Losing a Parent to Cancer, Sibling Loss, and the Grief of Family Estrangement with Emily

Speaker A Hi, Emily. Speaker B Hi, Claire. Speaker A Thanks for coming on. Speaker B Absolutely. Speaker A Well, let me give you a moment to introduce yourself. Speaker B Sure. Yeah. My name is Emily. I am an addiction and mental health therapist in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Speaker A Well, I really appreciate you reaching out. So, yeah. Little background. Me, Emily and I used to work together, different departments and didn’t know, I think a lot about each other’s personal life and you reaching out to me after I started this podcast and expressing what seems like maybe some similar experiences. So I guess just to start, what do you think prompted you to reach out to me? Speaker B Yeah, I love that you’re doing this. As somebody who’s felt the feelings and lived in the grief that you talk about and describe through. Nothing happens for a reason. I’ve lived with that for over a decade and come to find that a lot of people who haven’t been through it don’t know what to say or do and they get very uncomfortable with the topic. Yeah. So having a platform to talk about that and educate around, that is. I thought that was so amazing. Speaker A Thank you. Thank you so much. And again, thanks for reaching out. Speaker B Yeah. Speaker A So if you’re comfortable, where does your grief journey kind of start? Speaker B Yeah, and it’s actually as an adult, I’ve gained a lot more insight than when it was happening real time. So my dad was a single dad and I’m the youngest of three. When my parents split, my sister was just about to go to college. My brother was just about to start middle school, and I. I was 10. Beyond that, probably two years later. So I was in sixth grade. My dad got diagnosed with stage three liver cancer. Not related to alcohol consumption or anything like that, like very fluke liver cancer. And so there was a lot of being told, like, not to talk about that. Having a terminally ill parent, he was a private person in general. He would hate this. Sorry, dad. He was a very private person. And, you know, initially when he got the diagnosis, we were told that he would, you know, to go home and get his affairs in order. Cause he would have three months. Thankfully, it actually, he actually didn’t pass away until about six years later. I was a senior in high school when he passed away, and I was a month, two months maybe at most, maybe a month and a half away from finishing high school. And just watching my only parent go through the hospice process and having to go to school and act like everything was normal. Right. And try to be a teenager and doing these very adult things. When I got home, we didn’t have a nurse in the home or anything. Like that. Speaker A So do you remember just backing up for a moment like, yeah. You said sixth grade is when he got the diagnosis. Speaker B Yep. Speaker A So how are you told? Speaker B You know, it’s funny thing about something traumatic like that is I have a fuzzy picture of the scene, but I can remember like the feelings. And I remember standing in our kitchen and it was like my dad and my grandma, who was a big proponent in this whole journey too, and myself and I think my brother and our dad telling us, like, I have cancer and it doesn’t look good. And then my grandma saying like, no, we’re, we’re not accepting this. Like three months left, we’re gonna, we’re gonna go somewhere else and figure this out. Speaker A So did he like do chemo at that point? Is, is that the direction? Speaker B So he went to Mayo Clinic after that and they did surgery. So he got a 2/3 liver resection, which was intense and hard. I was 12, so I didn’t really understand everything. Obviously he had to spend a couple days in the hospital. I wasn’t used to him not being home at nighttime, all of that. And nobody. Even then, I mean, it continued. This was a pattern. But even then, like the adults in my life, like my teachers at school and you know, they sent me to the counselor and they found out all that stuff. They didn’t know what to say or what to do. And at that point, having no emotional intelligence or really knowledge of how to express any feelings, I just bottled it. Speaker A You said people don’t know what to say. What did people say? I mean, was it just like literally nothing or was it just not helpful? Speaker B I mean, at that point when he first got diagnosed, like I said, I was 12, my friends were all, you know, 12, 11, 12. Speaker A You had a hard time. Speaker B And so they like, that was literally nothing. Right? Because even adults struggle with what to say, let alone being 11 or 12 years old. A lot of the adults in my life would say, like, I’m really sorry and this is really hard. And you know, things that, because I didn’t understand what I was feeling at the time was like, okay, yeah, it is. And that doesn’t help the way I feel right now, which, I mean, I’ve learned through 12 years of feeling this grief that there, there really isn’t much to say. Speaker A It’s one of those things where, yeah, there’s nothing to say that’s gonna like, fix it or take it away. And the silence is so fucking painful and loud. Speaker B The silence is so loud. And I saw that. I saw that even when he died, so, like I said, I was just about to finish high school, and I had friends literally ghost me after he died because they, like, did not know. I mean, we’re 18, right. So he just. They didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to be there, so they just pulled away. And that. I don’t want to say that made it worse, but that wasn’t helpful, you know, maybe. Speaker