Rocks

Name: Pam Hoffman

Age: 34

Tell me about the person who died:

The expression "two’s company, three’s a crowd" has never really applied to my sisters and me. More like “two’s company, three’s a party.” Fast-paced words, comical hand gestures and facial expressions—our own unique brand of communication when together. We didn’t start out as three; for six years Katie and I were just two. (Katie was 22 months older.) Then came our “bonus baby”—Wendy. The dynamic of our trio is such that we have always rotated roles. No one person was ever consistently in charge or consistently left out.

The three of us were raised in a way that celebrated our individuality. We were privileged to grow up in an environment that not only permitted but encouraged us to find our own paths. While Katie would be in the “art room” working on her latest creative project or curled up on the couch lost in a book, I would be tearing around the garden on my bike or practicing my netball shots for hours in the backyard, while Wendy would be rehearsing her latest dance routine or Disney movie scores for a performance in our hall later that evening. Katie always used her talents to help Wendy and me as children—she would happily make an animal sculpture out of Wendy’s mashed potatoes (only then would Wendy eat it) and do my music theory homework for me (which took me hours and her mere minutes).

We weren’t perfect. We have had many challenging moments with one another. Fortunately, the older we got, the closer we became. We grew to celebrate our differences and have always found joy in our similarities. For Katie and me, absence really did make the heart grow fonder. The distance between us once she moved to the UK from South Africa became a bridge, and after tumultuous teenage years we developed a truly exceptional long distance relationship. The close and genuine relationship we as sisters have all had with one another as adults is a great comfort to Wendy and me since Katie's death.

Katie died from suicide on June 5th, 2014. Depression is a terrifying illness which steals the best and brightest from us. I know I did the best I could for my sister. I choose not to define her by the way she died, but by the way she lived. I choose to remember her for all her light and not her darkness. I choose to look for the beauty in my grief. I choose to honour her life as a custodian of her legacy.

What has your experience of grief been like since your loss?

Mourning the loss of my sister is an ongoing process. Some days the sadness feels overwhelmingly heavy; other days it's a gift to wake up feeling light and to appreciate the feeling of normality. Losing my sister felt like being in a time warp: things moved so slowly and yet incredibly fast. Thinking back, there are events and spans of time I can hardly recall at all. Running on adrenaline for months with a fierce desire to control the bureaucracy around her death, organize the events related to it, and look after the rest of my family, especially my younger sister, led to weight loss, anxiety and withdrawal from my usual social routine. This has improved with time (and a lot of therapy!) but what I can only describe as “loss panic” is still a far too easily accessible emotion. Grief doesn't leave me, it just becomes less suffocating. To seek “closure” for my sister’s death feels traitorous. It's not something I want to “get over,” it's something I want to hold and respect. 

The timeline of grief is very difficult to describe, as are the accompanying experiences. In the beginning there's a huge wave of compassion and support, but a month later I felt like everyone had moved on and forgotten. Key dates such as her birthday and the day she died are now moments I crave ritual around, but can't yet find a satisfyingly concrete action for. Grief is always shifting, moving, changing. Ironically, grief comes out of death but feels fiercely alive.

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

Katie lived in the Highlands of Scotland for many years. I have visited the area many times and find great comfort in the barren, windswept, cold and rugged landscape. The beauty in apparent desolation is what really hooks me. It's knowing that there's beauty where others can't necessarily see it. Beauty in pain, beauty in death, beauty in grief. The paradox is very powerful to me and a really important touchstone; it helps save me from going down a rabbit hole of despair.

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

Rocks and boulders. Ideally large ones at the seaside (Cape Town is littered with them and we spent hours playing and picnicking on and around them as children and as adults). No two are alike and they look so different from every angle. They're always more than meets the eye, either from a distance or when examining their surfaces from up close. The boulders here literally shine when you look at them closely because of the quartz in them.

How have the people in your life supported you in your grief? What was helpful? What was frustrating?

An unexpected by-product of Katie's death was, for the first time, being able to say no to people. My world shrank to the bare essentials overnight and I didn't have my usual capacity for people. Some were very supportive and understanding of my needing space and time, others less so. This allowed me to do a long overdue sorting of people I really wanted in my life from those who were superfluous. Death by suicide also comes with a lot of stigma, with many people making incredibly judgemental and insensitive comments. I don't think these were meant to be cruel, I just think some people don't think before they blurt. I've become acutely aware of how difficult people find it to talk about death, and to let me talk about my sister. The best moments are from those who do remember to ask. It is the most thoughtful, compassionate and comforting act for someone to ask me to tell them about Katie. Not her death, but her life. For them to actually ask how I am, for them to listen, truly listen and just be there, without trying to make things better or fix what can't be fixed.

