"To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to Dream: Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come"
Shakespeare's Hamlet, from "To Be or Not to Be"
Lately I have finally started dreaming again while I sleep, but nothing I really want to dream about, just random garbage dreams about desperately needing to get someplace or do something and encountering numerous obstacles as time counts down. Just the standard nightmare I have been having for years without any visits from my daughter. You would think that a person that is so desperate for some small contact with his girl would get even just the shade of a dream to fulfil his wishes. Of course, I have just now, in the last year or so, started dreaming about my dad and he is been gone 6 years or more now. Funny thing is that my dad's shade is not giving me much advice these days and I really could do with a little support from him.
If I could dream about my Calista, what would I dream about? I know that I would want to hear "It's all right Dad, I'm right here watching and it's all good. I'll be waiting". Even just one good hearted jibe to the effect that she wants my credit card to buy some really cute shoes would be great. What I likely will get, when the dreams finally come, is some nonsensical statements pertaining to me being late for an important meeting.( Of course, a deeper man would realise that is a reference to "Alice in Wonderland", one of Calista's favourite stories; she had two copies on her book shelf and her last tattoo was Alice telling us to "Believe in the Impossible") Basically just a repeat of my standard recurrent nightmare.
But what do I think about when I do daydream about her? The dreams come in two forms. There are the horrible waking nightmares I get when I start considering her last moments; how long was she conscious of what was happening to her? was she in pain? was she scared? was she calling for her mom and dad silently as she died? Those occur frequently and they go hand in hand with the personal recriminations of what I missed and why did I not look closer? Perhaps those mild headaches were more than just an out-of-date prescription for corrective lenses. Maybe that cough she had was not just a little left-over cold, maybe it was streptococcus that became meningitis (that miraculously left no signs on autopsy). Of course that guilt rides right beside the guilt I have for not spending far more time with my girl when I had the chance (because every 20 year old girl wants her dad following her around like some stray pound-puppy). Then there are the good daydreams; those few fleeting moments when I clearly remember the good times. Those are getting a bit cloudy already as real memories get mixed up with imagined memories (those wishful thinking memories of occasions I heard about but was not really present). It's funny how your brain can fool you into remembering things that never happened or only half-remembering things that really did.
My over-riding memory of Calista at her best was a candid shot that she never knew I saw. It is easily my favourite memory of her and it was not really a shared moment; it was me spying on a young woman having fun with her friends and loving life. Calista was involved with "Improv" theatre since she was about 12 years old. She stuck with "Improv" through to her senior year at high school and she seemed to love it. She was never really great at it; to thrive in "Improv" you need to have a loud voice, like to upstage people and you need to be fearless when it comes to making an ass of yourself. Calista never was terribly loud, did not really crave the spot-light and definitely did not like to make an ass of herself....ever. The few times she did shine at Improv was when her ability to make a caustic comment at the drop of a hat surfaced. Those few times she would bring the house down. One thing all Improv actors need is high energy; they need to hit that stage ready to take on the world and throw all comers to the ground decisively. To do that the improv groups usually have a warm-up room where they go through some process to get themselves revved up and ready to rock.
Every year Roni and I would dutifully book two or three nights off to attend her annual "Improv Games" where schools from the district would get together and compete in improv theatre for the coveted single position at Nationals. I personally did not understand improv all that much and I really did not enjoy it, but it was my girl, she was on stage, and I was going to be there even if I had no idea of what was going on.
In her grade 11 year we arrived at the venue a little early and, somehow, we got turned around and ended up backstage. Realising our mistake, we circled around aimlessly trying to find the door back into the public areas. We kept on trying doors one after the other, sure that the next door would be the one we needed. Finally, hearing the loud roar of laughter behind one of the doors, we thought we were headed in the right direction. We opened the door to find a group of maybe 8 teen-agers grouped around a single girl in a circle, all dancing wildly, shouting, and laughing. In the centre, arms alternating up and down, dancing to a hard rocking beat and with the most radiant smile you can imagine was our Calista. She may not have stood out on stage, but she was definitely the ring master back-stage. As I write this I can still picture that one golden moment where I got to see my daughter with her friends, full of life and happy to share that life with the world. We never told her we spied on her, but to the day I die, when I picture Calista, that is how I will remember her: smiling, laughing and dancing. To the beat of her own drummer, no doubt.
The coroner called today while I was at work. My wife took the call; bit of a mistake there since I have been killing myself to shield her from all the more graphic elements of this situation. She is already riding right on the razor's edge (I chose Hamlet's soliloquy for a good reason; it comes to mind when I consider some of the raw conversations around my house these days) They still have not found anything; her blood alcohol registered 0.03, so we cannot blame alcohol toxicity for her death. We are now depending on histopathology (microscopic examination of the tissues) and screening for other toxins that might be a COD. This is becoming a greater mystery and is starting to feel a little like a curse; I begin to wonder if I am not being punished for some horrendous sin. If that is the truth, well the joke is on the God that sends this evil my way: he punished an innocent in my place and therefor, in my books, is forever damned.
This pill is terribly bitter to swallow.
Monday, 11 June 2012
Saturday, 9 June 2012
Three Weeks, Two Days: See For Yourself
After beating you to near death with my grief, I realised I had Calista encapsulated in her own words and her own images. I am so proud of her blog; not just for the images, but for the short little quips she added in near each photo. Just look for yourself:
http://fluxandflowphotography.tumblr.com/
and if you want to see Calista in full "goofing around mode" here is some pictures from Jesse (you might have to search her blog for them.)
http://jesscavanaghphotography.blogspot.ca/2012/05/of-love-and-loss.html
Just look at Calista with her friends. Now that is a girl who knew how to live.
I got my first tattoo in twenty years today. I forgot that they hurt a fair bit or I am less tolerant of pain than I used to be. I got "the golden snitch" from Harry Potter on my right chest. Calista had a golden snitch on her fore-arm. It felt like the right thing to do: an homage to my lost girl. Roni went all the way though: she had a full fore-arm tattoo of a blue hare-rabbit with the slogan "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live". The blue hare is, again, a reference to Harry Potter; I guess it was the "patronus" (guardian angel) of my daughter's favourite character "Luna Lovegood". Calista had a thought that she wanted a tattoo like that, but obviously that is not going to happen. Roni stood up for her and got the tattoo in her place. It is interesting that "Luna" was Calista's favourite character; she was an independent girl who was out of step with the rest of her classmates, was proud to be so, and freely spoke her mind. Sounds like someone I know.
Miss you kid.
http://fluxandflowphotography.tumblr.com/
and if you want to see Calista in full "goofing around mode" here is some pictures from Jesse (you might have to search her blog for them.)
http://jesscavanaghphotography.blogspot.ca/2012/05/of-love-and-loss.html
Just look at Calista with her friends. Now that is a girl who knew how to live.
I got my first tattoo in twenty years today. I forgot that they hurt a fair bit or I am less tolerant of pain than I used to be. I got "the golden snitch" from Harry Potter on my right chest. Calista had a golden snitch on her fore-arm. It felt like the right thing to do: an homage to my lost girl. Roni went all the way though: she had a full fore-arm tattoo of a blue hare-rabbit with the slogan "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live". The blue hare is, again, a reference to Harry Potter; I guess it was the "patronus" (guardian angel) of my daughter's favourite character "Luna Lovegood". Calista had a thought that she wanted a tattoo like that, but obviously that is not going to happen. Roni stood up for her and got the tattoo in her place. It is interesting that "Luna" was Calista's favourite character; she was an independent girl who was out of step with the rest of her classmates, was proud to be so, and freely spoke her mind. Sounds like someone I know.
Miss you kid.
Friday, 8 June 2012
Three Weeks, One Day: Collateral Damage
The grieving parent has a real tendency to become a consumate belly-button watcher. To us, the entire world seems to turn on our tragedy and our problems, leaving us numb to the fact that we are surrounded by people with their own lives and their own tragedies. We are also surrounded by people who were cut nearly as deep by Calista's loss and others who just want to help lift us off our knees. Everyone is hurting and we, who are at the hub of all that pain, sometime need to remember its not all about us.
In this last month I have met one young woman who just had a miscarriage; she told me that "everything is Ok, it's all good!" when clearly it was not. This woman just lost a child that she was likely looking foreward to with great expectations. Maybe she had names selected, perhaps she had the nursery painted and ready to go, and likely she was already collecting baby clothes and toys. She was just trying to be kind to me by making it all about my loss rather than hers. Certainly there will be other pregnancies; she was young and apparently healthy; but there will never be this pregnancy again. Each and every child is different and equally precious. Perhaps her cut was not so deep as mine, but it was there nevertheless.
Last week I heard that one of my best clients was dealing with brain cancer. Horrible and frightening. True, that person has lived well and substantially longer than my daughter, but it does not change the fact that she faces an uncertain future, risky surgery and perhaps the long drawn out horror of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Perhaps her tragedy is not as monumental as mine, but I have to keep in mind that my daughter's death is my cross to bear, not necessarily share.
