Approaching July 25th: Alysia's first "Heaven Day"

I begin writing this one year mark blog entry almost a week before the actual date.  Yesterday while at the gravesite watering Alysia's and her nanny's flowers I expressed to Katie that I have been feeling rather numb whenever I think of Alysia this week.  That numbness was scaring me on so many levels.  Was it denial kicking in? Was it my brain protecting my heart? Was I forgetting Alysia? Was this what healing feels like?  I didn't like it one bit and was causing me some anxiety all week.  I don't want numbness to mean I am healing.  I am a passionate person who feels so much.  I don't want to end up being someone completely different than who I was before Alysia passed away.  I know that I will "never be the same" but I don't want to be numb.I still want that passionate side of me to remain.

As soon as I shared that with Katie at the gravesite, I cried and cried and spoke to Alysia aloud, still wishing I could hold her close to me.  When I say these things during these moments of crying/mourning I find myself surprised that after "so much" time I still desire to be able to hold her.  It surprises me that my brain still can't wrap itself around the idea that I will never be able to hold her again, on this plane at least. I constantly analyze all of my feelings and how they relate to Alysia's death.

In moments of happiness I ask: What is making me happy despite my grief? How long has this happiness been lasting? Is this moment of happiness happening more often? Is it lasting longer? Have I made a mental note of what is causing me to be happy so I can go back to that in times of sadness? And yes I still feel a tinge of guilt when I realize I've been having a happy moment.

In moments of sadness, I tend to question it less because it's more obvious but I do ask: How long since I've had a crying spell like this? Are they becoming less frequent?  Is this moment feeling less intense?

In numbness I ask the questions I mentioned above.

In anger, I ask: Am I really angry at what is happening right now (unrelated to Alysia's death) or am I just angry with my grief, my losses?

In anxiety I ask: Why am I afraid? How does this anxiety relate to my "grief anxiety" (as I call it). Is it the same or is it different?

My brain never rests but I feel this is what is helping me heal.  How can a person heal if they don't know what is causing the dis-ease?  How can a person treat the dis-ease if they don't know what makes it better.  Conscious awareness of all thoughts and emotions is vital despite it being exhausting and annoying at times.

The other day, I put my hand on a co-worker's belly.  She is pregnant and has a beautiful baby bump.  I asked if I could touch her belly.  At that very moment a flood of emotions hit me but I did not show it.  First I felt very sad, then I felt very guilty for feeling sad.  This wasn't about me, it was about her joy and excitement.  Then I felt very afraid.  The fear stuck with me for a long time.  I felt I may have "cursed" her baby somehow.  That because I lost my child, that by touching her belly, I may have passed on my shitty luck onto her.  I struggled with this for a long time.  I know it is absurd but I don't know if I will touch her baby bump again, just to be sure.

These are the emotions that run through a grieving mother's mind.  These are the rational and irrational thoughts. They linger a long time.  It's been almost a year and my brain still struggles with it all.

Since my last blog post, good things have happened.  We bought a place and have moved into it a few weeks ago.  It's not fancy, it's not big but it's home.  It is surrounded by good neighbors, surrounded by trees and birds and squirrels and chipmunks.  I'm living with my love in a home we love.  Katie's parents came for a few day visit from Ontario and I finally got to meet them! We adopted a cat who we've named Dobby. She is a bit feral but is slowly coming around. She is our baby.  Physically she reminds us so much of Terra but she is not like Terra at all. She is her own cute self and we are blessed to have her in our lives. We love our jobs and are grateful for not just the job itself but for the people we work with and the little perks we get through our jobs.

Our baby, Dobby (our house elf) who's personality is much like Dobby from Harry Potter :)

Today I received a nice homemade card from two coworkers/friends showing they were thinking of me at this one year mark coming up.  They gave me a gift certificate to one of our favorite restaurants.  I said to Katie when I told her about the card and gift that I feel as though, despite my unimaginable loss and other losses throughout my life, I feel so blessed for the life I have because of the friends and family in our lives and the jobs we have.  It is as if my heart still has a hole in it but grows(my heart) with feelings of love and gratitude. Is this the new me?  This I am willing to accept. I know the hole, that is Alysia's absence, will never disappear but if my heart can continue to grow with love and gratitude, this will bring me peace... with a hole in it.