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

I tend to think of the groups of grievers for Katie as concentric circles. The inner circle housed my parents, myself, and my younger sister Wendy. My parents are divorced, but both are remarried, so they had their spouses for support. Wendy has a long-term partner and I have my husband, so we were all very fortunate. I experienced all of our partners as a forcefield around our inner family circle. 

We did implode in our own unique ways at different stages. My mother was stoic, but completely broken. My father, who hadn't known how severe Katie's depression had become, was shocked and traumatized, spilling over emotionally in what I considered inappropriate ways. My younger sister Wendy and I seemed mostly on the same page; however, to this day she hasn't wanted to know the details of how Katie died. This isn't a secret, but just a place she doesn't want to go. Wendy and I felt responsible for managing our parents, and I felt responsible for looking after Wendy. 

Our cousins, aunts and uncles were the next ring of the circle. I think they just maintained a holding pattern in typical WASP fashion because they had no idea what to do. Katie's friends were wonderful. To this day I feel that through Katie's death I gained more sisters. Even though they were grieving themselves they never asked anything of us, they just helped and supported and did whatever was needed. They were the “me” I felt like I couldn't be to anyone other than Wendy at that point, and for that I am forever grateful to them. 

Then the outer ring were people whom I didn't even know. Friends and colleagues of Katie's who sent messages of support, cards, flowers, and memories of what she had meant to them. I often feel people can't really appreciate how comforting these small acts of kindness are. 

Overall, we all initially felt shock and despair, but then moved in very different ways of processing what had happened to us as a family, us as sisters, us as individuals. These have been fragile paths. I'm always aware of not wanting to upset anyone in my family; I don't want to say the wrong thing or start an emotional snowball. At the same time I feel this has left us all in quite isolated spaces of grief. I'm now in a place where I really want to talk about her, to share memories and focus more on her life than on her death. This is still delicate territory though.

Has anything surprised you about your experience with grief?

I'm surprised by how strongly my survival instinct kicked in at first. While everyone else fell apart I was the most organized, efficient, proactive member of the family. I've found it fascinating to be able to look back and reflect on my own behaviour, how all of my usual personality traits intensified, both the good and the bad. I probably ran on adrenaline for the first year or so after Katie's death and had to work hard at coming down from that, feeling okay about feeling okay—that this wasn't a betrayal—and managing the shockwaves of grief that sometimes still come out of the most unexpected places. When I do have the chance to share with others who have experienced loss I have found it a privilege to be able to talk, listen, cry, or just be present. Grief can be a gift if you choose to embrace it rather than bracing against it.

How has your private grieving related to your public mourning?

Public mourning has been a challenge for me. My vocation involves looking after others, so I find it very hard to allow others to look after me. I feel I need to be reliable and consistent, and tell myself that there is no space to fall apart at work. In a way my work has always been a safe place of competence. A place where I enjoy being seen as someone who does a good job, helps others, and doesn't even have a bad day. It's a mask, as everyone has bad days, but I wouldn't let anyone see this in public. Privately I let loose a bit more, and I've had to work very hard on not feeling compelled or obliged to be there for everyone else in my family. I do worry about being a burden to my husband: at what point will he run out of patience with having a wife who spontaneously combusts into a flood of tears for no apparent reason? I sometimes wish I could have a meter on my forehead, ranging from good to very fragile, so I wouldn't always feel the need to explain myself. Someone could just look at the meter and know where I'm at and give me a hug.

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

In the wake of Katie's death I have wished, many times, that I was a religious person. Religion gives you ritual, and ritual around grief is something I feel I'm still grasping at straws for. However, when it comes to belief in the afterlife, this doesn't bother me at all. Katie is free; she no longer has to feel a pain which had become unbearable to her. I know she's fine wherever she is. It's being left behind that's the hard part. If I keep perspective, if I breathe, if I don't dwell in the past and if I fight the urge to try to control the future, the present is manageable in most moments, and for that I'm grateful. The present is all any of us have.

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

I love photography and developed a personal ritual after Katie's death. Taking pictures is a creative outlet I find satisfying and rewarding. Whenever I feel an overwhelming sadness I look around and try to find something beautiful to photograph, to remind me that there's still beauty, even in grief. “Beauty in grief” has become a mantra of sorts for me, a silver lining, a reminder of Katie, of a beautiful life and of so much still to live for.

How has your loss and your experience of grief changed you? 