One friend had her marriage fall apart while another friend is undergoing a series of tests for potential breast cancer. They deserve a hug and a shoulder to cry on, but it just cannot be mine since I am nursing my own deep wound. All around me the world continues to turn; it's just me that is experiencing the "Groundhog Day Effect". It's hard to remember that when your world has crumbled, but I need to because the only way my family is going to get through this is with the help of our community and friends.
Hundreds of people have been hurt by my daughter's death. Close and distant family on both sides, old friends and teachers and her new friends here on the west coast all have been scarred by this. Jack Cowin, her mentor for nearly 18 months remains at a loss for words almost three weeks since we notified him. Our nanny from Whitehorse days was physically sick for days after we told her. The mother of Calista's boyfriend in Regina cries practically daily when she thinks about my daughter. Many of her young friends from Regina remain shell-shocked that they lost one of their people at such a young age with no explanation. Young people really can be scarred by their first glimpse of their own mortality. Finally, how about those girls who became such close friends during those wonderful eight months in the photography program? How about the poor girl that had to stand by helplessly as the ambulance tore out of her driveway, taking Calista away from her for that last time? Who is helping them come to terms with such an absolutely senseless death? I would love to help everyone of them, put out my hand to them and tell them that eventually everything will be right with the world again, just not soon. The problem is that I am dealing with my own demons right now and those demons include my wife's overwhelming depression.
The incident that jelled in my mind just how horrible this was for everyone around me was when my wife and I met a good client in the parking lot of a local grocery store. The woman is about my wife's age and has daughters only slightly younger than Calista. She knew Calista through a local fitness center and as a client of my veterinary clinic. She was crying so hard about her death the poor woman was shaking and almost incomprehensible. This poor soul was walking in our shoes for those moments; she could feel our pain because she was picturing the loss of either of her daughters and how that might feel. My only comment to her: it's completely Ok to be thankful that death passed your family by. I would not wish this pain on anybody, ever.
The other side of the coin are all the well-wishers who want desperately to help us and they just don't know how. I don't know how many people have stood before me, completely at a loss for words to express their compassion. I had one friend who flew hundreds of miles out of his way on an already long trip from New Zealand just to see how I was doing. He had not seen me in 25 years but it was as if we had just parted company. He spent the entire afternoon we spent together trying to find some words to comfort me and, despite numerous efforts, eventually failed. I finally hugged him and told him it was completely acceptable because there are no words possible. The death of a beautiful, healthy 20 year old girl makes no sense at all and you cannot reason away the insensible. I now tell people right away that it is enough just to be there for my wife and I, they need not try to express themselves. Just standing beside me and trying to help is help enough. Thanks to everyone that tried; just the trying is enough.
I think the only possible support that I found a little upsetting was the time somebody told me they understood my pain since their dear mother-in-law had passed away suddenly. Your adult mother-in-law who raised a child, saw that child married, possibly saw and held grandchildren and is related to you only in a legal sense is comparable to a young vivacious daughter who had barely lived at all. You consider that a similar experience? Please do not go there; it is sad, upsetting and perhaps devastating to your wife that she lost her mother but be thankful that you do not really understand my sorrow. Losing one of your children suddenly is the nightmare you will never wake up from. All of us will experience loss in our lifetime. The price of life on this planet is eventual death. I understand that, but death at the end of an accomplished life and before your children is the way the world is supposed to work. It is absolutely un-natural to die after your children. In my case, it will be decades before I follow my girl into the great beyond. That is just not right.
For all you out there wanting to comfort and help a grieving relative or friend; its enough that you want to help and are standing by ready to help. Thanks.
In this last month I have met one young woman who just had a miscarriage; she told me that "everything is Ok, it's all good!" when clearly it was not. This woman just lost a child that she was likely looking foreward to with great expectations. Maybe she had names selected, perhaps she had the nursery painted and ready to go, and likely she was already collecting baby clothes and toys. She was just trying to be kind to me by making it all about my loss rather than hers. Certainly there will be other pregnancies; she was young and apparently healthy; but there will never be this pregnancy again. Each and every child is different and equally precious. Perhaps her cut was not so deep as mine, but it was there nevertheless.
Last week I heard that one of my best clients was dealing with brain cancer. Horrible and frightening. True, that person has lived well and substantially longer than my daughter, but it does not change the fact that she faces an uncertain future, risky surgery and perhaps the long drawn out horror of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Perhaps her tragedy is not as monumental as mine, but I have to keep in mind that my daughter's death is my cross to bear, not necessarily share.
One friend had her marriage fall apart while another friend is undergoing a series of tests for potential breast cancer. They deserve a hug and a shoulder to cry on, but it just cannot be mine since I am nursing my own deep wound. All around me the world continues to turn; it's just me that is experiencing the "Groundhog Day Effect". It's hard to remember that when your world has crumbled, but I need to because the only way my family is going to get through this is with the help of our community and friends.
Hundreds of people have been hurt by my daughter's death. Close and distant family on both sides, old friends and teachers and her new friends here on the west coast all have been scarred by this. Jack Cowin, her mentor for nearly 18 months remains at a loss for words almost three weeks since we notified him. Our nanny from Whitehorse days was physically sick for days after we told her. The mother of Calista's boyfriend in Regina cries practically daily when she thinks about my daughter. Many of her young friends from Regina remain shell-shocked that they lost one of their people at such a young age with no explanation. Young people really can be scarred by their first glimpse of their own mortality. Finally, how about those girls who became such close friends during those wonderful eight months in the photography program? How about the poor girl that had to stand by helplessly as the ambulance tore out of her driveway, taking Calista away from her for that last time? Who is helping them come to terms with such an absolutely senseless death? I would love to help everyone of them, put out my hand to them and tell them that eventually everything will be right with the world again, just not soon. The problem is that I am dealing with my own demons right now and those demons include my wife's overwhelming depression.
The incident that jelled in my mind just how horrible this was for everyone around me was when my wife and I met a good client in the parking lot of a local grocery store. The woman is about my wife's age and has daughters only slightly younger than Calista. She knew Calista through a local fitness center and as a client of my veterinary clinic. She was crying so hard about her death the poor woman was shaking and almost incomprehensible. This poor soul was walking in our shoes for those moments; she could feel our pain because she was picturing the loss of either of her daughters and how that might feel. My only comment to her: it's completely Ok to be thankful that death passed your family by. I would not wish this pain on anybody, ever.
The other side of the coin are all the well-wishers who want desperately to help us and they just don't know how. I don't know how many people have stood before me, completely at a loss for words to express their compassion. I had one friend who flew hundreds of miles out of his way on an already long trip from New Zealand just to see how I was doing. He had not seen me in 25 years but it was as if we had just parted company. He spent the entire afternoon we spent together trying to find some words to comfort me and, despite numerous efforts, eventually failed. I finally hugged him and told him it was completely acceptable because there are no words possible. The death of a beautiful, healthy 20 year old girl makes no sense at all and you cannot reason away the insensible. I now tell people right away that it is enough just to be there for my wife and I, they need not try to express themselves. Just standing beside me and trying to help is help enough. Thanks to everyone that tried; just the trying is enough.
I think the only possible support that I found a little upsetting was the time somebody told me they understood my pain since their dear mother-in-law had passed away suddenly. Your adult mother-in-law who raised a child, saw that child married, possibly saw and held grandchildren and is related to you only in a legal sense is comparable to a young vivacious daughter who had barely lived at all. You consider that a similar experience? Please do not go there; it is sad, upsetting and perhaps devastating to your wife that she lost her mother but be thankful that you do not really understand my sorrow. Losing one of your children suddenly is the nightmare you will never wake up from. All of us will experience loss in our lifetime. The price of life on this planet is eventual death. I understand that, but death at the end of an accomplished life and before your children is the way the world is supposed to work. It is absolutely un-natural to die after your children. In my case, it will be decades before I follow my girl into the great beyond. That is just not right.
For all you out there wanting to comfort and help a grieving relative or friend; its enough that you want to help and are standing by ready to help. Thanks.
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Three Weeks: She Who Might Have Been
I am finishing up the third book of the "Hunger Game" series; it is almost the last thing I will be able to share with Calista. She begged me to read them over the last two months, repeatedly telling me just how great they really were. I never got around to it, preferring to read Hemingway because. For some reason, I thought he was a great writer. It turns out my girl was right again: if you want entertainment and enjoyment, go with popular fiction every time. The "Hunger Games" trilogy really is addictive (she warned me). It is tough to finish this series though; once it is done all I have left is memories of pleasant times spent together rather than actual experience. I am limiting myself to a few pages per day to string out the pleasure.
Sharing stories with her friends near and far and her instructors this last three weeks, I am meeting a whole new Calista whom I did not really know. She had matured into just so much more than I had hoped for and, I expect, if she had lived, the entire world would have been her pearl. Without appearing to be too self-centred it is hard to understand how Roni and I managed to produce such an incredible young woman and what sin we committed to have her ripped from us just as she was truly coming into her glory. Anyone that thinks the world is "fair" is just a fool.