Although our new home has no memories of Alysia attached with it, I have created a sacred space outside in the yard that invokes her presence some how.  I love this little space with the garden gnome from my soul sister Suzy, a crystal that Alysia owned and a fern that I have had for a long time ( I dug it out of our garden in Fairview when we moved and have dragged it with us, every move, ever since. I plan to put it in the ground at this home) and feathers I keep finding. This space feels like Alysia even though there is no picture of her and nothing of hers other than the crystal.  I have managed to bring her energy into our new space and this makes me very happy.  I don't know what I will do in the winter when it's all covered in snow but I'll come up with something I'm sure.

After seeing how long this blog entry is, I will blog again next week about the one year mark.

The cost of death

This will be a short post but it's something I wanted to share with people. Parents generally expect to outlive their children, I know I did.  When I started my job at St. Mary's University I was asked if I wanted to sign up for life insurance on Alysia.

When the funeral and burial was all said and done, it cost $15, 000 and I went to collect from my insurance and was told I didn't opt for dependent life insurance. I could picture myself in the HR office filling out forms, first day there, nervous and excited,  and I probably felt that getting life insurance on my daughter was somehow wrong, almost feeling like I would be putting some strange hex on her if I did. It wasn't much insurance I could have received, $2500, but it sure would have helped.

But the one thing we also didn't think of is what will happen to the plots around her?  We have to be buried next to her or close to her! So yet another expense incurs in purchasing in advance, our plots.  Between Tomi and I, the total bill for the plots were around $5000.  So in all reality the funeral cost $20, 000.

Luckily through the generosity of Tom Sr. and some money left over in Alysia's estate we were able to cover these expenses.  The money side of death is very disturbing to the soul.  I received bills and cheques and it tore at my heart to think my daughter's life  was summed up in account numbers, and cheques and funeral bills.  The stress it put on me was unreal. It took us a long time to be able to chose the headstone design because we hadn't paid the burial bill until five months later.  We were not allowed to get the headstone until the bill was paid.  Seems harsh but it is a business. A business dealing in death.

Those commercials you see on TV about life insurance and not burdening your loved ones left behind, maybe hokey, but they are true. Children don't get their own life insurance so it is up to the parents to think of the worst possible thing that could happen and buy an insurance policy on their children.  Please believe me, it doesn't put a hex on them. Alysia passed away despite my not purchasing life insurance.  Hopefully you will never need to use it but trust me when I say, it would have made my life a little easier in such a hard time.

It takes a village to kill a child.

  The medical examiner talked to me the day I found out Alysia passed away to tell me they were going to do further tests. One being toxocology and the other taking her brain for a neuropathologist to look at as she was experiencing black outs weeks before she passed away.  The rest of the autopsy didn't show up much.  She had endometriosis and fluid on the lungs. Day 2: The medical examiner asked me what I wanted to do with her brain after they were finished with it.  Already I had to deal with the nitty gritty of her death. They also told me it could take up to 8-10 months to get the results back. They called me February 3rd at work,  just over 6 months later.

I fought long and hard with my conscience and ego whether or not I should write about this.  I wrote this post a few months ago but it sat in my drafts, it was too soon and it was based on speculation.  There is no more speculation. In order to truly understand the process of my journey, I must go where I don't really want to go, I must kick my ego to the curb. Not knowing the cause of her death brings on many many issues and questions that are so hard to answer, but not knowing allowed me to set those issues aside. There was no point of going to different scenarios if they didn't really apply anyway.  Although I suspected the cause, even knew (as a mother does) the cause, I could still put it off for a while.

I write what follows with great trepidation because I don't want to embarrass anyone, I don't want to blame anyone and I don't want to hurt anyone.  I write what follows to make a point of how we are all responsible for a person's suffering.  I write this for the young people of today who have so much stress and anxiety and who are being treated by doctors who push pills instead of talking to their patients,  who have been raised by parents who loved them so much...maybe too much.  I write this for the young people with body image issues, and issues of insecurity.  I hope that this post scares you young people who think drinking and doing prescription meds is safe....it is not! Take it from me an extremely distraught grieving mother of a deceased 20 year old daughter.  You think it won't happen to you?...maybe it won't but Alysia's death is testament that it can.

Alysia recently was suffering from anxiety, she was pretty much a stable kid up until she started university. She put a lot of pressure on herself for good grades and her first year of science in university was very good.  I would tell her that first year always sucks as far as marks goes but no, she had to prove the world that she could do it.  I noticed a change in her anxiety levels, but to compound this pressure, her nanny was dying of cancer, her dad and I after 20 years of rocky marriage finally decided to split up, she moved out to be with her boyfriend, and I tell her that I have fallen in love with a woman. All this within a year.