I think I'm more empathic toward other people's grief now than I would have been in the past, and I feel far more equipped to be helpful. To not shy away from the pain or the tears, to be there in the long term, not just during the initial shock, to not offer advice or try to make things better, but just to listen and support. I also feel I'm more selfish with my emotional resources. While I'll pour love into relationships that are reciprocal, I find it challenging to be in places and spaces which I don't feel are engaging or nurturing. Less is more, and my life is a lot simpler than it used to be.

Pam Hoffman is a Clinical Social Worker living with her husband and house rabbit in Cape Town, South Africa. She enjoys buying more books than she has time to read, loves caring for her indoor jungle which is taking over the apartment, has a penchant for things being organized neatly and is partial to tea and cookies on a daily basis. 

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

Hero Sandwich

Name: Jessica*

Age: 43

Tell me about the person who died:

My father died a little over 10 years ago. He killed himself. He had dealt with depression my entire life, so in some ways, this was not a complete surprise, but of course, it was incredibly shocking and traumatic at the same time. 

When I was young, I was Daddy's little girl. He adored me and the feeling was mutual. My mother was the disciplinarian and my dad was all about fun. We went everywhere together. He'd patiently put up with my never-ending questions; he gave me candy and food that my mother did not allow. We hit golf balls at the driving range and went to car shows. Even going with him on weekend errands was fun. He would embarrass me with dorky “dad” jokes and, like me, he could be the class clown. I saw that whenever we went to a restaurant and he made the waitresses laugh. He was a good, but troubled person.

When adolescence hit, I no longer wanted to hang out with him and didn't feel comfortable talking to him, as all these things were happening to me, both physically and emotionally. Then I got to high school and I separated from him further. I think at least unconsciously, I felt like I didn't know how to relate to him now that I was no longer a little girl, so most of my interactions with him were brief and superficial.

Our relationship was also marred by his relationship with my mother, which was not good. I would say my mother was emotionally abusive to him. And he let her be that way—it takes two. I spent most of my adult life being angry at him for putting up with my mother. Our relationship suffered because of that, and I never returned to being close to him the way I was when I was a child.

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

So many things remind me of him, but food probably stands out the most–peanut M&Ms, seltzer, bagels with tuna, sturgeon, and caviar cream cheese, which he would buy on special occasions, to name a few. Also, on occasion, he would eat an absurdly huge, unhealthy and delicious hero that he would get from the neighborhood deli, piled with turkey, roast beef, tongue, Russian dressing, and coleslaw. He would often give me some of it and it was one of our small ways of bonding. We both loved to eat and to indulge in "bad stuff,” especially since my mom was so concerned with what I should and shouldn't eat.

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

It was pure hell, initially. The worst experience I’ve ever had, without a doubt (as my sister once said, we lived rather charmed lives until my dad died). It was shocking and painful and excruciating and numbing and terrifying. I had never lost anyone very close to me before, with the exception of one grandmother who died when I was 13. I had never experienced true grief. 

My mother called me and told me what had happened. For the next two hours I went back and forth between shock and hysteria, even apologizing to her because I thought it was my fault. I was not thinking clearly, and I ran around my room trying to figure out what to pack to go back home. I packed a bunch of workout socks. I didn't pack any funeral-appropriate clothing.

I was going to take the train home but my roommate at the time convinced me that I should really take a cab. After a thirty minute ride, I gave the cab driver $100, got out and crossed the street to my childhood home. I started walking across my lawn when two cops approached me and asked if I was Alison*, my sister. “No,” I told them. “I’m Jessica.” I felt myself walking backwards. Each cop took an arm and guided me forward into my house where I began yelling for my mother as I walked down the hall. I was watching myself from above, as if I was in a movie. I reached the eat-in kitchen and at the table sat my mom, my father's best friend, his wife, and my father's brother and his wife. They all looked like hell.

My sister and her family were not able to come until the following day, and I remember being scared to be alone in the house with my mother. I’m not sure why I felt that way. Maybe I felt like I had to take care of her? I just couldn’t wait for my sister to be there with me. It was too much to handle on my own.

The first couple of weeks were full of terror (was this a dream? how can this be happening?), shock, guilt, tears, pain, and more guilt. Not just emotional pain, but physical pain in my chest, which I carried with me on and off for many years after. It's weird what your body does. My mom who "felt fine" ended up getting shingles, which is often caused by extreme stress.

My grief is not linear. The worst was not on day one and the easiest is not today. It ebbs and flows. Things are pretty stable now, but in the beginning, it almost felt like I was going insane. I could be completely fine one minute and breaking down the next, yearning for this excruciating pain to subside. I remember talking to someone whose sister had committed suicide, asking him if the pain was ever going to go away. It felt permanent and eternal, like I would never be normal again.