The repeated theme I am hearing from all my "witnesses" is her maturity and confidence. Calista did not feel obliged to fit her rounded body into society's square peg holes. She was her own woman; she dressed with her own sense of fashion, she did not worry about her personal body image (hence her love of chocolate and sweets) and she pretty much spoke her mind. I am not sure if Calista was very diplomatic, but it did not seem to limit her socially; the number of people I have met that were absolutely crushed by her passing speaks loudly to how many friends she earned in her lifetime.
Calista never seemed to discriminate based on any of the artificial boundaries our society imposes on us. When she was a high-school senior she was just as happy to hang with a bunch of grade ten drama-geeks (or artsy-geeks, or improv-geeks) as she was to party with grade twelve divas. I remember her 17th birthday party in her senior year; the crowd assembled in my basement, fresh from a night of bowling, were an even mixture of kids representing practically all the grades at her school. She did not care what "clique" you belonged to, if she liked you, you were one of her people. And God help anyone that objected; her tongue could be as sharp as a bull-whip. Oh yeah, at that party she was wearing her famous birthday tiara for the whole night, even while bowling.
That party was a bit of a hallmark for me actually. It was the first (and likely only) time that I had to play "father" rather than "witless sidekick" to my darling daughter. About midnight I wanted to go to bed because I had work the next morning, but I really did not want to leave her party without some semblance of a chaperon (her mother had long since surrendered and was asleep on the couch upstairs). I finally decided to split the difference and just go downstairs and read the kids the "rules of the house". I coughed loudly, silencing the bunch of them, and then proceeded to make a complete ass of myself. "Kids, I have a don't ask and don't tell policy here. If you have been drinking tonight, then don't let me know it and I won't check you on it. Anything that happens here stays here, I won't tell your parents......BUT if you have a car here, you are not driving. You are to come upstairs or send Calista and make any lame excuse you can muster to the effect you need a ride home. You lost your keys, you ran out of gas, you feel sick. I don't care. If I find out that any of you have been drinking and then drove home, you will not be forgiven. I will talk to your parents and I will make sure you are punished. So just come and wake me up". I thought I had done the "cool dad" thing; what I found out later is that I was forever more "the scariest dad of the high school". I am not sure that Calista was not a little proud to have the scariest dad, but she was a little steamed at me that night. It did not help that half the kids there were on the MADD committee at school;I should have known that my daughter was not going to hang with the drinking and driving type kids.
Calista had such a wide spectrum of friends; I knew that likely in spite of my jaded, polarised view of the world, she was not prejudiced. Her boxing coach, whom she practically worshipped, was a very dark skinned man from the Dominican Republic. I am sure if the young man had not been happily married, my daughter would have been after him like a cat on a mouse. Roland was charming, and handsome and he had taken my girl, a hopeless slave to fashion and turned her into a skilled boxer despite the fact she was terrified of hitting someone or being hit herself. She never actually got the chance to enter the ring for a real bout; life and then death got in the way. Her best shopping friend was a physically beautiful boy that was so outwardly gay that it hurt me to realise his mother did not appear to know he was gay. Calista adored Craig; it did not hurt that he was about the handsomest young lad in her group. Age, race, religion or sexual orientation just did not seem to register on that girl. She did seem to enjoy tormenting her religious friends with friendly jibes about their faith; that probably came from me. I guess the joke is on me now; without faith that there is an afterlife I know that I will never see her again.
Her current group of friends really represents her very open view of the world. My girl would never think to leave the house without checking to make sure she had proper colour matches or colour clashes (and cute shoes too).
Jesse, her most common "wingman" is practically the opposite: she is a outdoorsy type who prefers practical over fashionable and comfortable over trendy. Before she met Jesse, Calista's idea of camping was a room with a view billed to Visa; two weeks prior to her death she went tent camping with Jesse on Hornby Island and loved it. I think Calista even left the high heels at home that weekend. On the other hand, she did have designer rubber boots with high tops and a "lips and skulls" pattern emblazoned on them. I guess one need not abandon fashion for comfort and practicality.
Kareen, who was the unfortunate soul who was present when Calista died, is a vivacious young woman who likes to mother-hen and protect her younger friends. I am sure she was the brunt of Calista's wry humour frequently since she was engaged to be married. Marriage was not an institution that Calista had much appreciation of. (Not that she had much reason to dislike marriage; her parents have been married happily for 24 years. She just could not see letting any boy get in the way of her photography carreer). I am just thankful that Kareen convinced Calista to stay the night prior to her death; otherwise my girl would have died alone in her apartment to be discovered hours or days later once people missed her.
Hanna, her other engaged friend, found out how little Calista believed in marriage; Calista took over a half hour to reply mildly politely after Hanna announced with joy in her heart that she was newly engaged. Probably the worst reaction to an engagement announcement ever. Twelve years of Catholic school did nothing but feed my girl's irreverent approach to life. Calista probably frequently teased Hanna about her devout Christianity, but no doubt only with good thoughts in her heart.
Amanda had to deal with Calista's habit of just taking over people's lives and running them "Calista style". Once Calista got used to the idea that Amanda's family had an open-door policy to friends, she would just invade Amanda's house whether Amanda was at home or not. I heard that the Halloween candy supply was decimated by her regular attendance. I can only apologise for all the photo shoots my daughter inflicted on Amanda while they had to share an old film based 35mm camera during their semester of Black and White Photography. I guess Calista would just get mesmerised by one particular subject.She would waste immense amounts of time setting up one shot and then, when she was inevitably unhappy with the shots, drag Amanda back to the site for more shots.
We have been leafing through her myriad of photographs, some of them finished product, some of them not so much. I am amazed at both my daughter's productivity and her creativity. She had a portable hard drive, several flash drives and two camera memory cards filled with images in various form. All in all, there are thousands of photos stored in those files.
Since Roni and I are resolved that Calista complete her requirements for graduation from the Professional Photography Program, we have to complete her portfolio, a huge part of her final mark. Calista's file system probably meant something to her, but to her "left brain" father they were pretty much a mystery. Her mother and I were left with sifting through the images one by one, which was really quite a task since we had no idea how to view them except by laboriously opening each image individually. We did not even know the difference between a RAW file, a TIFF file or a JPEG file. We were in deep trouble.
It took Jesse and Amanda together to find all the images we needed to complete her portfolio: it seems that one of her programs can open the photos in a multiple photo array. Once we found that, things got a little easier. Unfortunately, then we are faced with hundreds of photos of the same subject (typical of a photographer) and no idea which photo SHE thought was the best. Once again Jesse and Amanda came through: I guess the photos that had been heavily edited had annotations next to them. That narrowed the search down to just three or four images that were the possible "finished product". Luckily Calista had showed us most of the finished versions that she was going to select for her portfolio and we were able to fill the requirements for the 20 images. Unfortunately, while we knew that her "major" was going to be advertising "product photos", we had no idea what her "minor" was going to be. We finally settled on "creative explorations", a sort of grab bag that covers everything that Calista would have called "artsy". That's just fine as far as I am concerned; we then were allowed to enter some of her more unique photos that her mother and I liked. I am not sure how her marks will be, but if the judges trash her, I give her full permission to haunt them (on the proviso that she come and haunt her mother and I after).
I really am going to have to return to Calista later, after the sharp edge of grief leaves me. There are just so many things about her that were bigger than life that I probably need help to fill in the blanks. Her friends are assembling a book of memories for us to read later. I have seen most of the stories and they reveal a person who lived life completely and absolutely. Certainly there are moments that she had down time where nothing productive was done, but I realise those few moments were those she spent with us, her parents. Her trips home were her time to let down her hair and relax from all her labours out in the real world forcing it to bend to her will. I guess everyone has one safe place they feel they can let go; I am glad we could give our girl that refuge.
I received an e-mail from the college registrar today. Calista will be awarded her certificate at the college graduation ceremonies June 22nd. The registrar was asking if her parents would stand up and accept her diploma for her. My only possible reply was that I would indeed stand up for my girl. Of course I would. That one little e-mail broke me; I cried uncontrollably for five minutes after I replied. All I could think of was all the times I will never see with her; I will never stand up beside my girl ever again. But I will stand up for my girl June 22nd....with tears in my eyes.
Sharing stories with her friends near and far and her instructors this last three weeks, I am meeting a whole new Calista whom I did not really know. She had matured into just so much more than I had hoped for and, I expect, if she had lived, the entire world would have been her pearl. Without appearing to be too self-centred it is hard to understand how Roni and I managed to produce such an incredible young woman and what sin we committed to have her ripped from us just as she was truly coming into her glory. Anyone that thinks the world is "fair" is just a fool.
The repeated theme I am hearing from all my "witnesses" is her maturity and confidence. Calista did not feel obliged to fit her rounded body into society's square peg holes. She was her own woman; she dressed with her own sense of fashion, she did not worry about her personal body image (hence her love of chocolate and sweets) and she pretty much spoke her mind. I am not sure if Calista was very diplomatic, but it did not seem to limit her socially; the number of people I have met that were absolutely crushed by her passing speaks loudly to how many friends she earned in her lifetime.
