cancer

Grief in the Time of COVID

Posted on by sennajandy

Greetings, squadlings!

Grief, no matter what time it hits you, is unpleasant. There’s no denying that. It’s one of the worst feelings there is.

When you’re locked in your house, it’s even worse.

The country pretty much shut down during the third week of March. Aunt Meg died during the third week of April. Tomorrow is the last day of May. To tell you we’ve moved on would be a lie.

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Yes, I am. Thank you, Mr. Biden.

It’s hard to distract yourself from dealing with death when it’s all over the news: between Coronavirus and the protests happening around the United States, it seems like death is everywhere. You can’t escape it. And every time that death toll rises, only one thing comes to mind: their family feels the same way mine does.

Aside from the garbage on TV, not being able to go out and distract yourself is pretty bad, too–I would have been working so much now that I’m graduated, I wouldn’t have even had time to think about what happened on April 23rd. Instead, thanks to COVID and the idiots who think going to bars is necessary right now, I’m locked inside, reliving that day more often than not.

That being said, when something good does happen, or I laugh over Skype/FaceTime with my friends, or I just overall have a good day, the guilt kicks in. How can I be having a good day? Aunt Meg is dead, and I’m sitting here laughing with my friends? Or laughing at a TV show? What is wrong with me? How Could You Even GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

Not having the closure of a funeral, or that time with my family in the first few days/weeks after Aunt Meg died didn’t help, either. We need that memorial service. We just need to close that door. COVID took that, too.

I knew Aunt Meg’s death was going to hit me like a train, no matter when it happened. I knew it would. I didn’t expect that I would be forced to re-open that wound three months after her actual death, when we can hold a memorial service in July. If we can hold a memorial service in July.

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Be well, squadlings.

So…Now What?

Posted on by sennajandy

Greetings, squadlings!

First and foremost, I would like to thank you all for the kind messages I have received in regards to my last two posts.

Y’all, the hell has come to an end: I’ve officially graduated college.

Now what am I supposed to do?

Most companies are on a hiring freeze due to the pandemic. My two jobs have not reopened. I am…bored. Which has left me a lot of time to think. Which I wish I didn’t have.

Tomorrow marks one month since Aunt Meg died. I feels like forever ago, which is strange, because I haven’t really done anything in between then and now.

Grief is an interesting thing: It’s even more interesting when you’re locked in your house and can’t distract yourself by hanging out with your friends or going and spending money you don’t have on things you don’t need at the stores. I’ll start to think about Aunt Meg, and then instantly start to think of something else because I refuse to cry again. Not Gonna Happen Donald Trump GIF by Election 2016 - Find & Share ...

She would not be pleased that I put that gif in here.

We weren’t even able to have a funeral due to the pandemic, so our grief process is on hold. We didn’t just get to have the funeral, bury her ashes, and try to move on with our lives. We get to do that in July (hopefully). 

I wonder what that’s going to be like. I’ve never really had to put grief on hold before–it came, it went. Now, I have to deal with Aunt Meg’s death three months after she actually died. 

I did something I never wanted to do: I graduated college without her. The day of my “graduation”, which of course had no ceremony, I was in one of the worst moods I’ve been in since Aunt Meg died. I didn’t want to hear about graduation. I didn’t want to celebrate it. I just wanted that stupid day to be over, and I didn’t know why.

Looking back, I think it was because I knew she wasn’t there to celebrate it with me.

Be well, squadlings.

It Wasn’t Supposed To End This Way.

Posted on by sennajandy

Greetings, squadlings.

As I sit here on my bed at 11:30pm on a Friday, with a screaming pain in my chest, my face burned raw from crying, and my phone sitting next to me as I talk to crisis counselors, I can’t help but think: It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

I wasn’t supposed to close out my college years without Aunt Meg. I wasn’t supposed to start my actual adult life without her. I wasn’t supposed to turn 23, in exactly two weeks from today, without her.

And now I have to.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I know a handful of people who have passed away. I’ve been to more funerals than weddings in my almost 23 years. But there’s something different about Aunt Meg.

This is the first death that’s hit me this hard. I thought losing a friend to suicide at 19 was the hardest death I’d been hit with, but damn. This really sucks.

I’m a godmother now. My godson’s name is Felix. I never got to show Aunt Meg a picture of him–he was born after the last time I saw her. I never got to tell her about him. I never got to ask how to be the best godmother in the world, like she was.