Although I was in therapy at the time of my dad’s death, I don't think I've ever truly dealt with my grief, even to this day. I've talked a lot about it, but it still feels almost imaginary. It sometimes feels like nothing happened because I'm so filled with guilt that I can't miss him. I also don't miss him because we weren't close for so many years, so I was used to not having him in my life, as horrible as that sounds. Most of the time, all I feel is guilt or nothingness. In many ways, he feels like a ghost.  

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?

At first it felt like a cave–dark and deep with lots of sharp stalactites hanging down. Black, deep reds, and fiery oranges. When I was not in hell, it would feel pretty normal, like a calm lake on a partly sunny day, with something bubbling beneath the surface. It reminds me of an EKG, where the lines go up and down, up and down, but then they even out a bit more. It's like having a massive heart attack, and then it calms down, and then maybe you have some heart palpitations along the way and it calms down again. At the end of the EKG line, the up and down is more regular like a normal heartbeat and hardly anything goes too high or too low.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

I was surprised at just how much I loved my dad. I remember sitting in therapy and crying so intensely into a pillow, trying to muffle the guttural screams coming out of me. I don't think I realized the depths of it when he was alive because my feelings were always clouded with anger and discomfort. It’s really hard for me to get out of my anger and be more accepting of things sometimes. I wish I had been able to express that love for him while he was alive.

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

My close friends were incredible. They listened and sympathized and were there for me in ways that astound me now. One of my closest friends called me every single day for three months after my dad died. I don't talk much about my dad now for the most part, but I know I can talk to them if I need to.

I cannot speak to my family about it. I have tons of anger towards my mom as I sometimes modeled my behavior towards him after hers, which burns me up inside now. She won't really admit to the role she played in his death or in their relationship, which she still insists was not so bad. Her general attitude towards anything is pretending everything is fine. It’s very difficult for her to accept feelings of sadness or regret or pain.

I also cannot speak to my sister about it, for the most part. My dad killed himself on my nephew's birthday. My nephew was 5 at the time. It wasn’t intentional, it was just a day when my mom was going to be out of the house for a few hours and he saw an opportunity. My dad loved my nephew very much. But my sister has always been very focused on making that day about her son and protecting him from anything negative. She helped me through the funeral, and I think we were there for each other in the beginning, trying to process all of this. But on anniversaries, we don’t discuss it. I’m sure everyone is having their own experience of it, but sometimes it feels like I’m the only one who thinks about him.

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

No. I generally don’t get into this kind of thing. I have visited my dad’s gravesite once or twice, but even that seems strange. He is not in the ground any more than he is standing right next to me, so I do not feel any different or closer to him at the cemetery and I’d prefer not to be there.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

I definitely felt like my dad’s death created a divide in my life. There was life before he died and life after he died.

For the first seven years or so after his death, I was very agitated in the weeks leading up to the anniversary. I felt sensitive and depressed and anxious. I did things in those weeks that I would not normally do. I called friends out on things in inappropriate ways. I just was not myself. 

I think as time has gone on, things have returned somewhat to normal. I’m not the same person of course–I’ve experienced a significant loss and something very traumatic and that will never change. I feel horrible saying this, but there are many days and weeks where I don’t think about my dad. 

Is there anything else you want to share?

When someone takes their own life, everyone is left with so much anger: at the person who did it, at family members, at oneself. There is a lot to untangle. And there is finger-pointing and so much “what if.” When I think about why this happened, it is like peeling an onion—things from his childhood contributed to his death as much as things from the week he died.  

And then there is the taboo surrounding suicide. People talk about suicide in hushed tones. In the beginning, my mother straight-out lied to a number of people about how my father died. People who went to his funeral had no idea he killed himself. A few years after his death, I told my mother I was getting back in touch with a childhood friend via Facebook and she threatened me over saying anything about my father. I think the taboo stems from a few things—from not understanding how depression works, from the guilt that people feel about the person who died, and from the idea, which I disagree with, that the person who did this must be selfish.

I have suffered from depression since I was about 13 years old. I have “attempted suicide” (they were really cries for help rather than legitimate attempts). I was depressed at the time my father killed himself, which was partly why I had barely been in touch with him during the months before his death. I understand what depression can do to you and where it can bring you. I have been at the edge before. I do not wish it upon anyone. Sadly, though my father and I both dealt with depression, we never discussed it.

*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 photograph an object that evokes the person who died, transforming it into an abstract landscape inspired by the story.