A Maybe made it worse. Speaker B In a different way. Speaker A Right. Speaker B Like, I also don’t know how helpful it would be to just pretend like nothing was happening. Right. Or, like. Right. So it’s kind of a catch 22. And I’ve found in all of my years that just having people there and willing to show up for me the way I need, when I ask for what I need, is the most helpful. But at 18, I didn’t know what I needed. Speaker A No. My gosh. And for years, during really formative years, you were dealing with watching your dad slowly. Speaker B Yeah. Speaker A Die. Right. Like, it’s. Speaker B Yeah. Speaker A And so that’s a whole other layer of it, too. Speaker B Yeah. I mean, I had a whole. You know, a lot of. We had the end of elementary school and middle school and high school, and so, you know, I have friends who are doing extracurricular sports. I have friends who are going on vacations with their families. And then, like, what I did outside of school was trips down to Mayo, and it was kind of a pattern he had where he would go into, like, after the surgery, he went into remission, and then, like, every year, he would relapse and have to have chemo again. And then just every year, once a year, it would relapse until, you know, my senior year, when it came back, and Mayo was like, you’re not strong enough for surgery again. There’s nothing else we can do. Speaker A So were you in that conversation, or did your dad have to pass that along to you? Speaker B I don’t think I was there for that one. Yeah. A lot of times those appointments were during the week because it was a specialty versus just, like, the hospital or anything. So the appointments were during the week, and I was at school. And he very much valued, like, going to school and kind of that pretending like everything was fine on the. To everyone else, even though it wasn’t fine. Speaker A So hard. It’s so hard because it, like, exacerbates this loneliness within the family or within you. Like, we keep this a secret or, you know, don’t let people know your stuff. And so then you’re left maybe not even getting. Not that you knew you needed, but getting Support. Because you’re asked to talk about it. Speaker B Right, right. And teaching me things that I’m still healing from now at 30, you know, that I learned in my teenage years and early grief, the hyper independence, the make everyone think you can do it on your own. All of those things kind of stem from that. Speaker A And I’m just thinking about, like, how devastating that you said he. He died, like, just shortly before you graduated high school. Speaker B He passed away on April 14, 2013. And I graduated June 8, 2013. Speaker A Wow. What was that experience like for you to have this big milestone and be in the depths of your grief? Speaker B Yeah, because that was probably the first, you know, big one that I had. And I remember I had stayed at my grandma’s the night before, and I wrote him a letter that morning. Like I woke up and that’s the first thing I did and just cried. It didn’t feel right. Almost like an out of body experience. Right. Like I was there, but I wasn’t really there. Kind of a lot of dissociation happening. And thankfully at the time, and still my sister lives in Texas, and so she asked me, do you want me to fly to Minnesota for you graduation ceremony or graduation party? And I said ceremony because it was the first big thing since our dad had passed away. So having her there too, and my brother was there, and that was. Was definitely helped probably the most. Hmm. Speaker A Yeah. I was gonna ask, like, your siblings being older than you, like, where. Where were they throughout all of this in the last few years, where you were sounds like doing a lot of the, like, caretaking part. Speaker B Yeah. So my sister was in college when my dad got the diagnosis. My brother was maybe sophomore year of high school. I think I have to do math in my head. Speaker A It’s a grief math. It’s so hard. Speaker B It is. It is a kind of all blurs together in my mind. There’s a timeline, but when I have to say it out loud. Yeah, that’s when it’s hard. Speaker A I can relate. Speaker B And so my brother was there in the beginning parts of it and for a few years during that relapse, remission cycle. And then he went to college in the fall of 2010. And that’s when I started high school. That was my sophomore year of high school is when he went to college. And so by the time my dad’s death rolled around, my sister had graduated college and moved down to Texas. She did teach for America, so that’s where she was assigned. And my brother was in his junior year of college, not too far. He was still In Minnesota. But he was probably about hour or two away at college. And that probably too, like, the morning that he passed, I had to make those calls and tell them that he was gone. Yeah, and that’s. That was one of the hardest things, too, was having to be the messenger of that our favorite person in the world is gone. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Speaker A It’s so hard. Speaker B Like, people. Speaker A Unless people have been through that, I don’t think there’s a lot of awareness into all the other things that follow for me too. Like, I mean, I was physically with my dad the night that my mom died, but it was like, once she died, him and I divided different people and family, and we both made different calls. And it’s fucking horrible. Like, it’s. It’s horrible. Speaker B Yeah. So at that point in time, once my dad went into hospice, my grandma, his mom actually moved in with us. And so she would care for him during the day when I was at school. And then when I came home from school, she would make dinner. But then, like, nighttime was my caretaking time. So, like, had a baby monitor set up in my room for his bedroom because he was very adamant about, like, I want to die in my home. I don’t want to die in a hospital. And that the night it happened, every night before that, I was like, tonight’s tonight. It’s gonna happen tonight. Tonight’s night. And then the night that it actually happened, that thought didn’t even cross my mind that that was gonna be the night. Despite, like, in hindsight, there were so many signs and I don’t know how. Gory. Gory details you want? Speaker A No. Over the signs you saw. Speaker B So I have a metaphobia. So. So throwing up. I go into full blown, like, fight or flight pain. I have to leave immediately. And he started throwing up. So I left the room immediately. My grandma was in there with him, seeing. It was all blood. It was all blood. That should have been a sign. He couldn’t get up out of bed. So we had to do a portable urinal. And that was all blood. And he slept for almost the entire day, maybe two beforehand, you know, and I didn’t know. I didn’t know what active dying looked like at 18 years old. Speaker A No, of course not. Speaker B I do now. Right. But I didn’t at the time, so I didn’t. I didn’t know that that was a sign that he was going to pass. And so after that, you know, I came back in. I apologized for not being able to stay in there when he was puking because I did feel A lot of guilt for that. Like, you know, he was dying and he was getting sick, and I couldn’t be in there and support him. And I remember telling him that I loved him. And then I said, I’ll see you in the morning, Daddy. And I actually went and slept in the living room, which I never did. And my grandma actually, like, laid down in bed with him just in case he got sick again or whatever. And I must have fallen asleep, and I woke up to my grandma screaming that he was gone. It had to be her comfort, right? Yes. I’m the child of the person who passed, and that’s his mom. So that was in that, too, that I can still picture the body and all that. And I didn’t know what happened after that either. Right. And so my grandma and I kind of did, like you said. What, you and your dad didn’t split the family members to call. And we did the same thing. So she called my grandpa, which is my dad’s stepdad and the coroner’s office. Right. To send a hearse. And all of those. Those tasks that you. Unfortunately, it doesn’t just happen. Like, you have to do it. Speaker A And what. What was it like for you to be the ones to call your siblings? Cause that was my situation too. Speaker B Right. I mean, my siblings and I were never ones to, like, talk to each other on the phone. You know, it was a lot of texting. And it’s 2013. Right. I mean, I’m 18. My brother’s 21. My sister’s 25. So we just were very much in the era of, like, we text, we text each other. We were just starting to like each other. Yeah, totally. And so when I’m calling them at 7am on a Sunday morning, knowing that our dad was in hospice, like, I’m sure that they knew. My sister answered. My brother didn’t answer. He’s probably asleep 21 7am on the Sunday, but he called me back within an hour, and they made their arrangements. My brother was there that day. My sister came. It was either late that night or early the next morning. Got a flight out and stayed for. I think they both stayed for about a week. Yeah. Speaker A And then it was up to all of you to do all the arrangements. And. Speaker B Yeah, so I learned so much about, like, funerals and all of that, unfortunately, which comes full circle when we talk about my half brother who passed away. It comes full circle. But, yeah, at 18, learning what goes into a funeral and how much caskets cost and all of that, it’s pretty messed up. Speaker A Had Your dad done a lot of planning during the years that he was sick or there were there a lot of things still like up in the air. Speaker B So he had made a will beforehand when he got like kind of told by mail, like, there’s nothing left we can do. We want to move you into hospice. Like so he, he made a will. So that was taking like all the money and everything, which thank God, like we didn’t have to worry about that because yeah. Speaker A Whole other layer for people. Yeah. Speaker B We knew. So I think when, maybe not when he first got diagnosed, but at some point in his illness, him and my grandma had talked and decided and had bought the plot for his. For him to be buried right next to his grandparents. And he grew up, you know, on his grandparents farm every summer. They were very, very important to him. And so he knew that’s where he wanted to be buried. So he kind of knew that already. We had two funerals, which sounds really weird. We had one service at our home church which was maybe half a mile from our house and then at the church where he was going to be buried because a lot of his extended family lived up there, up north. So we did like, I just remember how draining that was and exhausting. We did like the wake on like a Wednesday or something like that, two zero Wednesday and then the next day was the funeral at our home church and then the next day was the funeral up north and that’s when he was buried. So it was like three long, long days of people being uncomfortable. Speaker A Yeah, it probably feels like a huge blur looking back too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can imagine that. Speaker B Definitely. Speaker A That feels like a. I don’t even know what happened, who talked to me. Speaker B Right. I don’t remember this person saying anything to me or getting cards