Calista never seemed to discriminate based on any of the artificial boundaries our society imposes on us. When she was a high-school senior she was just as happy to hang with a bunch of grade ten drama-geeks (or artsy-geeks, or improv-geeks) as she was to party with grade twelve divas. I remember her 17th birthday party in her senior year; the crowd assembled in my basement, fresh from a night of bowling, were an even mixture of kids representing practically all the grades at her school. She did not care what "clique" you belonged to, if she liked you, you were one of her people. And God help anyone that objected; her tongue could be as sharp as a bull-whip. Oh yeah, at that party she was wearing her famous birthday tiara for the whole night, even while bowling.
That party was a bit of a hallmark for me actually. It was the first (and likely only) time that I had to play "father" rather than "witless sidekick" to my darling daughter. About midnight I wanted to go to bed because I had work the next morning, but I really did not want to leave her party without some semblance of a chaperon (her mother had long since surrendered and was asleep on the couch upstairs). I finally decided to split the difference and just go downstairs and read the kids the "rules of the house". I coughed loudly, silencing the bunch of them, and then proceeded to make a complete ass of myself. "Kids, I have a don't ask and don't tell policy here. If you have been drinking tonight, then don't let me know it and I won't check you on it. Anything that happens here stays here, I won't tell your parents......BUT if you have a car here, you are not driving. You are to come upstairs or send Calista and make any lame excuse you can muster to the effect you need a ride home. You lost your keys, you ran out of gas, you feel sick. I don't care. If I find out that any of you have been drinking and then drove home, you will not be forgiven. I will talk to your parents and I will make sure you are punished. So just come and wake me up". I thought I had done the "cool dad" thing; what I found out later is that I was forever more "the scariest dad of the high school". I am not sure that Calista was not a little proud to have the scariest dad, but she was a little steamed at me that night. It did not help that half the kids there were on the MADD committee at school;I should have known that my daughter was not going to hang with the drinking and driving type kids.
Calista had such a wide spectrum of friends; I knew that likely in spite of my jaded, polarised view of the world, she was not prejudiced. Her boxing coach, whom she practically worshipped, was a very dark skinned man from the Dominican Republic. I am sure if the young man had not been happily married, my daughter would have been after him like a cat on a mouse. Roland was charming, and handsome and he had taken my girl, a hopeless slave to fashion and turned her into a skilled boxer despite the fact she was terrified of hitting someone or being hit herself. She never actually got the chance to enter the ring for a real bout; life and then death got in the way. Her best shopping friend was a physically beautiful boy that was so outwardly gay that it hurt me to realise his mother did not appear to know he was gay. Calista adored Craig; it did not hurt that he was about the handsomest young lad in her group. Age, race, religion or sexual orientation just did not seem to register on that girl. She did seem to enjoy tormenting her religious friends with friendly jibes about their faith; that probably came from me. I guess the joke is on me now; without faith that there is an afterlife I know that I will never see her again.
Her current group of friends really represents her very open view of the world. My girl would never think to leave the house without checking to make sure she had proper colour matches or colour clashes (and cute shoes too).
Jesse, her most common "wingman" is practically the opposite: she is a outdoorsy type who prefers practical over fashionable and comfortable over trendy. Before she met Jesse, Calista's idea of camping was a room with a view billed to Visa; two weeks prior to her death she went tent camping with Jesse on Hornby Island and loved it. I think Calista even left the high heels at home that weekend. On the other hand, she did have designer rubber boots with high tops and a "lips and skulls" pattern emblazoned on them. I guess one need not abandon fashion for comfort and practicality.
Kareen, who was the unfortunate soul who was present when Calista died, is a vivacious young woman who likes to mother-hen and protect her younger friends. I am sure she was the brunt of Calista's wry humour frequently since she was engaged to be married. Marriage was not an institution that Calista had much appreciation of. (Not that she had much reason to dislike marriage; her parents have been married happily for 24 years. She just could not see letting any boy get in the way of her photography carreer). I am just thankful that Kareen convinced Calista to stay the night prior to her death; otherwise my girl would have died alone in her apartment to be discovered hours or days later once people missed her.
Hanna, her other engaged friend, found out how little Calista believed in marriage; Calista took over a half hour to reply mildly politely after Hanna announced with joy in her heart that she was newly engaged. Probably the worst reaction to an engagement announcement ever. Twelve years of Catholic school did nothing but feed my girl's irreverent approach to life. Calista probably frequently teased Hanna about her devout Christianity, but no doubt only with good thoughts in her heart.
Amanda had to deal with Calista's habit of just taking over people's lives and running them "Calista style". Once Calista got used to the idea that Amanda's family had an open-door policy to friends, she would just invade Amanda's house whether Amanda was at home or not. I heard that the Halloween candy supply was decimated by her regular attendance. I can only apologise for all the photo shoots my daughter inflicted on Amanda while they had to share an old film based 35mm camera during their semester of Black and White Photography. I guess Calista would just get mesmerised by one particular subject.She would waste immense amounts of time setting up one shot and then, when she was inevitably unhappy with the shots, drag Amanda back to the site for more shots.
We have been leafing through her myriad of photographs, some of them finished product, some of them not so much. I am amazed at both my daughter's productivity and her creativity. She had a portable hard drive, several flash drives and two camera memory cards filled with images in various form. All in all, there are thousands of photos stored in those files.
Since Roni and I are resolved that Calista complete her requirements for graduation from the Professional Photography Program, we have to complete her portfolio, a huge part of her final mark. Calista's file system probably meant something to her, but to her "left brain" father they were pretty much a mystery. Her mother and I were left with sifting through the images one by one, which was really quite a task since we had no idea how to view them except by laboriously opening each image individually. We did not even know the difference between a RAW file, a TIFF file or a JPEG file. We were in deep trouble.
It took Jesse and Amanda together to find all the images we needed to complete her portfolio: it seems that one of her programs can open the photos in a multiple photo array. Once we found that, things got a little easier. Unfortunately, then we are faced with hundreds of photos of the same subject (typical of a photographer) and no idea which photo SHE thought was the best. Once again Jesse and Amanda came through: I guess the photos that had been heavily edited had annotations next to them. That narrowed the search down to just three or four images that were the possible "finished product". Luckily Calista had showed us most of the finished versions that she was going to select for her portfolio and we were able to fill the requirements for the 20 images. Unfortunately, while we knew that her "major" was going to be advertising "product photos", we had no idea what her "minor" was going to be. We finally settled on "creative explorations", a sort of grab bag that covers everything that Calista would have called "artsy". That's just fine as far as I am concerned; we then were allowed to enter some of her more unique photos that her mother and I liked. I am not sure how her marks will be, but if the judges trash her, I give her full permission to haunt them (on the proviso that she come and haunt her mother and I after).
I really am going to have to return to Calista later, after the sharp edge of grief leaves me. There are just so many things about her that were bigger than life that I probably need help to fill in the blanks. Her friends are assembling a book of memories for us to read later. I have seen most of the stories and they reveal a person who lived life completely and absolutely. Certainly there are moments that she had down time where nothing productive was done, but I realise those few moments were those she spent with us, her parents. Her trips home were her time to let down her hair and relax from all her labours out in the real world forcing it to bend to her will. I guess everyone has one safe place they feel they can let go; I am glad we could give our girl that refuge.
I received an e-mail from the college registrar today. Calista will be awarded her certificate at the college graduation ceremonies June 22nd. The registrar was asking if her parents would stand up and accept her diploma for her. My only possible reply was that I would indeed stand up for my girl. Of course I would. That one little e-mail broke me; I cried uncontrollably for five minutes after I replied. All I could think of was all the times I will never see with her; I will never stand up beside my girl ever again. But I will stand up for my girl June 22nd....with tears in my eyes.
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Two Weeks: Six Days: Talisman
I guess I lost a day yesterday; the title should have read two weeks, four days. Oh well, every day is Groundhog Day without the happy ending anyway. This will be a short post today; maybe tomorrow I will let everyone have a break and talk about the amazing person my Calista was evolving into. Today I want to talk about talisman. Everybody who has lost a child will understand this post and everybody that has not will think I am crazy (or going crazy)
When your child dies you will hold onto everything and anything that holds a bit of them in some faint hope that something of them still lives, somehow, in that object. It may be a favourite piece of clothing, jewelry, a car or something else. At first, every little thing is infinitely important, then as the sheer amount of stuff starts mounting, small things start to lose their importance and you start to focus on just one or two things that become "comfort blankets". For my wife it is the shirts.
