I had always felt my grief in solitude. I heard a story around the age of thirteen of a girl who cried any time someone brought up their father as she was mourning her own. While I understood her, as I reckon with the fact that the mention of a father can trigger such a whirlwind of thoughts, I feared the attention it could bring if I were ever to cry in front of others I didn’t know over my father’s death. I can only remember it occurring once; me, six or seven years old, sitting on my mother’s hip as my tears stained her shirt and she picked up my report card from school.
Everyone is confused about their childhood, piecing together a collage of real memories and those fabricated to display their emotions while protecting them from what happened. Death isn’t traumatizing for everyone, however, I’ve learned in the past fifteen years or so that it was for me. It was when my father died when I was six years old and it was when the friend I shared intimate moments with passed less than two years ago. Dissecting my dad’s death has had to happen in pieces, in moments with my mom and my sister; conversations with my dad’s side of the family; and the secretive space of my therapy and psychiatry sessions. For the friend that I lost, whom I knew none of his friends or family, I stretched tape across my lips. The only way out was through my hands and the words that they wrote.
Upon telling my mom a certain story about my grief as a child, she told me my understanding of this memory wasn’t reflective of reality. She also told me she often experiences false memories too, but that they are only a reflection of the feelings felt at the time, instead of a reflection of true events. This, she explained, was learned from her therapist. I later learned from one of my professors that these are screen memories, and everyone’s brains subconsciously use them to fill in gaps, cover up a harsher memory, or signal the emotions we felt as children. My mother passed this knowledge to me in the hopes of aiding the grief I experienced in my childhood; from my mother to myself, and likely from myself to my future child.
Behind the screen memories acting as my recollection of my father’s death, a facade protecting me from any real memory, I kept my mouth shut. I know I was playing family with dolls at the same time I grieved my dead father. I sat on a teeter-totter alone in a park, while my mom tended to my sister, and I wondered where my other parent went. Is that story, of me sitting lonesome in a park, true, and does matter if it is? Are any of the anecdotes I recall true, and is it okay if they aren’t? If my memories only serve as a reminder of my feelings, maybe it doesn’t matter how vividly I can recall things I’ve never truly seen.
When my friend passed, I wrote our story - my story - by putting pen to paper. My notebook filled up as I illustrated all the moments that I hold close, and those I am terrified to part with. I recounted these memories on paper, knowing they would soon fade in my mind and be replaced by the blurring screen. I became a storyteller in the privacy of my bedroom, but with each day that passed after his death, I was less sure the memories I wrote were true. At the same time, I delved into books, both fictitious and non-, engaging with “The Song of Achilles,” (2011) by Madeline Miller and “The Year of Magical Thinking,” (2005) by Joan Didion, among others. I turned each page until I saw something that reflected myself, where I would be forced to take a break.
Everyone is confused about their childhood, piecing together a collage of real memories and those fabricated to display their emotions while protecting them from what happened. Death isn’t traumatizing for everyone, however, I’ve learned in the past fifteen years or so that it was for me. It was when my father died when I was six years old and it was when the friend I shared intimate moments with passed less than two years ago. Dissecting my dad’s death has had to happen in pieces, in moments with my mom and my sister; conversations with my dad’s side of the family; and the secretive space of my therapy and psychiatry sessions. For the friend that I lost, whom I knew none of his friends or family, I stretched tape across my lips. The only way out was through my hands and the words that they wrote.
Upon telling my mom a certain story about my grief as a child, she told me my understanding of this memory wasn’t reflective of reality. She also told me she often experiences false memories too, but that they are only a reflection of the feelings felt at the time, instead of a reflection of true events. This, she explained, was learned from her therapist. I later learned from one of my professors that these are screen memories, and everyone’s brains subconsciously use them to fill in gaps, cover up a harsher memory, or signal the emotions we felt as children. My mother passed this knowledge to me in the hopes of aiding the grief I experienced in my childhood; from my mother to myself, and likely from myself to my future child.
Behind the screen memories acting as my recollection of my father’s death, a facade protecting me from any real memory, I kept my mouth shut. I know I was playing family with dolls at the same time I grieved my dead father. I sat on a teeter-totter alone in a park, while my mom tended to my sister, and I wondered where my other parent went. Is that story, of me sitting lonesome in a park, true, and does matter if it is? Are any of the anecdotes I recall true, and is it okay if they aren’t? If my memories only serve as a reminder of my feelings, maybe it doesn’t matter how vividly I can recall things I’ve never truly seen.