from people who. I’m like, I have no idea who this is. And totally they were apparently there. I don’t know. Speaker A So, yeah, I know for me in both the service, for my mom and for my sister, I would just get so exhausted of. And on one hand, like, I get it, people are wanting to come up to the family and you know, offer their condolences or whatever and, and it just, I was just. By the end, for both of them, I’m like, I don’t want one more fucking person to come up to me. Speaker B Like, or try to give me a hug. Speaker A Give me a hug. Or like touching me. Yeah, touching me or saying, you know, different platitudes that I’m just like, I don’t. And like, as you said, with, you know, a different Dynamic, but with, like. I mean, obviously your grandmother was close in that situation. But, like, I had situations where kind of strangers or just, like, friends or acquaintances, like, I felt like I was taking care of them because they were so distraught. And I was like, what is happening right now? And I was just like, I just want to, like, leave. I’m, like, done. I’m done for the day. I’m just tap. Tap me out. So to do three things in a row. Oh, my gosh. Speaker B Like, it was a lot. Nobody knows this part of the story other than my siblings who were there. But after that, you know, we start packing up his house because we were going to sell it. And it got to a point where I never lived away from my dad at that point. Right. Like, both my brother and sister had gone to college. They’d been away from him. I had never. So it went from, like, one day he was there and had been there for the last 18 years that he wasn’t. And I. It got to a point where I screamed at my siblings, like, I want to kill myself. Because. Because I saw. No. This had been the last six years of my life. My purpose was making sure he was okay. Even before that, when my. My parents split up when I was 10, I felt like I was very caretaking of my dad. And so I literally felt like life had no meaning anymore because the one person that my life revolved around was not here anymore. It got very dark. Yeah. Very quickly. Speaker A What did they do when it got to that breaking point? Speaker B I don’t want to speak for them, but I’m sure they were in their own grief and, you know, mental health and. And feelings and emotions were not something talked about in our family. And so for them, that was, like, dramatic and not taken seriously. Yeah, I mean, it’s. It was kind of played off. It wasn’t mentioned ever again, to be honest with you. Speaker A What did you do with those feelings if it couldn’t be, like, outwardly supported and cared for and nurtured? Like, what happened with you and your process? Speaker B I spiraled quite a bit prior to this. At my school. We had to. You had to be called in by a parent or guardian. And given the situation, how close we were to the end of the school year, I was given the right to call myself, and I milked that quite a bit out of that. Last month and a half of school, I didn’t go more weeks, you know, more days than I did. Some days were like, I just couldn’t be around the people. I couldn’t. I couldn’t handle acting like everything was normal. Like my whole life has fallen apart and you want me to learn this calculus that I don’t care about or stand in line for this crappy lunch that I’m not gonna eat because I couldn’t eat. So I milked that quite a bit, I guess. Speaker A What do you mean by milked it? Because like, that just feels actually just true and I just, I abuse it. I mean, was it abusing it or like, was that what you were needing? Some days I don’t like minimize the like milking it part, but I’m just. Speaker B Like, no, you’re, you’re right. Speaker A What’s happening? Speaker B Some days I did need it, some days I didn’t. Some days I just said fit it. I’m not. Who cares? Because like I said, I literally don’t feel like my life has a purpose anymore. You know, all my teachers were obviously excusing me from assignments and projects and all this stuff. So who’s. Who cares? And I would, you know, sometimes just sleep all day, sometimes go and do stupid shit. You know, I’d go over to my boyfriend’s house or go drive around or get into trouble. So at that point, it was about two weeks after he passed, I was kind of told like, you need to leave the house. Because apparently I wasn’t trusted to be there by myself at 18. Who told you that? My grandma and I didn’t want to move in with her. Speaker A So you were just living alone in this house after your dad died or your siblings were still there? Speaker B They were still there. There’s probably like a day or two where I was on my own. Speaker A That’s just like heartbreaking. Speaker B And I also was given the choice of like, do you want to move in with your grandparents? No, not really. I mean, my grandma was in her own grief and again, like coming from, I’m going to label it like an emotionally immature family, like, that grief came out at me as anger, right? Like everything about me made her angry. Move in with my mother, who I had really no relationship with at this point. She was in her own addiction, which added another layer of like, my life is freaking over because I have two options and they both suck. And then a family friend who I’d been really close with, a couple offered to let me move in with them until I went to college. Which is wild because they had a 13 year old, a set of twin one year olds and four animals. And they’re like, here, let’s start a grooving 18 year old year old on top of that too. So that’s where I moved into. Speaker A Wow. Speaker B At the time I didn’t understand that sacrifice that they were making and that what they