On that last Sunday we had with Calista she left her bedroom in a shambles; bed unmade, some dirty laundry on the floor and her used night shirt tossed carelessly upon the bed. Roni had straightened the bedroom up, but she had not changed the sheets or laundered the night shirt. On May 17, after the police and the grief counsellor had left us in the hands of my elder brother Ivor, my wife finally found some solace quietly (my wife is always quiet) sobbing by herself, curled in the foetal position in my daughter's bed. She had that used nightshirt, still faintly smelling of my daughter's perfume and shampoo clutched in both hands, tucked up under her chin. That shirt seemed to capture something of Calista for my wife and it became her comfort blanket; it still is really.
Every night my wife curls up to sleep with that shirt in her hands, unable to sleep without it's soft cotton tucked into her chin. Roni will wake up in the night and panic if she has lost track of that shirt and will not settle until one of us has found it among the bed sheets and returned it to the nape of her neck.
On our first trip to Courtenay to start the horrible task of cleaning out Calista's beloved apartment (her first real place of her own), we found her bed unmade and another night shirt tossed carelessly atop the pillow. My wife carefully bagged that little treasure in much the same way the RCMP had bagged her clothes after her death and brought the shirt home here. The two shirts are now being carefully traded each night so they last longer before her tight grip and constant wash of tears wears them out. Hopefully the shirts will outlast her desperate need of their comfort. They have become talisman for her; small charms that hold the essence of Calista in some small way. They are more than simple keepsakes.
There have been other things that have become unspoken sacred objects. For the first week after Calista's death, we slept in Calista's bed, comforted by her unique room surrounding us. After the second night in that room I told my wife that we should either stop sleeping in that room or change the sheets to fresh sheets immediately. Roni caught my reasoning immediately: our bodies were fouling the essence of Calista left upon those simple cotton sheets (purple, of course). There need not be any specific mention of what I was saying; Roni knew immediately that I could not bear the idea of fouling those sheets with our sweat and tears to the point that they would require laundering. I could not bear to wash away Calista. The next night we slept on top of the bed under winter weight comforters hastily taken out of summer storage. Those purple sheets remain on Calista's bed, waiting for her return. They will probably still be there the day they cart our cold bodies out of this house. They too are talisman.
Its kind of funny that I attach little or no magical properties to her ashes which sit in a beautiful brass urn in our bedroom. I guess I should attach some sacred importance to them, but they are just so much carbon in a jar. Calista lives in brightly painted bedroom decorated with antique Beatles LP albums and modern day posters for bands I don't recognise. Her own art sits on the wall, goofy Polaroid pictures of her friends and her jacking around back in Regina and her sweat jacket with the logo of some European football club hangs on the back of her door. There are silly stuffed giraffes (I had no idea she had a fixation on giraffes) and a tasteless little love-seat that looks like red lips stuffed behind her immense combination bed and dresser arrangement. Calista shoes are hidden everywhere; in boxes, under book shelves, in the closet, and under the dresser. Much of her cheap jewelry sits on the dresser top while her more expensive stuff (mostly bought be me over the years) sits hidden in drawers here and there. The entire room is one big talisman, magically calling for her to come home where mom can love her and dad can protect her.
I have my own talisman: her iPhone that wakes me up every day at 6:10. Each morning it goes off, I hope that if I awake just right and I open my eyes just at the right time, I will catch her spirit just as it was that fateful morning, complaining bitterly that it is too early to get up. That feeling is doubled on Thursdays. Perhaps it will be tripled at the one month mark and multiplied exponentially each anniversary. Lord help me when that iPhone finally dies. But then, I should know by now that everything dies eventually; even a magical talisman.
When your child dies you will hold onto everything and anything that holds a bit of them in some faint hope that something of them still lives, somehow, in that object. It may be a favourite piece of clothing, jewelry, a car or something else. At first, every little thing is infinitely important, then as the sheer amount of stuff starts mounting, small things start to lose their importance and you start to focus on just one or two things that become "comfort blankets". For my wife it is the shirts.
On that last Sunday we had with Calista she left her bedroom in a shambles; bed unmade, some dirty laundry on the floor and her used night shirt tossed carelessly upon the bed. Roni had straightened the bedroom up, but she had not changed the sheets or laundered the night shirt. On May 17, after the police and the grief counsellor had left us in the hands of my elder brother Ivor, my wife finally found some solace quietly (my wife is always quiet) sobbing by herself, curled in the foetal position in my daughter's bed. She had that used nightshirt, still faintly smelling of my daughter's perfume and shampoo clutched in both hands, tucked up under her chin. That shirt seemed to capture something of Calista for my wife and it became her comfort blanket; it still is really.
Every night my wife curls up to sleep with that shirt in her hands, unable to sleep without it's soft cotton tucked into her chin. Roni will wake up in the night and panic if she has lost track of that shirt and will not settle until one of us has found it among the bed sheets and returned it to the nape of her neck.
On our first trip to Courtenay to start the horrible task of cleaning out Calista's beloved apartment (her first real place of her own), we found her bed unmade and another night shirt tossed carelessly atop the pillow. My wife carefully bagged that little treasure in much the same way the RCMP had bagged her clothes after her death and brought the shirt home here. The two shirts are now being carefully traded each night so they last longer before her tight grip and constant wash of tears wears them out. Hopefully the shirts will outlast her desperate need of their comfort. They have become talisman for her; small charms that hold the essence of Calista in some small way. They are more than simple keepsakes.
There have been other things that have become unspoken sacred objects. For the first week after Calista's death, we slept in Calista's bed, comforted by her unique room surrounding us. After the second night in that room I told my wife that we should either stop sleeping in that room or change the sheets to fresh sheets immediately. Roni caught my reasoning immediately: our bodies were fouling the essence of Calista left upon those simple cotton sheets (purple, of course). There need not be any specific mention of what I was saying; Roni knew immediately that I could not bear the idea of fouling those sheets with our sweat and tears to the point that they would require laundering. I could not bear to wash away Calista. The next night we slept on top of the bed under winter weight comforters hastily taken out of summer storage. Those purple sheets remain on Calista's bed, waiting for her return. They will probably still be there the day they cart our cold bodies out of this house. They too are talisman.
Its kind of funny that I attach little or no magical properties to her ashes which sit in a beautiful brass urn in our bedroom. I guess I should attach some sacred importance to them, but they are just so much carbon in a jar. Calista lives in brightly painted bedroom decorated with antique Beatles LP albums and modern day posters for bands I don't recognise. Her own art sits on the wall, goofy Polaroid pictures of her friends and her jacking around back in Regina and her sweat jacket with the logo of some European football club hangs on the back of her door. There are silly stuffed giraffes (I had no idea she had a fixation on giraffes) and a tasteless little love-seat that looks like red lips stuffed behind her immense combination bed and dresser arrangement. Calista shoes are hidden everywhere; in boxes, under book shelves, in the closet, and under the dresser. Much of her cheap jewelry sits on the dresser top while her more expensive stuff (mostly bought be me over the years) sits hidden in drawers here and there. The entire room is one big talisman, magically calling for her to come home where mom can love her and dad can protect her.
I have my own talisman: her iPhone that wakes me up every day at 6:10. Each morning it goes off, I hope that if I awake just right and I open my eyes just at the right time, I will catch her spirit just as it was that fateful morning, complaining bitterly that it is too early to get up. That feeling is doubled on Thursdays. Perhaps it will be tripled at the one month mark and multiplied exponentially each anniversary. Lord help me when that iPhone finally dies. But then, I should know by now that everything dies eventually; even a magical talisman.
Monday, 4 June 2012
Two Weeks, Five Days: Wife, Mother, Friend
My readers, you have tolerated my self-centred monologue this last two weeks while I wallowed in my own self pity and ignored my wife Roni. I apologise. Her pain goes way beyond mine into a dark place that I probably cannot even imagine. Roni and Calista were so much more than mother and daughter, they were like twins or two halves of one whole. My wife was never so happy as when she was with my daughter and when she was away from Calista she was constantly talking about either her next visit to Comox or Calista's next trip home. I am starting to worry that Roni is not going to survive this tragedy.
In our marriage Roni has always been the silent partner with the common-sense. I was the talker and the dreamer while she was the quiet passenger that made sure the wheels stayed on my wild bus. She stood by me while I dragged us all over Western Canada looking for that perfect job with a bright future. Lethbridge, Whitehorse, Regina, Vancouver, back to Regina, changed jobs in Regina, and finally out to Powell River as I chased the pot at the end of my rainbow. The last move was a family decision: Calista was leaving us regardless to pursue her dream of becoming a photographer, Roni could not bear the idea of living thousands of miles from her daughter, and I decided that I really did not want to finish my career freezing in the prairies. The move to Powell River meant a real sacrifice for myself since I had a pretty easy lifestyle in Regina;a good professional reputation, tons of free time, and a very respectable income. I made the jump without a thought since it kept us all together and happy. Happy wife, happy life.
Between Roni and I we often commented that we had no idea what would keep us together if we had not had Calista. Nearly every conversation we had either started or ended with a Calista story or some future Calista plan. For years friends and family have commented on how close Calista and Roni were and there actually were a few pointed comments about how Roni is going to be when Calista finally leaves home for good. I guess everyone will get to find out now. My bet: Not well at all.