What’s strange is, I sat with Aunt Meg and some other family members after Aunt Meg passed away yesterday. I was there for hours. And for the life of me, I can’t remember what she looked like.

She probably wouldn’t have wanted me to remember what she looked like at that point.

Which brings me back to:

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

Be well, squadlings.

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Now There’s Three Cardinals.

Posted on by sennajandy

Greetings, squadlings.

When I was nine years old, my parents told me and my older brother that they were getting divorced. I did the only thing I could think to do in times of crisis: I called Aunt Meg.

Within minutes, she was at my house to deliver hugs and words of wisdom. When things calmed down, she took me and my brother to a local toy store and let us pick out whatever we wanted. I picked out a child’s knitting kit, which is a weird choice for a nine-year-old girl. I remember telling her I would knit her things: sweaters, hats, scarves…I never did.

At 10am this morning, my first best friend, my godmother, my Aunt Meg, lost her battle with ovarian cancer after two-and-a-half long years. She fought so hard. My God, she fought so hard. She had to rest–she deserves it.

I didn’t think it was physically possible for a human being to cry as much as I have in the past few days. We knew the end was coming. As shitty as it was, we saw it coming. We just didn’t think it would come so soon.

When I went to her house after she passed to say goodbye, I sat next to her with my mom, my Aunt Sarah, and my Uncle Greg (Meg’s husband). I looked out the window at Meg’s beloved bird feeder, and I couldn’t help but scream.

“CARDINAL!” 

Cardinals mean so much to my family. My grandpa loved them. He used to draw them constantly. They say, when you see a cardinal, it’s a loved one coming to say hello.

My grandfather, Meg’s dad, passed away in 2005. My Aunt Jeanie, Meg’s little sister, passed away in 1991.

As the family turned to see the cardinal I had screamed about through tears, our hearts broke again–there were now two cardinals on the bird feeder. It was Grandpa and Aunt Jeanie, coming to carry Aunt Meg home.

As I said my goodbyes, I held onto a teddy bear Aunt Meg had given me on one of our many trips to Toys R Us when I was a kid. We stayed at the house for hours–sharing memories, talking to Aunt Meg, and compiling information for the obituary we never thought we’d write.

And then we went home.

Now what?

How am I supposed to live my life without my Aunt Meg? How am I supposed to graduate college without her? How are my cousins supposed to get married and have babies without her? How in the hell am I supposed to go on like this?

Aunt Meg had the biggest heart of anyone I’ve never known. She loved everyone. She loved animals: in fact, she’s the reason I love animals. Her smile lit up a room. She was the best listener. She always, always cared about what others had to say. Frankly, if you didn’t know her, I feel sorry for you.

I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know how to live with what comes next. I don’t even know if I want anything to come next.

But, as I told her this morning as I stood next to her bed, I’m going to make her proud. I swear, I’m going to make her proud.

Be well, and tell the ones you love that you love them, squadlings.

 

Aunt Meg. March 6th, 1952–April 23rd, 2020. 

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And Just Like That, She’s Gone.

Posted on by sennajandy

Greetings, squadlings.

If you recall, I posted a few weeks back about a family friend of mine who was suffering from cancer and was given just weeks to live.

She lost her fight at around 1:00 this morning.

I did not know her personally. She was a childhood friend of my mother, who ended up living in Virginia and Kentucky. Because of that, I never met her.

When I woke up this morning, I went to turn off the alarm on my phone and saw a text from my mother: “She* died.” 

I stared at my phone for a while, trying to figure out how to process the news I’d just been given. My mind instantly went to her two children–fourteen year old twins. They have to go through the rest of their lives without their mother. I went to check her CaringBridge website, and sure enough, a post from her husband appeared explaining that, yes, she had died with her husband, parents, and children by her side.

Still trying to figure out how to process what had happened, I got up, got ready for class, and went to my 9:30AM lecture. I couldn’t focus in class. My mind was racing between thinking of her children, her husband, her parents, her family, and my mother. My mother is home, three hours away, sick with the flu. My brother isn’t exactly the emotional type, and since my stepdad is also sick, my mom is pretty much processing the news of the death of her childhood friend with just my dog. If I could find a way home, I would. Unfortunately, there’s one way in and out of this town for me to get home: a bus that leaves from my campus at 5:25pm on Friday night and returns at 4:00pm on Sunday. It comes once, it leaves once. That’s it. Today is Tuesday. I’m stuck here.