were giving me. I was so thick in my grief. I mean, obviously now, like, I know, but at the time I didn’t. And so I would pretty much like be gone all day and just come back to sleep. I wouldn’t interact with anybody. I would go and do stupid shit. Like I go smoke a ton of weed or I’d go, you know, stay over at people’s houses without letting anyone know where I was or make decisions that I wouldn’t have otherwise made had it not been in the thick of grief. Speaker A Well, yeah, it’s like that. The fuck it’s that you’re talking about, right? You were feeling hopeless, you were in grief. It does not sound like you were getting a lot of like healthy support for it. And so like kind of just self destructing, it sounds like, which makes a lot of sense because where else were you going to put it? And you didn’t have any healthy outlets, it sounds like. Speaker B Yep. Yeah. And then I went to college. I decided to go to college in the same town that the Mayo Clinic was. Is in because it felt like a sign that I’d found this college when my dad was down there for an appointment and like this is where I was about to be and I was gonna go into the medical field. And none of that happened for me. My dad didn’t. We didn’t go on very many college tours. I mean, my dad was sick, right? Like, and working full time and just trying to survive each day. And, and of the two him and I went on to together, this was one of them, the University of Minnesota Rochester was one of them. The other one was the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, which was his alma mater. And so I, I think I felt like I needed for me to choose between one of those because they’d gotten this blessing. Right. And so that was the first criteria for school. And then the second was more of my preferences from there. UMR was a smaller and more medical. And that’s what I wanted to. I couldn’t handle like the size of umtc. I couldn’t, I would have. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be around a lot of people. And I don’t know if that stems from like the three day long funeral or what, but so that’s where I went. Speaker A And like what did, what did your healing look like at that point? Or maybe lack. Lack thereof, right? Speaker B Like non existent. Um, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I. This was never explicitly said to me, but it kind of felt like people were like, okay, like, stop acting like it just happened. I also didn’t tell a lot of, like, my professors, right. Because I didn’t want to be treated the way I was treated at the end of high school, where it was like, oh, poor Emily. Like, her dad just died and she’s just 18 years old. Like, I didn’t want to have the special treatment. Like, people acting like I was so fragile all the time and pitying me. That was my number one pet peeve through this whole grieving process, is when people pity me because I didn’t want pity. I just wanted care and compassion, which are totally different things. Speaker A And were you finding the caring compassion? Speaker B No, no. I also enjoyed making people uncomfortable, too, but. Yeah, I mean, why. Why you have just me be uncomfortable when I can make everyone uncomfortable and then we’re all on the same playing field. Right. Speaker A Do you think there was, like, a need that was being met by. By you doing that? I mean, like, yeah. Sharing the discomfort, but anything you think, like, underneath that for you? Speaker B I think, you know, I think it was not to get too therapisty, but I think it was a trauma response in that, like, it kept people at arm’s length because people just kept, like, disappointing me when they tried to offer support. And so if I made them uncomfortable, then they stayed away and they would just, you know, not. Not want to talk about it or, you know, anything like that. So as to keep people at arm’s length. I think. Speaker A Yeah, it makes me think about that, you know, whether it’s. It’s like bullying. Speaker B Right. Speaker A I’m just. I’m just going to say the thing first to kind of take power back in this thing. Right. And you’re saying that people don’t want to talk about it either way. It’s like you taking the power back of, like, I’m the one causing the discomfort so I don’t have to be disappointed by them not leaning into me in my. In my grief. Right. So definitely. And how common that is. I just did a whole other episode last week where we were talking about. Yeah. Like, different ways that people just kind of, myself included, have just moved past the, like, oh, I don’t want to make people uncomfortable. It’s like, I’m just going to say the thing that I want to say, and if people get uncomfortable, that’s information for me. Speaker B Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it’s still. I mean, I still get, you know, it still gets brought up from Time to time, like, I have a tattoo on my chest that’s my dad’s signature from the last birthday card he ever gave me. And people will, you know, they’ll just see, like, the top part or they can just tell I have a tattoo, but they can’t read it. And they’ll comment on it. And then when I tell them, they’re like, oh. And then there’s just an awkward silence afterwards. And I’m like, yep, uh huh. Speaker A Yep. That just happened to me literally two days ago with my. My moose tattoo I have for my sister. Speaker B Yeah. Speaker A And someone was like, oh, what’s on your wrist? And I was like, oh, it’s. Speaker B It’s a moose. Speaker A They’re like, oh, like, what’s that for? And I’m like, oh, it’s for my sister that died. Speaker B And they’re like, yeah, Yep. Speaker A Sorry to hear that. Speaker B Same. Speaker A