On Grief
Hi there, I’m Emily.
And I lost both of my parents before the age of 22.
My father died in a plane crash when I was in middle school, and my mother died from melanoma 9 years later, shortly after I graduated college. I’ve been to more funerals than I care to count—grandparents, aunts and uncles, and of course my parents. I’m no stranger to grief.
As my peers enter their 30s and 40s and start to lose their own parents and loved ones, I’ve discovered that the one thing I can offer them is the thing that got me through my own grief—proof that you can survive.
No grief is the same, so my words shouldn’t be used as a litmus test for anyone else’s experiences. I offer them as a salve if I can—another person in this world who wants to grab your hand, and let you know that you’re not alone.
When it comes to grief I cannot tell you, in good faith, that there is a through, an other side. In my experience, there is only ahead.
I am calling back through the darkness, proof of a survivor up ahead.
On Cancer Care
My mother died when I was 22 years old. She'd been diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer the summer between my junior and senior years of college. She went to the doctor complaining of headaches and returned with what she called a "mass" in her brain. The doctors told her to call it a mass when explaining it to her children, to use the word "mass" instead of tumor.
My mother was impossibly optimistic about her diagnosis when it was given to her. Any tumor in the brain immediately elevates the cancer to Stage 4 - which almost always means certain death. But my mother did not let this prognosis deter her. As soon as she was given the news, she was convinced that she'd survive it. That she'd be the one person to beat it…
Advice for the Grieving, or an Email Draft
I want to say something important and helpful — but nothing I’ve thought does any justice to what you’re going through. I’m pretty sure I’m not even going to send this to you — that it’s just an exercise in what I want to say, instead of what I can say. I’m not sure really. I’m sure of not much at all when it comes to grief — other than that it is horrible, and cruel, and rips a hole so big inside you you can’t imagine not feeling it. Grief empties you, forces you to become a rind of your former self. You are scooped out. Hollowed.
The trouble with grief is that it is so very singular. What might work for one person doesn’t always work for someone else. It feels both so universal and known and yet so very lonely. If you’ll let me, I will offer to you what I’ve found has worked for me in my worst days and all of the worst days that followed…
Read the whole piece over on Medium.
Looking for more?
I’m flattered, but I don’t have anything else yet. Check back if you’d like, or wander over to my blog for some half-formed thoughts.