Eventually, somewhere in my bout of not paying any attention in class, I started crying. I made my way out to the hall and sat on a bench for a few minutes, before making my way into the bathroom, where, for some reason, I started crying harder.

I pulled it together eventually and made my way back to class, where I continued to pay no attention. I opened my laptop and started searching flights to Washington D.C., where a memorial service will take place next weekend. Her funeral is this Thursday, and my mom is way too sick to go. She may attend the memorial, and if she does, I want to be there.

That sounds strange, coming from someone who never met her, but I want to be there. For her, for her children, for her husband–for the family I feel I’ve come to know through CaringBridge updates. I want to be there for my mom, too.

After class, I headed back to my empty dorm where I continued to cry. I cried for at least an hour.  Eventually, I wandered around my dorm building, talking to some friends in the oh-so-famous lobby of our building, a hotspot for me and my friends, before I got up and just started walking.

I didn’t have a destination, I just needed to get out of my building. I HAD to. I walked across the infamous footbridge on my campus, over the river and over to a popular street in my college town. The street is filled with little shops, quite a few bars, restaurants, tattoo parlors…It’s all there.

I wandered and wandered, going into a few shops before eventually purchasing a teeshirt with my father’s high school logo on it for $5 from a small shop. Why? I don’t know. Why not? Truthfully, I also bought a small stuffed animal giraffe off Amazon today, a giraffe I plan on naming after her. I guess I drown my sorrows by spending money I don’t have.

I ate a quick lunch at Subway by myself, made my way back to campus, and now here I sit: alone in my dorm, skipping my afternoon class, writing a blog post while Ed Sheeran music plays quietly out of my Beats Pill in the background. It’s…calm. Something her family will not have for a while.

It’s strange, to have a reaction like this to the death of a woman I’ve never even met. I guess I feel the most sad for her children.

Why I’m telling you this, I don’t know. I’m not sure what the point of this post is, to be completely honest.

That being said, I hope you have a better week than I will, squadlings. Godspeed.

*The name of the deceased has been hidden out of privacy and respect for the family. 

How Do You React To Something Like That?

Posted on by sennajandy

Greetings, squadlings!

Yesterday, my family got some rough news. A childhood friend of my mother’s, let’s call her Anna, has had cancer for a while. Yesterday, we got word that they had stopped treatment of Anna’s cancer because it would “only delay the inevitable.” Long story short, Anna is going to die. Her doctor gave her “weeks to months.”

I have never met Anna. She was the granddaughter of my mother’s neighbors while they were growing up, and Anna would spend her summers at her grandparents house. Over the years, Anna and my mother became very close friends.

Anna was from Virginia-now she lives in Kentucky, because it’s closer to her doctors. As I said earlier, I’ve never met Anna. I follow her CaringBridge account, updated by her husband. That’s about the extent of my relationship with her and her family.

Anna has two children; twins, freshmen in high school. Fourteen years old, a boy and a girl, and last week, they found out their mother is officially dying.

How do you react to something like that? How do you react to a doctor telling you that the most important person in your life is going to die, and doesn’t have much time left?

I have a friend who lost her mother a few years back. I don’t talk to her about it much, I’m just assuming it’s not something she would like to discuss, and I’m not going to force her to tell me about it. I’m assuming that wound is still pretty raw.

I’ve always been very close to my mom. Even now that I live three hours from home, I still make a point to FaceTime my mom every day. Soon, Anna’s kids won’t be able to talk to their mom every day, and I can’t even imagine what must be going through their heads right now.

Over the years, I’ve been exposed to death a few times. My uncle, my grandfathers, family friends…But I can’t even imagine losing a parent. I don’t even know what I would do.

All we can do now is wait. We know Anna’s going to die, we know it’s coming, and now we just have to wait for it to come.

All I can say at this point is thank you to Anna’s doctors. Thank you to the teams of doctors, surgeons, anyone who made Anna’s journey easier. To her husband and her children, her parents, her family…I’m sending you all the love and positive energy I can from Wisconsin. You’re in our thoughts.

Talk to you soon, squadlings.