they were required to wear shoes at daycare, so we bought them each their own sneakers when they were about a year old. Miles’ feet were a size larger than Reed’s, so this was one of the few things they didn’t share. To me, his sneakers represent the corporeal, which is so much of the way one relates to a baby—his pink feet that I squeezed and nibbled to no end. When he did start to walk, the sneakers represented his fearless will to move forward, to explore and delight in the world around him.  

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

At first I couldn't function at all—I couldn't eat or sleep. The shock and horror was unimaginable. I was so confused. My arms felt empty. Of course I still had Reed to hold, but my arms ached for Miles, and I imagined what a phantom limb ache might feel like.

Slowly, I began to return to the tasks of daily living. Now, much of the time I try to stay distracted and busy. I’m helped by talking with friends and family about their lives, the mundane tasks of keeping up with a household, and the joys and stresses of taking care of my surviving son. At those times I think I'm ok, that I can live with this and am getting used to the new normal. At other times the intrusive thoughts of that day’s chain of events and the well of sadness and longing are unbearable.

I worry about my surviving son incessantly, and am full of fear when he gets as much as a sniffle. Did I miss something with Miles? I have to save Reed from the same fate. It’s totally irrational and yet persists. I sometimes question why I'm still here. For a long time, I felt that losing Miles made me less myself. I only knew him for 16 months, but he was such a part of who I’d become, I wasn’t sure who I was without him. Talking to my grief counselor and friends and family makes it easier. As does numbing out in front of the TV for hours on end. Sometimes it seems like a different life, I feel so far from him. Other times it feels like it happened yesterday and my heart breaks open again.

Reed is too young to understand but has had adjustment issues, not surprisingly. This will be something he grows up knowing, and I’m sure his feelings and reactions will change over the years, and we will need to learn how to discuss it with him at each stage.

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 its worst, a post-apocalyptic or desert landscape—empty, barren and full of ugliness. At its best, a sidewalk in Anytown, USA.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

The way I can't predict it. It’s hard to know what will set me off, and also, what will help me get back on track. The most surprising is the depth of the loneliness. My husband and I sustained the exact same trauma and loss but are rarely on the same page in a given moment, nor do we often talk to each other about it. We mention Miles all the time, things he used to do, what he’d be doing now, but to grieve to and with each other feels like too much. To bear it oneself is hard enough; to fully expose the depth of suffering to one’s partner feels like an onslaught. So we protect each other.

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

Friends and family just being there, not afraid to go there with me, has been most helpful. We’ve had lots of visitors and being able to talk, or not talk, has been a godsend. Every card, every gesture toward Reed, every mention of Miles’ name, any type of remembrance means so much. Least helpful are people who've said nothing. 

We moved to a new city after it happened, to be near family, and so I’m meeting a lot of new people. I’ve stopped telling people that I lost a child. I find that their reactions are too much responsibility for me; the shock on people’s faces, as well as the quickness to change the subject, is too much to bear. Most of the people we do know here rarely mention it. When I bring up Miles’ name, they are often silent. But I know people are doing their best around a topic that is misunderstood and kept in the shadows. 

Miles inspired this project and I’m so grateful for that. It would be much better if we all could learn to communicate about grief and loss—it is so taboo, so unmentionable that the bereaved can often feel isolated and different. We are “that family” now and I sense from many people just how “other” we are. Not bringing up my son because you think it will upset me couldn’t be more misguided. I’m always thinking about Miles. When you don’t shy away from the topic, or you say his name, you are standing with me in remembering him; his life meant something. I regret all the times that I didn’t mention a loss to friends and family who were grieving because I didn’t want to upset them. I too didn’t understand.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

I don't publicly grieve. I feel a pressure to keep it together in front of others and also to protect them, and myself, from their reaction to our story. I only feel safe exposing my grief to those I think can handle this level of suffering.

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

I wish I had religion or spirituality to turn to. It would be helpful to believe in something—a rationale, heaven, an afterlife. Not having those things makes it harder.

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

I’ve written a lot about it, and to Miles directly.  And I’ve shared emails with good friends about my grief. Talking on the phone was too much for me in the beginning. Email correspondence was a way to stay connected, be heard and understood.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

I feel an understanding of the human condition that I might someday appreciate, but I’m still too raw to assess that. I’m much more sensitive to the plight of humanity and human suffering. Things just never feel "right" anymore, even if on the outside everything seems ok. I do have tremendous gratitude and appreciation for the people in my life, and for others with whom I have a positive interaction. When I’m present, even in the most routine of interactions, I’m allowing the power of connection to enrich me. Even my errands are different now—a conversation with a cashier seems to take on a greater significance. I am a more authentic person now. It's easy to see what really matters.

In Crib Rail, the next Grief Landscapes installment, Lindsay’s husband Adam shares his experience with grief after Miles’ death.

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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

The Toronto Sun

The Toronto Sun 

Name: Lisa P.

Age: 43

Tell me about the person who died:

Jose was my father. We called him Joe. Some of his nicknames were Joey, the Dalai Lama, and Jack, because people thought he looked like a Spanish version of Jack Nicholson. In 2003 while I was away in Mexico, my dad was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma and given 3 months to live. He died on August 10, 2013. I was with him when he died, and saw him breathe his last breath. 

My dad was a very genuine and real person. His laugh was large and he always helped others. My dad had big hands and when he died they were arthritic and twisted up a bit. He was someone who understood me more than anyone I knew. He helped anyone he could. I miss him like crazy. My dad and I talked on the phone a few times a day as he didn't have much to do.

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

My father was a coffee truck driver. And as a coffee truck driver he sold copies of the Toronto Sun newspaper. I remember him picking up a huge stack in the morning and as he drove from factory to factory the stack would quickly disappear. But he always kept the top copy for himself.  A tattered and torn copy, he would read it every day when he had a break, although he only had a few breaks during his 12 hour days. For the most part this was the only time I saw my dad read, but it was a ritual that he enjoyed daily while drinking his coffee. My father was a very practical man, and whenever I see this paper, I immediately think of him.  

What was your experience of grief like after your loss?

Even though I had a lot of time to prepare for his loss, I felt numb. And as I write this, I realize that I still feel numb. And angry. Angry that one of the best people in the world was taken away early. Along with my grief came an understanding of injustice. Couldn't the bad people of the world die instead of the nicest guy ever? Because his sickness lasted so long, I was not quite prepared for the finality of death. I cry a lot and sadness is closer to the surface. I also talk to people about it a lot because, well, I think we should. Everyone has lost something.

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

Some people think that there is a due date on grief and that you should feel better about it. But the helpful bits were when people just understand that the sadness will never really go away, it will just dull a bit.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief? 

Just that it lasts so long.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

I have always been very public about my mourning. I have also had two miscarriages in the past six years and feel that my community and the world at large shouldn't be shielded by my mourning. I think of cultures where people mourn out loud, and that is what I did. At first I tried to be more calm, and then when I felt tears and anger, I just told people that was how I was and if they couldn't deal, to leave. Which really, no one ever did.

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

I think that being Spanish and open with my feelings made it easer for me to grieve.

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

I wrote a lot. I drew photos of my father. I touched things that were his and for a while I wore a few of his shirts, which sounds creepy. I am in the process of making a quilt out of my dad's old shirts for my son. It won't look like much but it will be the Grandpa Joe quilt.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

I am a bit more serious and quiet. And have a bit more of a fuck you attitude. If you don't like it, don't look. I also realize that I am very aware of how short life really is. It sucks.

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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

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