Of course the first four or five days after Calista's death were dreadful. I actually approached Roni's doctor and asked him to prescribe a sedative so she would at least sleep for a few hours each night. Those sedatives seemed to do something; at least she would stop crying for the few scant hours between midnight and six a.m., but after that the reprieve from the desolation seemed to just make things worse; there seemed to be a rebound effect and she would be even more devastated the following morning.
Mornings are dreadful. I find them terrible myself; the Groundhog Day effect is real; each day you awake with some hope that you may have moved on, and each day you awake to find the same old nightmare. My poor Roni has that same sensation, except she does not even get the blessed few seconds of relief from the pain; she seems to wake up crying and only stops when the tears run dry. Last night was the perfect example; at 4 am we both awoke to a cat spitting up a hair ball (just freaking wonderful) and, after we cleaned up the unsavoury mess, she proceeded to cry herself back to sleep. Today she did not make it out of bed until 11 am; this after going to bed at 9 pm last night. I suspect she actually only slept about three hours last night. Of course, if you spend that much time in bed, it means that much less time listening to me cajole her into eating something; anything.
Getting my wife to eat something is becoming a daily challenge. It is fairly easy to get her to eat if a friend or family is present. Typical of her she tries to avoid public confrontation. Unfortunately the parade of concerned friends and family visiting will come to a halt eventually and I will be left with a wife that started off petite and is working on skeletal quickly. She is so fragile right now that I am pretty sure that if I start pushing too hard, she is just going to shut down altogether.
While visiting Courtenay the other day she looked me in the eye and basically told me the only reason she is still living is because she knows that Calista would hate her for leaving me to fend for myself (My little girl, while making fun of her old dad heartlessly, was terribly protective of me and always worried that I would kill myself with bad cooking and incompetent housekeeping if Roni ever died or left me). I just have no idea how to deal with this since I completely understand her point of view; if it were not for the fact that I need to keep the memory of my daughter alive and finish her life for her, I would pack it in altogether myself. Living is pretty much pointless if all you are living for is yourself. Calista was our reason to live for twenty years and now she is gone. Why are we still here?
You would think that the day Calista died would be the worst day and things would turn around from there, but, sincerely, things are getting worse for my Roni. Each day seems to make it more real and less like a waking nightmare. This sort of thing happens on television or in the movies, not in our perfect little life. Even on film, there seems to be some sort of mitigating circumstance that makes the story balanced: the murderer is caught, the rare disease is cured through sacrifice, the victim was really a bad person and had it coming. In our life there is no murderer, they cannot find the cause of death and my daughter is turning out to be even better than Roni and I thought. There is no mitigating circumstances here. There is no balance; no good will come of this. Its all bad news.
My family and friends have repeatedly suggested grief counselling for both Roni and I. I really doubt that the counselling would do much for me; I never have been all that good at listening to advice, good, bad or indifferent. As for Roni? A grief counsellor would just irritate my dear wife; no amount of discussion about the topic will soften the blow for Roni and the very suggestion that it could would make my wife close down even more.
In fact, the only time I see my wife brighten up is when we are sharing Calista stories with her friends over in Courtenay. This last Friday at her photography show opening Roni was downright animated, hearing and telling stories about my girl. Roni was actually the one that picked up the pieces and put me back together when I broke down trying to talk about Calista in front of the crowd at the opening. She held my hand and hugged me, helping to control the sobs and shaking in public that she knew I would regret. At the time all I could think of was that my girl needed her dad to stand up and speak for her and I was not even capable of that small task. Roni stood by my side, my rock in the storm. Unfortunately we could not stay in Courtenay forever and we could not expect Calista's good friends to keep neglecting their own lives just to buoy up two broken parents. Eventually everybody has to return to their own lives and take care of their own families and leave us to lick our own wounds. What are we going to do when we are left alone?
Life indeed is continuing on all around us. One of my young clients suffered a miscarriage last week while one of my older clients is slowly losing blood from an undiagnosed source and is visibly failing each time I see him. A third client, a favourite of mine, was just diagnosed with a brain tumour. My loss is indeed a tragedy, but no less than those of my clients. I need to remember that old adage that into each life a little rain must fall. Of course, I could have done without the deluge and just settled on a spring shower.
I am fooling myself if I believe there will be a "cure" for my dear Roni. Right now it is basically a race between physical and mental deterioration killing her and time softening the blow so she wants to live again. Right now death is winning in my house.
In our marriage Roni has always been the silent partner with the common-sense. I was the talker and the dreamer while she was the quiet passenger that made sure the wheels stayed on my wild bus. She stood by me while I dragged us all over Western Canada looking for that perfect job with a bright future. Lethbridge, Whitehorse, Regina, Vancouver, back to Regina, changed jobs in Regina, and finally out to Powell River as I chased the pot at the end of my rainbow. The last move was a family decision: Calista was leaving us regardless to pursue her dream of becoming a photographer, Roni could not bear the idea of living thousands of miles from her daughter, and I decided that I really did not want to finish my career freezing in the prairies. The move to Powell River meant a real sacrifice for myself since I had a pretty easy lifestyle in Regina;a good professional reputation, tons of free time, and a very respectable income. I made the jump without a thought since it kept us all together and happy. Happy wife, happy life.
Between Roni and I we often commented that we had no idea what would keep us together if we had not had Calista. Nearly every conversation we had either started or ended with a Calista story or some future Calista plan. For years friends and family have commented on how close Calista and Roni were and there actually were a few pointed comments about how Roni is going to be when Calista finally leaves home for good. I guess everyone will get to find out now. My bet: Not well at all.
Of course the first four or five days after Calista's death were dreadful. I actually approached Roni's doctor and asked him to prescribe a sedative so she would at least sleep for a few hours each night. Those sedatives seemed to do something; at least she would stop crying for the few scant hours between midnight and six a.m., but after that the reprieve from the desolation seemed to just make things worse; there seemed to be a rebound effect and she would be even more devastated the following morning.
Mornings are dreadful. I find them terrible myself; the Groundhog Day effect is real; each day you awake with some hope that you may have moved on, and each day you awake to find the same old nightmare. My poor Roni has that same sensation, except she does not even get the blessed few seconds of relief from the pain; she seems to wake up crying and only stops when the tears run dry. Last night was the perfect example; at 4 am we both awoke to a cat spitting up a hair ball (just freaking wonderful) and, after we cleaned up the unsavoury mess, she proceeded to cry herself back to sleep. Today she did not make it out of bed until 11 am; this after going to bed at 9 pm last night. I suspect she actually only slept about three hours last night. Of course, if you spend that much time in bed, it means that much less time listening to me cajole her into eating something; anything.
Getting my wife to eat something is becoming a daily challenge. It is fairly easy to get her to eat if a friend or family is present. Typical of her she tries to avoid public confrontation. Unfortunately the parade of concerned friends and family visiting will come to a halt eventually and I will be left with a wife that started off petite and is working on skeletal quickly. She is so fragile right now that I am pretty sure that if I start pushing too hard, she is just going to shut down altogether.
While visiting Courtenay the other day she looked me in the eye and basically told me the only reason she is still living is because she knows that Calista would hate her for leaving me to fend for myself (My little girl, while making fun of her old dad heartlessly, was terribly protective of me and always worried that I would kill myself with bad cooking and incompetent housekeeping if Roni ever died or left me). I just have no idea how to deal with this since I completely understand her point of view; if it were not for the fact that I need to keep the memory of my daughter alive and finish her life for her, I would pack it in altogether myself. Living is pretty much pointless if all you are living for is yourself. Calista was our reason to live for twenty years and now she is gone. Why are we still here?
You would think that the day Calista died would be the worst day and things would turn around from there, but, sincerely, things are getting worse for my Roni. Each day seems to make it more real and less like a waking nightmare. This sort of thing happens on television or in the movies, not in our perfect little life. Even on film, there seems to be some sort of mitigating circumstance that makes the story balanced: the murderer is caught, the rare disease is cured through sacrifice, the victim was really a bad person and had it coming. In our life there is no murderer, they cannot find the cause of death and my daughter is turning out to be even better than Roni and I thought. There is no mitigating circumstances here. There is no balance; no good will come of this. Its all bad news.
My family and friends have repeatedly suggested grief counselling for both Roni and I. I really doubt that the counselling would do much for me; I never have been all that good at listening to advice, good, bad or indifferent. As for Roni? A grief counsellor would just irritate my dear wife; no amount of discussion about the topic will soften the blow for Roni and the very suggestion that it could would make my wife close down even more.
In fact, the only time I see my wife brighten up is when we are sharing Calista stories with her friends over in Courtenay. This last Friday at her photography show opening Roni was downright animated, hearing and telling stories about my girl. Roni was actually the one that picked up the pieces and put me back together when I broke down trying to talk about Calista in front of the crowd at the opening. She held my hand and hugged me, helping to control the sobs and shaking in public that she knew I would regret. At the time all I could think of was that my girl needed her dad to stand up and speak for her and I was not even capable of that small task. Roni stood by my side, my rock in the storm. Unfortunately we could not stay in Courtenay forever and we could not expect Calista's good friends to keep neglecting their own lives just to buoy up two broken parents. Eventually everybody has to return to their own lives and take care of their own families and leave us to lick our own wounds. What are we going to do when we are left alone?