Just. Speaker B Yep, yep. It’s all. Yeah. So it still happens. I mean, getting asked about when I had my daughter, like, getting asked about how are your parents? Or like, you know, how did. How’s your dad, like, being grandpa? Oh, my dad’s done, like. Yeah. Speaker A So, yeah, it’s those. Yeah. Secondary losses. Right. The different phases and benchmarks that you’ve gone through your life and. Speaker B Absolutely. Speaker A I can imagine getting pregnant and having your first. Your first kiddo. Yeah. Brings up a lot with not having parents, whether just not present and one that’s dead. Speaker B Yeah. Yeah. Speaker A So it’s really hard. Speaker B So in my grief at this point, we’re Gonna Flash forward two years, 2015. I’m 20, and I don’t really remember the first death anniversary day or like the first birthday of his or holidays. Like, I can’t really remember those. So we’re coming up on the second year anniversary, and on April 12, 2015, my half brother passed away from alcoholism. So almost two years to the day. Hmm. And that was just an entirely different experience. I knew nothing about addiction at all. He’s my mom’s son and he’s 14 years older than me. So he was in the house a little bit when I was little, but not for very long. And I was always really close with him up until probably around when I was like 14. It kind of became not public knowledge, but knowledge within the family that he was an alcoholic. He had had a son a couple years before and was with his son’s mom and they were living together. And then one day, like, she kicked him out and all of this stuff that I didn’t know kind of came to light. He had really Bad depression, He was an alcoholic. Suicide attempts. And being 14 and learning all this, I had no idea what to do or what to say. And it got to the point where I didn’t really talk to him anymore because I didn’t know what to do or say. I felt like this person that I knew had been a lie the whole time. And I. I hadn’t talked to him or seen him since my dad’s funeral. Probably was the last time I saw him or talked to him. And then I got a call from my mom one day that he was dead. Speaker A What do you remember feeling in that moment? Speaker B Unfortunately, I jumped into caretaker mode. I’d been through this. I knew exactly what to do. Right. I knew to call my siblings, my full siblings, and tell them, my sister and brother and tell them that’s the first thing I did. Speaker A Was that something that your mom asked of you or you were just like. Speaker B This is my role, that’s just self given role. And I don’t know because if it’s because it felt familiar because I’d done it before, right. So then it wasn’t a scary. I know I can do this because I’ve done it before, so I’ll do this. It was a known grief. And I took about a week away from college and drove up to stay with my mother at that point. And I raised all of this money to give him a funeral because he, he had no money and my mom had no money and planned his whole funeral. So blessing and a curse that I knew about all of these things and how to do all these things already and I was still only 20 and doing this stuff. Speaker A And I can imagine that because you were in that role, like your mom was leaning on you for a lot of this. And it sounds like that relationship’s pretty complicated. Speaker B She was catatonic. I mean, just. Yeah, I mean, he had been living with her, so I don’t know. I mean, we never really talked about it. I also never got any. Even 10 years later. Now at this point, I’ve never gotten any thank yous or gratitude or acknowledgement of doing all of that for her. And she was in her late 50s. I mean, I get it. Grief is grief and a 20 year old should not be planning her brother’s funeral. Speaker A And that does that relationship stay complicated? Speaker B That relationship is non existent, non existent by my choice. Yeah, yeah. Speaker A How, how long after your brother, your half brother died that you made that decision? Speaker B Probably the beginning of 2018. So less than three years afterwards. One, because of the verbal and emotional abuse that I would receive from her. And also because she kept drinking, alcoholically kept drinking. And I could not understand that. Having watched your own child die from alcoholism, literally drink himself to death, and you’re going to choose to continue to do that when you have other children. It didn’t compute to me. And so it got to a breaking point where I had received a voicemail from her one day when I didn’t call her back immediately telling me I was an ungrateful bitch. And at that point I was like, nope, I’m done with this. It was kind of like a switch flipped. Wow. So. Speaker A Painful. Especially because what you’re saying, even the not having any gratitude or appreciation for everything you did. Right. You didn’t do those things to get a thank you, but like some acknowledgement of the position that you were in and then to be also called ungrateful doesn’t quite compute. Speaker B Yeah, I mean, I didn’t do those things for her. Speaker A No. Speaker B I did those things for my brother to give him like the celebration of the end of his life that he deserved. I mean, I got thousands of dollars like given from all of his friends and all these people that just loved him to do this and people who loved me, who helped. You know, like my childhood church where we had had my dad’s first funeral, they offered to let me have the funeral there at no cost. And they would do a luncheon and they would provide all the food at no cost. Wow. I mean, yeah, all of these people just stepped up for me in that regard. And these were people who are probably, at least