Her reaction to Tom and I breaking up was not one of surprise.  She just wanted us to be happy, she said to us.  She told me she didn't blame me for being with a woman after being with a man for 20 years (she said this with a sense of humor but meant it...I think.) Yet I blamed myself over and over again for increasing her anxiety. Tom and I both felt that maybe if we didn't break up she wouldn't have been so anxious.  I blamed myself for confusing her by now being with a woman.  I worried that she felt replaced. I spent many nights crying with guilt over rocking Alysia's world too much too fast.

Alysia would come over with Josh and I would notice things that made me worry.  I asked her many times how she was doing. After I had heard about an acquaintance's 18 year old daughter committing suicide I immediately called Alysia and asked her if she was ok.  A little voice inside of me felt Alysia was on a precarious road and I asked her over and over again if she was ok, offering her whatever I could to help her out should she need me and she would tell me she was getting better.  She was taking medications, she was beginning to feel better.  I wasn't told until after her death about the black outs.  She had kept that from me. 

She was also self medicating apparently with alcohol.  She was experiencing a lot of pain and the alcohol, so I'm told, was helping with the pain. Today it was confirmed.  She accidentally overdosed on alcohol.  Her blood/alcohol was at "lethal levels", the ME told me today. It wasn't a conscious suicide but it was a slow numbing of pain...physical and emotional...to me they are very similar.

I feel anger...anger at the world, anger at myself and all of us who knew her.  This world has too many pressures and we've become complacent.  Afraid to rock the boat, afraid to get in other's business, afraid to get sued, afraid to get involved in case it requires us to put in more effort than we'd like, afraid to stand up for what is right.

I feel anger at Alysia for not reaching out to us. No matter how much the outside world has a role to play in her death, it was her actions that brought on this outcome and that is the hardest thing to accept.  As a parent I can not help but wonder where I went wrong in my parenting that she did not make the right choices or did not feel she could tell us.

Apparently anti-depressants can cause cravings for alcohol, evidently mixing anti-anxiety pills with alcohol can be lethal.  Doctors should be telling this to young people! I am angry at the medical world.  Young people on these meds should be closely monitered. If she would have been living at home, I would have researched every drug she was on and I would have parented her accordingly...but I let her fly away from the nest, and she decided she could handle this on her own...and she failed. 

I know that she would not have wanted to cause us such pain and sadness purposely and that is probably part of the reason why she wouldn't talk to me or her dad. I know Alysia thought she could do this and get away with it.  I know eventually she would have woken up from these stupid behaviors and changed.  She had done this before with other life challenges, she would have done it again.  She gambled with alcohol and she lost.

Please know women and especially young women, we can not tolerate alcohol and drugs and cigarettes like men.  It kills us quicker, it makes us sicker if it doesn't kill us eventually.  Please I beg the friends of Alysia and anyone else who reads this to seriously consider what you're doing when you're partying it up.  Consider the pain and grief that your parents and friends and partners would go through should you have pushed the envelope too far.  Remember my blog and how over 6 months later I still cry every night because of my pain and sadness.  Remember how much Josh is suffering from the loss of his partner.  Remember how much her dad is struggling to keep it together. Remember how much her grandparents have suffered from tragedy after tragedy in their longer life times.

That is all I have to say about her cause of death.

What was that sound?

I remember the first time I laughed after Alysia passed away, the sound of my laughter startled me.  Did that come from me?  It seemed so far away from where my head and heart was that it belonged to someone else.  It was the strangest sensation.  For weeks that was how my laughter felt. At first I couldn't comprehend how one iota of me could find humor in anything and yet here was my body laughing at something.  How bizarre that is when you feel so disconnected from your body.

Over time when I would laugh or even have a good moment it no longer startled me, the disconnect was beginning to reconnect.  My mind and heart were also feeling the laughter and the good moment but then I would feel tremendous guilt.  What right did I have to laugh or have a good moment when Alysia could no longer feel those moments?  What right did I have to have a brief moment of happiness when I lost my only child?  What sort of twisted mother would ever find happiness under these circumstances?  Did I not have a heart?  Am I that cold that I could find a good moment, a good thought, a good feeling within these circumstances? Oh my God, did that good moment mean I am forgetting about her? Or I am squashing the grieving out of selfishness to wanting to be happy? Then the heaviness would set in, the mourning, the fear and the tears would come back.