Life indeed is continuing on all around us. One of my young clients suffered a miscarriage last week while one of my older clients is slowly losing blood from an undiagnosed source and is visibly failing each time I see him. A third client, a favourite of mine, was just diagnosed with a brain tumour. My loss is indeed a tragedy, but no less than those of my clients. I need to remember that old adage that into each life a little rain must fall. Of course, I could have done without the deluge and just settled on a spring shower.
I am fooling myself if I believe there will be a "cure" for my dear Roni. Right now it is basically a race between physical and mental deterioration killing her and time softening the blow so she wants to live again. Right now death is winning in my house.
Saturday, 2 June 2012
Two Weeks, One Day: Crazy, Simply Mad
This was supposed to be a very short entry made from my Blackberry while over in Courtenay yesterday. Needless to say, "blogging" from a Blackberry is not nearly as much fun as it sounds. The tiny keyboard makes my fingers sore and actually uploading the post is practically impossible. After three efforts and much cursing, I gave up. Lots to talk about, all of it about the process of mourning and how the experts do not have it quite right.
The experts suggest that there are progressive stages of mourning: disbelief, denial, anger, acceptance and resolution. Or something like that (I have not bothered looking it up; all the reading and counselling in the world is not going to change much for Roni and I). I believe that they have it more or less right, but they are missing that the stages can occur simultaneously and return in various proportions in waves. Yes, that wave is back, but it is a rogue wave now; coming when you least expect it.
Let me give you a peek into the mind of a father in mourning. Don't expect sane or reasonable; there is very little sanity happening around here right now.
The elusive iPod has now become an obsession with both me and Roni now. I am sure it is either hidden in plane sight or it is gone forever, lost long before Calista's death and she just never told us. One of the first things we did when we arrived in Comox was to rifle her apartment yet again, searching for a purple wind-breaker which had a pocket in which the iPod would ride when she was out for a run. We found the jacket eventually but no iPod. Then we had the idea that she might have left it at her gym and it might have been turned in by a good Samaritan (yes, I know, we are hopelessly naive). We drove by the gym and checked with reception; no iPod in lost and found. I suggested we were at the wrong gym (though I knew we probably were), so I asked if they could check for her membership. The receptionist did so and confirmed that yes indeed Calista was a member and had been in for a work-out on May 16, the afternoon prior to her death. And she had been in on May 25th, eight days after she died. Now that just set me back on my heels; I believe I actually went a little pale and asked her heatedly to confirm that date. Then I informed the poor receptionist why I was so upset and it was her turn to get quiet and pale.
I left the gym with crazy thoughts going through my head (thus the title of today's entry). Someone had my girl's card and thus maybe they had that iPod and maybe there was more to all this than meets the eye. Or.....maybe just maybe... this is all a colossal mistake and my girl is just in hiding (and for some reason she saw the need for a weight lifting work-out). Maybe she was under witness-protection and everyone, including the poor RCMP officer sent to do the notification was involved in a conspiracy. Pretty crazy eh? Well the title of this post was not "Sane and Functioning Well". This is the classic denial stage of mourning that we all get the impression should occur practically right away. Here is a little hint: it will probably be happening periodically for the rest of my life. If I happen to see a young woman who looks like my Calista even just a little bit I will take a second hopeful look.
In the end it turned out that there was a simple and logical explanation. On May 25th the first obituary appeared in the newspaper. A receptionist at the gym who had developed a personal relationship with my daughter (that often happens when a gym rat works out daily) and she was so taken aback by the obituary that she had to double check the membership list on the computer to confirm that it was indeed Calista that died. That simple accessing of my daughter's account information activated the "attendance" record and thus a dead woman walked again. Call it the modern day version of resurrection without any miracles (though I could go for a miracle any time soon)
I realise now my crazy behaviour was the result of lack of closure. The coroner still has no idea of what the cause of death really was; that keeps thing mysterious for me (thus the idea of a witness-protection program came to mind) and leaves my mind time to wander. The other problem is that I never saw her body; it was cremated within days of the autopsy. Now I admit that there is no way in this green earth that I could possibly look upon the remains of my girl. It would have absolutely killed me, but probably not before I committed some act of violence to the closest wall or window. I am alright with not seeing her body, but parents in this same situation might want to re-assess that denial. It leaves you open to all sorts of crazy.
We attended Calista's first and last photography show opening Friday night. It was a real success; her pictures were outstanding and we were allowed to hang her portrait next to her works so she had a presence even in death. The college also allowed an announcement to be placed next to the guest book that we were starting a memorial scholarship in her name through the North Island College Foundation Program (note my shameless plug for her scholarship). It was a good day more or less; until I tried to speak for her when it came time to present her pictures. That did not go nearly as well as I thought it should.
When the head of the professional photography program asked for a person to speak on Calista's behalf, I immediately stepped forward. I just wanted to say how much Calista enjoyed the program, how much she loved photography and how thankful we were that she had found her niche in the world and her true home in the Comox Valley. I just wanted to thank people for making her last eight months on Earth the best of her life. I believe I made it to "She sure loved this program" before I completely broke down and ended just by saying "Thank-you"; I left barely holding my tears in check and visibly shaking I was so upset. I thought I had healed better than that. I guess not. I doubt I will be ready for her memorial service in 15 days. Thankfully we have Boomer, her instructor.
Boomer and Sean were the two instructors she talked about the most. To hear her tell it, Boomer was simply amazing; some sort of photographic Indiana Jones. Sean was the photographer she did her practicum with and I think she actually wanted to follow his footsteps into product photography and advertising. When the idea of an emcee for her memorial came up, I asked her friends in the program if there was any of the instructors who might step up and act as an emcee. I wanted somebody who knew Calista and could speak well. Boomer's name came up immediately; I took it as a good sign that all four girls unanimously suggested him and giggled that Boomer and Calista had some sort of chemistry going on.
I met Boomer this morning and I immediately understood why my daughter bonded with him. He was passionate about his photography and, despite protestation to the contrary, his teaching. He really thought that the professional photography program was more than just another job. He enjoyed introducing students to new ideas and he told them to follow their heart rather than just following the pack. That was exactly the approach that would appeal to Calista: she followed her heart always and never worried what the rest of the world thought.
I felt sorry for Boomer; he was visibly shaken several times throughout our meeting but it is not hard to understand why: he has a twenty year old daughter that is very much like my Calista. It would be impossible for a loving father not to step into my shoes for just a second and not cry. I commend him for caring so much.
The anger at her death is starting to really take hold now. I look around and see just so many people squandering this life; drugs, booze, slothfulness and apathy seem to fill the world, So many people run around making plans for tomorrow and never actually living. Those people just keep on breathing and wasting time, meanwhile Calista raced through her life, living completely and absolutely with every moment, caring, accomplishing and pushing her own boundaries. Then she just died for no apparent reason. The loss to everyone that knew her and everybody that would have known her is more than we can all fathom.
I spent most of the day reviewing her photographs trying, with the help of her close friends Jesse and Amanda, to assemble her final portfolio. I knew my girl had a gift, but when I actually looked at her complete body of work I was floored at the talent she had. I may be her father, but I never fooled myself that she was perfect or special and I am not fooling myself now. Of course Calista had faults. She could be bossy, arrogant, hopelessly lacking in diplomacy and sometimes downright mean (oh, and her sneakers really smelled sometime), but she also had talent and a zest for life that make my accomplishments in life pale and empty. She was so much more than either Roni or I that I am at a loss to explain how she came from us. It just makes no sense to me that she died, no sense at all.
Calista had a tattoo on her arm of a saying from Harry Potter: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live". She had this tattoo done nearly two years ago and, to her, it meant that one should stop planning to live and just get on with living. It fit her perfectly. Unfortunately, for Roni and I it has taken on a much darker meaning. It is interesting that the quote is from the first Harry Potter book and it is referring to Harry's obsession with a mirror which shows him his dead parents as they were in life. Albus, his mentor, is reminding Harry that as much as he misses and mourns his dead parents, he still has to stay in the real world and live. Both Roni and I are having that exact saying tattooed on us next week as homage to our daughter and a reminder that we both cannot mourn forever; we have to keep living if for no other reason than at assure her memory survives.
This last note for people that might lose a loved one (and that includes everyone eventually because the price of transport on this planet is eventual death): it's the little things that creep up on you in the quiet moments that catch you. As I drove off the ferry today I looked over and saw the foot passengers hiking up the hill on the sidewalk next to the ferry off ramp and suddenly the wave caught me. I remembered how excited I used to be when I would drive down to the ferry docks to pick up Calista when she came home for the weekend. I would race down to the docks and then walk that last 300 yards to the edge of the ferry ramps just so I could meet her as she disembarked and carry her luggage up to my car. I would be just like an expectant father at the maternity ward, peering over heads, scanning left and right, looking for that huge smile and even larger bag full of dirty laundry she always carried home. It just hit me as I drove away that I would never be waiting for her to disembark again. Such a little thing really and there it is, even as I type, the wave causing my eyes to fill and my throat to constrict.