on my, like my people in my life, they probably were there or attempted to be there more than when my dad died than other people did. It just felt different. The grief of my brother felt different. And I think it’s because I. It wasn’t as impactful and I don’t even know if that’s the right word to. Maybe I haven’t even felt it yet 10 years later. I think maybe there’s just a part of me that shut that off, it says it just wasn’t. It wasn’t the same grief. It wasn’t the earth shattering, life destroying grief in the same way. Speaker A Is there a way that you have like continued to. I guess, question for both your dad and your brother, but that you’ve continued to honor them? Speaker B Yeah, I mean, I think I do what I do for my brother being a therapist in the addiction and mental health field. My goal coming into this field, because it was initially, you know, I started with my addiction therapist license was just to prevent what happened to my brother from happening to anyone else. If I could save one person’s life, like, because it was so preventable, if I could do that, then I felt like I was honoring him, you know? And now I’m eight years plus in the field, and still that’s probably my number one goal, is just to prevent, you know, what happened to my brother from happening where I can. Hmm. Yeah. Speaker A I’m curious. And maybe this is a place where we kind of diverge, but, yeah, I. I think on certain days. Right. I feel the same way that you’re feeling. And then there’s other days where I’m like, I am whether, you know, preventing or helping people change their lives, helping people, you know, save their own lives from this. And I couldn’t even do that for my sister. And I actually, like, have moments of feeling. I don’t know if resentment, maybe. Resentment. I mean, guilt, shame, for sure, but, like, resentment that these people are getting it and getting the help and my sister didn’t. Those are. Those are definitely more painful days for me that I’m not just living in the. Like, if I can just help this person, then, yeah, I’m doing good work. Speaker B Yeah. Yeah. I mean, similarly, the biggest resentment I have, and maybe this also adds to choosing to end my relationship with my mother, was that she was the bad parent and got to stay alive and my dad was the good parent and died. Yeah. That I actually continue to struggle with. It doesn’t. It doesn’t make any. Any sense to me. Speaker A Yeah, no. That is so common. I don’t know if you’ve seen or heard, but in the grief community, there’s something that we call, like, grief secrets, and that’s one that comes up a lot. It’s like, the wrong parent died or the parents. The person I’d rather still be here isn’t. And, yeah, like, again, maybe the guilt and shame and resentment that comes up with that and how incredibly common that is. And I was also just thinking, going back to About. About your mom. I think some people look at the loss that. I’m gonna say we. Because we both lost a parent, we both lost a sibling. And people on the surface who maybe don’t get it can be like, so you. You’ve Two people in your life have died. Like, how on earth could you choose to be estranged and not connected to someone in your family? And almost like, the judgment that comes from people. And so I’m just. I’m just thinking about that too, like, oh, absolutely. People just don’t just don’t fucking get it. Like, at least they’re still alive. Right? Like, why would you not want the family that’s still physically present? Speaker B Yeah. And I mean, for me, had I chosen to go live with my mom after my dad died, I would have been right there with my brother. You know, I. That would have been the worst decision I could have ever made for myself. And quite frankly, she should have been cut off long before she was given the. Like I said, the verbal abuse, the emotional abuse, the. The lack of being a mother. Like, yeah, in title, she is my mother, right. She. I. I grew inside of her body and she had me. And yeah, I. That’s the thing is, like, when I do get those kinds of comments, I also lose my ability to filter and almost come to the defense of. Of my dad in that situation and myself. Sometimes I wonder why I still give energy to that. Because like you said, they just. They don’t get it. Speaker A They don’t gotta. Yeah, there’s just so much, I feel like misunderstanding out there. And, you know, there’s like a lot of. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but there’s a lot of research coming out about, I think, specifically our generation at, like, higher rates. People choosing to go. No contact with parents. Speaker B Absolutely. Speaker A When. When a child, adult, child says that they, like, are no longer connected to one of their parents, the common answer is like, like, why would you do that? Right. Very few people ask, like, what could have a parent done to you that would empower you to make that decision? Right. Like, flipping the script on, like, it’s not like you’re the one that’s, like, damaged, Emily, because you’ve made this decision. Speaker B Right. It’s. It’s. Speaker A Wow. Like, somebody must have done something incredibly hurtful and harmful that you made a really hard decision for yourself. Speaker B Yeah, Yikes. Right? Especially now as a mother, I’m like, what the fuck? Yeah. I can’t imagine that. I cannot imagine that, like, you treating. Speaker A Your daughter the way that your mom treated you. Speaker B Yeah. Yeah. And choosing to not be there for her and give her the emotional stability, the physical stability, the financial stability, the. All of it. Like, I can’t imagine not giving that to her, like, choosing not to do