After a while I would equate happiness with heaviness.  After going back and forth from happiness to guilt to sadness, eventually the feeling of happiness automatically came with sadness and guilt.  There was no processing between the two. So when a good moment was happening I would constantly feel a cloud of heaviness on my heart and a feeling of fear that I was forgetting Alysia and a feeling of guilt because I didn't deserve to be happy since the worst possible thing was happening to me and the family.

As I write this blog, I am having a strong moment, in fact I have had a fairly strong week and I write what follows knowing full well I could slip back at anytime.  They say time heals all wounds, and they also say that grief is a wound that people don't want to heal because it is the grieving person's way of feeling connected to their loved one who passed away.  So how does one balance this constant tug of war on the wound? The healing that automatically happens with time, the healing done divinely on it's own.  Just as a physical wound heals without our conscious thought so does a grieving wound, unless of course we keep reopening that wound because we are afraid to see it heal. Unless we keep reopening the wound with our conscious thought.

Once at dusk I was feeling that sadness creep up on me and quite frankly I was sick of it but knew I had to let it run it's course like I do everyday this happens to me but a little voice in my heart said to me "You have a choice, you can choose to let this carve a path in your psyche that every dusk is a scary time or you can choose happiness." Ha! Easier said then done...BUT I vowed to at least try, to at least trust that little voice and so I began changing behavior patterns...replacing some mourning rituals I developed with new behaviors.  It doesn't always work.

However, this past week I've felt a shift.  I hear myself laugh and it feels like it's coming from me! Oh and what's this? I am feeling happiness without the heavy guilt and sadness? I am beginning to feel more like me again. Again, I stress this is a good week, next week who knows? It doesn't matter right now because right now I am feeling happiness, I am actually looking to the future with hope.  Grieving is not linear, it's back and forth, up and down, inside out, outside in, it's forward in time and backward in time.  Each of those moments are real.

It is a relief to know that I can feel happy and feel hope without forgetting Alysia.  I still cried this past week but they weren't those heavy despair tears.  I still miss Alysia but that feeling isn't accompanied with wanting to not go on.  Somehow the swinging of the emotional pendulum is coming to a middle point where I can be happy and hopeful and still be connected to Alysia.

A New Normal: A term I resented for a while

I have written a blog post this past week that hasn't made it yet to the blog.  It sits in my draft half written too hard to continue with.  Too hard to put up but I know it will go up eventually. I felt like I couldn't move forward with the blog because of that one 1/2 written post haunting me in my drafts.

On my day off today, it is raining and I felt the need to write about what I am feeling. It is the 12 week mark since Alysia passed away. I flipped through my journal and I saw these couple of sentences written 4 days after her funeral "Me again. I feel as though I am being stretched in ways that no human heart can endure. I hate this term "New Normal" that everyone is using...."

During the funeral week, Tom sr had us all over for supper.  There was Tomi, Josh, me, Katie, my mother and Tom Sr. and I looked around and thought to myself what a family of misfits...there was Tomi my ex, talking with my same sex partner Katie, there was my very French outspoken mother from Washington talking to Tom sr the shy very maritime-like ex-father in law.  Not long ago I was in that same yard with Tomi, Alysia, Carol and Tom sr.  living the "normal" life of a heterosexual married woman.  It is funny how what appears on the outside to be "normal" may not always be the case.

Just to get this out of the way because I know many wonder but my marriage to Tomi did not end because I am a "lesbian" as many would easily assume.  I don't identify as lesbian.  All I know is that Tomi and I decided to split up in December 2009 and he moved out in March 2010.  In December 2009 I began talking to Katie online strictly as friends...as we talked more and more over the next couple of months I found myself falling in love with her soul.  I never thought I would fall for a woman but there was something about Katie that pushed aside her gender and my heart fell for her.  There was no stopping it, it was meant to be.  I suppose the term I most identify with is "pansexual" where it is not the gender I see but the person's soul.  If Katie's soul would have been in a man's body, I would have fallen in love regardless. However at the same time I don't think Katie's soul could have been in a man's body, it just wouldn't fit.  So no, I wasn't a lesbian in denial in a 20 year marriage that would have made my marriage a lie.  My marriage and my family, was my identity.  I was a married woman with a beautiful daughter.

...now my family gatherings consist of my ex-father-in -law who recently lost his wife and who accepts me and Katie.  I love Tom sr. very much and I was afraid to lose him when I told him about Katie and I.  There is Tomi my ex who was a very important part of my life for over 20 years who I still care for very much, here is my partner Katie who I love like crazy trying to fit into this family of ex's, there is Josh who just recently came into our little family but quickly became a part of it and there is my mother who has had so many struggles and who was also trying to wrap her head around this new family dynamic.