Just a reminder: North Island College, Comox BC, Foundation Program, Calista Jasmine Fleming Memorial Scholarship. It will help future generations of young photographers find their way. Maybe, somewhere there is a young woman with a hundred watt smile, a zest for living and a cheap point and shoot camera getting banged up in her purse that can take my girl's place. In this world but never in my heart.
The experts suggest that there are progressive stages of mourning: disbelief, denial, anger, acceptance and resolution. Or something like that (I have not bothered looking it up; all the reading and counselling in the world is not going to change much for Roni and I). I believe that they have it more or less right, but they are missing that the stages can occur simultaneously and return in various proportions in waves. Yes, that wave is back, but it is a rogue wave now; coming when you least expect it.
Let me give you a peek into the mind of a father in mourning. Don't expect sane or reasonable; there is very little sanity happening around here right now.
The elusive iPod has now become an obsession with both me and Roni now. I am sure it is either hidden in plane sight or it is gone forever, lost long before Calista's death and she just never told us. One of the first things we did when we arrived in Comox was to rifle her apartment yet again, searching for a purple wind-breaker which had a pocket in which the iPod would ride when she was out for a run. We found the jacket eventually but no iPod. Then we had the idea that she might have left it at her gym and it might have been turned in by a good Samaritan (yes, I know, we are hopelessly naive). We drove by the gym and checked with reception; no iPod in lost and found. I suggested we were at the wrong gym (though I knew we probably were), so I asked if they could check for her membership. The receptionist did so and confirmed that yes indeed Calista was a member and had been in for a work-out on May 16, the afternoon prior to her death. And she had been in on May 25th, eight days after she died. Now that just set me back on my heels; I believe I actually went a little pale and asked her heatedly to confirm that date. Then I informed the poor receptionist why I was so upset and it was her turn to get quiet and pale.
I left the gym with crazy thoughts going through my head (thus the title of today's entry). Someone had my girl's card and thus maybe they had that iPod and maybe there was more to all this than meets the eye. Or.....maybe just maybe... this is all a colossal mistake and my girl is just in hiding (and for some reason she saw the need for a weight lifting work-out). Maybe she was under witness-protection and everyone, including the poor RCMP officer sent to do the notification was involved in a conspiracy. Pretty crazy eh? Well the title of this post was not "Sane and Functioning Well". This is the classic denial stage of mourning that we all get the impression should occur practically right away. Here is a little hint: it will probably be happening periodically for the rest of my life. If I happen to see a young woman who looks like my Calista even just a little bit I will take a second hopeful look.
In the end it turned out that there was a simple and logical explanation. On May 25th the first obituary appeared in the newspaper. A receptionist at the gym who had developed a personal relationship with my daughter (that often happens when a gym rat works out daily) and she was so taken aback by the obituary that she had to double check the membership list on the computer to confirm that it was indeed Calista that died. That simple accessing of my daughter's account information activated the "attendance" record and thus a dead woman walked again. Call it the modern day version of resurrection without any miracles (though I could go for a miracle any time soon)
I realise now my crazy behaviour was the result of lack of closure. The coroner still has no idea of what the cause of death really was; that keeps thing mysterious for me (thus the idea of a witness-protection program came to mind) and leaves my mind time to wander. The other problem is that I never saw her body; it was cremated within days of the autopsy. Now I admit that there is no way in this green earth that I could possibly look upon the remains of my girl. It would have absolutely killed me, but probably not before I committed some act of violence to the closest wall or window. I am alright with not seeing her body, but parents in this same situation might want to re-assess that denial. It leaves you open to all sorts of crazy.
We attended Calista's first and last photography show opening Friday night. It was a real success; her pictures were outstanding and we were allowed to hang her portrait next to her works so she had a presence even in death. The college also allowed an announcement to be placed next to the guest book that we were starting a memorial scholarship in her name through the North Island College Foundation Program (note my shameless plug for her scholarship). It was a good day more or less; until I tried to speak for her when it came time to present her pictures. That did not go nearly as well as I thought it should.
When the head of the professional photography program asked for a person to speak on Calista's behalf, I immediately stepped forward. I just wanted to say how much Calista enjoyed the program, how much she loved photography and how thankful we were that she had found her niche in the world and her true home in the Comox Valley. I just wanted to thank people for making her last eight months on Earth the best of her life. I believe I made it to "She sure loved this program" before I completely broke down and ended just by saying "Thank-you"; I left barely holding my tears in check and visibly shaking I was so upset. I thought I had healed better than that. I guess not. I doubt I will be ready for her memorial service in 15 days. Thankfully we have Boomer, her instructor.
Boomer and Sean were the two instructors she talked about the most. To hear her tell it, Boomer was simply amazing; some sort of photographic Indiana Jones. Sean was the photographer she did her practicum with and I think she actually wanted to follow his footsteps into product photography and advertising. When the idea of an emcee for her memorial came up, I asked her friends in the program if there was any of the instructors who might step up and act as an emcee. I wanted somebody who knew Calista and could speak well. Boomer's name came up immediately; I took it as a good sign that all four girls unanimously suggested him and giggled that Boomer and Calista had some sort of chemistry going on.
I met Boomer this morning and I immediately understood why my daughter bonded with him. He was passionate about his photography and, despite protestation to the contrary, his teaching. He really thought that the professional photography program was more than just another job. He enjoyed introducing students to new ideas and he told them to follow their heart rather than just following the pack. That was exactly the approach that would appeal to Calista: she followed her heart always and never worried what the rest of the world thought.
I felt sorry for Boomer; he was visibly shaken several times throughout our meeting but it is not hard to understand why: he has a twenty year old daughter that is very much like my Calista. It would be impossible for a loving father not to step into my shoes for just a second and not cry. I commend him for caring so much.
The anger at her death is starting to really take hold now. I look around and see just so many people squandering this life; drugs, booze, slothfulness and apathy seem to fill the world, So many people run around making plans for tomorrow and never actually living. Those people just keep on breathing and wasting time, meanwhile Calista raced through her life, living completely and absolutely with every moment, caring, accomplishing and pushing her own boundaries. Then she just died for no apparent reason. The loss to everyone that knew her and everybody that would have known her is more than we can all fathom.
I spent most of the day reviewing her photographs trying, with the help of her close friends Jesse and Amanda, to assemble her final portfolio. I knew my girl had a gift, but when I actually looked at her complete body of work I was floored at the talent she had. I may be her father, but I never fooled myself that she was perfect or special and I am not fooling myself now. Of course Calista had faults. She could be bossy, arrogant, hopelessly lacking in diplomacy and sometimes downright mean (oh, and her sneakers really smelled sometime), but she also had talent and a zest for life that make my accomplishments in life pale and empty. She was so much more than either Roni or I that I am at a loss to explain how she came from us. It just makes no sense to me that she died, no sense at all.
Calista had a tattoo on her arm of a saying from Harry Potter: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live". She had this tattoo done nearly two years ago and, to her, it meant that one should stop planning to live and just get on with living. It fit her perfectly. Unfortunately, for Roni and I it has taken on a much darker meaning. It is interesting that the quote is from the first Harry Potter book and it is referring to Harry's obsession with a mirror which shows him his dead parents as they were in life. Albus, his mentor, is reminding Harry that as much as he misses and mourns his dead parents, he still has to stay in the real world and live. Both Roni and I are having that exact saying tattooed on us next week as homage to our daughter and a reminder that we both cannot mourn forever; we have to keep living if for no other reason than at assure her memory survives.
This last note for people that might lose a loved one (and that includes everyone eventually because the price of transport on this planet is eventual death): it's the little things that creep up on you in the quiet moments that catch you. As I drove off the ferry today I looked over and saw the foot passengers hiking up the hill on the sidewalk next to the ferry off ramp and suddenly the wave caught me. I remembered how excited I used to be when I would drive down to the ferry docks to pick up Calista when she came home for the weekend. I would race down to the docks and then walk that last 300 yards to the edge of the ferry ramps just so I could meet her as she disembarked and carry her luggage up to my car. I would be just like an expectant father at the maternity ward, peering over heads, scanning left and right, looking for that huge smile and even larger bag full of dirty laundry she always carried home. It just hit me as I drove away that I would never be waiting for her to disembark again. Such a little thing really and there it is, even as I type, the wave causing my eyes to fill and my throat to constrict.
Just a reminder: North Island College, Comox BC, Foundation Program, Calista Jasmine Fleming Memorial Scholarship. It will help future generations of young photographers find their way. Maybe, somewhere there is a young woman with a hundred watt smile, a zest for living and a cheap point and shoot camera getting banged up in her purse that can take my girl's place. In this world but never in my heart.
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