When my friend passed, I wrote our story - my story - by putting pen to paper. My notebook filled up as I illustrated all the moments that I hold close, and those I am terrified to part with. I recounted these memories on paper, knowing they would soon fade in my mind and be replaced by the blurring screen. I became a storyteller in the privacy of my bedroom, but with each day that passed after his death, I was less sure the memories I wrote were true. At the same time, I delved into books, both fictitious and non-, engaging with “The Song of Achilles,” (2011) by Madeline Miller and “The Year of Magical Thinking,” (2005) by Joan Didion, among others. I turned each page until I saw something that reflected myself, where I would be forced to take a break.
I became a storyteller in the privacy of my bedroom.
While memories cannot always be trusted, the words arching across each page of a book that spoke to my screen memories will not change. Even when I return at a later time and find a new meaning, the words have not altered. Stickie notes peaking out of the edges, forming a discussion of love and loss in the highlighted quotes. Each marking signals the emotions it pulled from me, ones that often lay dormant in the sedation of grief.
Almost a year before I joined Good Mourning as a blog coordinator and found the courage to attend each book club meeting, my therapist at the time mentioned there was a grief-based group at Queen’s. I shrugged off this knowledge, living with the fear of having to explain my grief to those that were not in my comfortable and trusted circle, but kept it tucked away into a crevice of my mind. I held onto this information for later, because while I feared speaking out loud, I craved to hear others pronounce their grief in the way the books I read declared theirs.
When I finally joined, it was to be Good Mourning’s blog coordinator for this past academic year. The first article I wrote for the blog, “Last October,” was published near the one-year passing of my friend. I gained entry to this open community through the pathway of writing but found myself in vulnerable and open conversations with other members at the monthly meetings. Through discussions in Good Mourning meetings this past year, I found the conversations about “The Time Keeper,” (2012) from Mitch Albom, Oliver Jeffers’ “The Heart and the Bottle,” (2010), and “Time Is a Mother,” (2022) by Ocean Vuong spoke to me to the highest degree. At times, they evoked emotions similar to those resting in my screen memories. In other spheres, each book told its own story, and the words transfixed each individual in the group differently. When we could come together to share our thoughts, we spoke as if our grief was normal, contrary to the solitude I had long resided in.
I look forward to reading more from Mitch Albom and Ocean Vuong, as well as “Notes on Grief,” (2021) from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a book I wished could have been covered in one of our meetings this past year. And I hope that I never stop writing, as my father excelled in the written word and my dear friend was the first person I told I wanted to be a writer. In many moments this past year, I have been able to honour both of my lost loved ones’ memories with Good Mourning. As I depart from my position with GMQ and graduate from Queen’s, I hope they both would be proud of the work I’ve done to live alongside my grief while I have been here.
April 26th, 2023
Almost a year before I joined Good Mourning as a blog coordinator and found the courage to attend each book club meeting, my therapist at the time mentioned there was a grief-based group at Queen’s. I shrugged off this knowledge, living with the fear of having to explain my grief to those that were not in my comfortable and trusted circle, but kept it tucked away into a crevice of my mind. I held onto this information for later, because while I feared speaking out loud, I craved to hear others pronounce their grief in the way the books I read declared theirs.
When I finally joined, it was to be Good Mourning’s blog coordinator for this past academic year. The first article I wrote for the blog, “Last October,” was published near the one-year passing of my friend. I gained entry to this open community through the pathway of writing but found myself in vulnerable and open conversations with other members at the monthly meetings. Through discussions in Good Mourning meetings this past year, I found the conversations about “The Time Keeper,” (2012) from Mitch Albom, Oliver Jeffers’ “The Heart and the Bottle,” (2010), and “Time Is a Mother,” (2022) by Ocean Vuong spoke to me to the highest degree. At times, they evoked emotions similar to those resting in my screen memories. In other spheres, each book told its own story, and the words transfixed each individual in the group differently. When we could come together to share our thoughts, we spoke as if our grief was normal, contrary to the solitude I had long resided in.
I look forward to reading more from Mitch Albom and Ocean Vuong, as well as “Notes on Grief,” (2021) from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a book I wished could have been covered in one of our meetings this past year. And I hope that I never stop writing, as my father excelled in the written word and my dear friend was the first person I told I wanted to be a writer. In many moments this past year, I have been able to honour both of my lost loved ones’ memories with Good Mourning. As I depart from my position with GMQ and graduate from Queen’s, I hope they both would be proud of the work I’ve done to live alongside my grief while I have been here.
April 26th, 2023