that, which is what it was. Right. Like, like, I shared the. The tail end, but, like, this was years, 10, 15 years in the making, this decision. This was not like, one day I just decided for fun. Speaker A No, no. Speaker B So. And there’s. There’s. There’s grief that comes with that, too, in a different way. And that’s also kind of been my goal too, in this. In, like, the mental health sphere of, like, grief does not mean somebody died. Like, that’s not the only thing that causes grief. Speaker A No. Yeah. And just to build off that, too, as. As we’re wrapping up is. Yeah. Grief is not just about death. It’s. We can have grief over endless things. And something else again to build on that, that I make sure I share with people as well, is. I know you can relate to this. Just because we feel grief doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision. Speaker B Right. Speaker A Right. We leave a relationship, there’s grief. I think sometimes people. Because we live in such a black and white society where people feel like, oh, I may. I feel grief or sadness. That means I must have made a mistake. No. Ending a relationship, for example, or choosing to go. No contact with your mom. Like, there is grief and Right. And not. But wasn’t the wrong decision. Both can be true. Speaker B Absolutely. Speaker A I just think people get so stuck, like, oh, I feel sad and so I guess I’m supposed to be back in the relationship or I should call my mom. Speaker B And that keeps us also in a different kind of grief too. You know, the grief of, like, this is what I. My life. If you feel I made the wrong decision, you end no contact or go back to a relationship. There’s grief around that of, like, I don’t feel like I have a choice. Speaker A Yeah. Speaker B And then if you live with the grief, the questions or grieving, like what you thought life would be or look like or your expectations or. Yeah. We could go. We could talk for five more hours about that. Speaker A I know we absolutely could. Well, I think. I think we did a really important overview. I think all of these. I always get to this point, like, I could keep talking. Speaker B Yeah. Speaker A To the person for so long because we’ve identified and identify. I think in every single episode that I’ve recorded as there are so many similarities and threads and in our situation, again, like the physical people that we have lost to cancer, to Overdose, like, there’s a lot of very strong threads and. Speaker B Right. Speaker A Our. Our stories look different in different ways. And then there’s so many similarities and things that connect us. And. Speaker B Yeah. Speaker A Even in other episodes and people I talk to that the loss is so different. Like having these conversations, we get to have that. That basic reminder of we don’t need to be as alone. Speaker B Yeah. Speaker A As we feel. And whether it’s been two years, 10 years, 20 years, having these conversations are just so important. And so, like I already said, I’m Just really grateful that, especially for you, Emily, someone who was raised in a family that you’re like, don’t talk about it. You’re getting to change that narrative. You’re getting to have a corrective experience by saying, nope, I’m gonna talk about these things. Speaker B Yeah. Speaker A And reaching out to me and volunteering to come on for. For an episode. I just really appreciate you and I appreciate you being able to share some of your experience. Speaker B Well, and I, I have to give that appreciation right back too, because had I had what you’re doing during this, it would have been so healing and. Yeah. To have that. So even if it wasn’t like physically in person, to have a voice of somebody saying, this fucking sucks. Yeah, you’re not alone in this. This isn’t an abnormal, you know, abnormal experience that would have, that would have changed so much. And so I just, I am so, so grateful for what you’re doing for the whole grief community and people who are just kind of getting into this world of grief. It’s huge. It’s huge. Speaker A Thank you. I say this often. I in some ways feel like I’m doing this for my 23 year old self, where again, my, at least my more acute grief journey kind of started with my mom’s diagnosis and not having resources. And there weren’t podcasts, There weren’t. There’s so much more available now, which I’m grateful for. But, like, it’s like a corrective experience for me too, because I know how deeply I needed something like this. And so to be able to create it with, with you and all of my other guests that come on to help someone else, maybe, like you’re saying, not feel as alone if they’re going through things right now, that’s what I want to be doing. And again, honoring that part of me all along the way, so. And I think you got to honor the younger parts of yourself today too, by doing this. Speaker B I have goosebumps right now. Oh, me too. Speaker A Shared goosebumps. Well, Emily, thank you much, so, so much. I really do appreciate it. Speaker B Thank you, Claire. Speaker A So that’s all for this episode of Nothing Happens for a Reason. If you found value in today’s conversation, please take a moment to subscribe and leave us a review. It truly helps our community grow. You can also follow the official Nothing Happens for a Reason Instagram account and sign up for our newsletter to be the first to hear about new episodes, exciting additions to the podcast, and special giveaways. And finally, if you know someone who might find solace or understanding here, especially as they navigate grief. Please share this podcast with them. I deeply appreciate your support. We’ll be back with a new episode next Thursday.