Almost 3 months later I still feel in between the old normal and the new normal.  My whole identity was stripped from me in the past two years.  I am no longer a hetero married woman with a daughter working as an Assistant manager at a retail store.  I am now a grieving mother, which at times makes me think that I am no longer a mother, in a same sex relationship working as a library technician in a university library.  How could one person's life be completely turned upside down yet still completely encompass parts of the old life in such a painful way.


The death of Alysia is forcing me to embrace a new normal that is very emotionally painful, very mind bending, very physically exhausting. At times I just want to run away, it takes far too much effort to make this all work.  Not just for me but for all others involved...every one of us has to wrap their heads around this new normal. A new normal of ex's, same sex partners, death, aging, financial strains and intense loss.  But I know that I, for one, also see moments in these family gatherings of love, hope, support, laughter, a deep understanding, an invisible connection.  At one of these gatherings at Tom sr's house I walked out of the bathroom and saw Carol sitting in her rocking chair.  It startled me at first but then I knew she approved of these new gatherings.  Not only did Carol approve but that invisible connection in my mind took the form of the love from Carol and Alysia viewing these gatherings from where ever they were. For Carol and Alysia, I would do whatever it takes to make the new normal work.

This was taken just shortly after the funeral. Alysia's grave next to her nanny's.

"Your library will shake itself apart"

I have what seems like a contradictory collection of books. I have books on Christianity (Catholicism in particular), paganism (wicca and druidry and shamanism), books on New Age, herbalism, natural healing and other subjects. When someone looks at my shelf they will see "Witch's Kitchen" next to one of many versions of the bible I own. Tom used to say the book cases were going to shake themselves apart from some sort of spiritual warfare on the shelves. Most of the world wants you to make a choice on a specific "religion" or "spiritual path", most of the world can not see the truths in all of them. I felt many times forced in one direction or another until I gave up on all of it and buried my spiritual side for a few years. It wasn't until recently I began to allow that to come back. Was that for a reason? I think so.

I believe religions complement each other. I don't believe they are exclusive. Alysia was also recently taking interest in the spiritual world and took a course at Dal in Witchcraft I believe. Even though she had a scientific mind and wanted to study chemistry, she also was starting to think it impossible for this planet, this universe to be an accident. There had to be some sort of intelligent design behind it all. She wasn't clear, she wasn't sure but she was beginning to question. I was happy to see this unfolding.

However someone during the days of getting ready for the viewings was in our apartment and spied my books on the shelf and proceeded to preach that those who dabble with the occult bring misfortune to themselves and others around them. My heart sank, fear set in. I didn't hear much after this. This person was supposed to be there to comfort us but instead left me in a state of paralyzing fear.

I joke a lot about my other cat Cido as being really stunned. Well he is. He gets by on his looks I say. But that day, he watched this person intensely from a distance. Cido wouldn't come out when normally he is a friendly cat. I would glance at him and he was staring down this person. I felt Cido was my little guardian at that time.

When it was just me and Katie and the cats in the apartment that evening, I was in such a state of fear. I was believing I had caused my daughter to pass away due to my reading and practicing non-Christian things. I really felt that I was being punished for my lifestyle. As if God Himself saw my books and knew my beliefs in my heart and punished me by taking my only child. I was a complete mess. I was convinced it was all my fault. I was convinced I was evil.

Katie would say to me "no evil can come out of such a beautiful soul. How can you be evil when you see such beauty in the world?" I was so scared I wanted to burn my books, throw out my stones, be rid of anything that wasn't remotely Christian.

I cried and cried for a very long time that evening. It was one of my worst evenings. Later that night I woke up and sensed Alysia lying next to me. I "heard" in my heart. "He is just afraid mom. He was taught to be afraid of such things because they were afraid of female power. Do not give up on your beliefs. They are not wrong, they are beautiful. I love you." and that was it. I no longer had a sense of her.

I had fleeting moments of fear off and on for a week or so afterward but I quickly felt sure in knowing that what I believe spiritually is not wrong. I see no boundaries in spirituality and sexuality. So how could this be wrong? Of course Alysia would know there is no one path to God, there is no gender, race, social class where she was that night she came to me. Today I wear an amethyst stone for spiritual protection and awareness on top of my gold crucifix necklace. I don't care that it seems contradictory, because I see them as complimentary.

That was one of my first forays down the road of blaming myself for her death. There were others.