I’ve received many requests for an excerpt of my book, so I am posting the first chapter. Whether you buy my book or not, you are welcome to read, post, comment, and share. It’s more important that you keep coming to the blog and help create our community than buy my book…so only buy it if you want to read my story. This chapter is only the beginning of my losses, as I lost my entire immediate family–but it is where I got my first messages about grief that I carried with me for many years.
Chapter 1: Ordinary People:
I never went to see the movie “Ordinary People.” I didn’t have to because I was living it. I was 16 years old when my older sister suddenly and violently died in a car accident on her way home from college orientation in Miami. She was two years and eight months older and we looked like twins. People used to mistake me for her all the time.
I adored my older sister. In fact, I idolized her. She was the absolute coolest and I lived in her shadow. I tagged along as much as possible, basking in her glow of friends, boyfriends, and exciting adventures including smoking—both cigarettes and pot.
She gave me only limited access to her world because I was her kid sister. We shared clothes, argued over using the telephone, and had a love-hate teenage sister relationship. l was “Geri’s sister” and that identity was pretty great. I loved when someone called me by her name. That is, until she died. Then it was torture for me to say, “Geri was my sister who died. I am Barbara.”
Now it was just Mom and Dad and me. And then there were three. I lost my sister but I also lost my entire family because nothing was like it was before. Nothing I could do would make Mom and Dad feel better. I wasn’t enough. Just being alive wasn’t good enough to make them forget she died. I didn’t understand. I thought that if I was enough, her dying wouldn’t be so bad for them.
I was still living in her shadow, just now the shadow of her death. Why had she died and I lived? Maybe if I was the one who died, Mom and Dad would have gotten over losing me. It didn’t make any sense. I was younger, less cool, less adventurous, less fun, less pretty, less everything. I was less, but alive. It must have been a mistake.
My grief had no-where to go and no place to express itself. I was warned by the adults around me that Mom was very fragile. I figured they must be right. Dad never said anything like that and I thought he was protecting me.
My friends’ parents asked me in worried tones “if Mom was better.” The adults told me I was selfish when I confided my own anguish; that the hardest thing was for a mother to lose a child.
I quickly got the message that if I expressed any demands on Mom or Dad it may be too much for them. I was terrified maybe they would die and I would be completely abandoned, so I pretended I wasn’t destroyed. I was the invisible child; the surviving sibling. My security was shattered.
Mom didn’t hide her grief and her hair turned gray overnight and she lost a lot of weight. I was afraid to say anything because maybe Mom would fold up and die. After all, the adults told me she wasn’t “doing well.” I listened to them. Did they know that Mom went food shopping and still cooked gourmet meals for dinner, that our house was spotless, she was dressed every day, and was supporting Vietnam vets with post-traumatic stress? It must have been that her expression of sorrow was more than anyone wanted to see.
That was my first lesson in grief. Showing grief means you are labeled depressed and may be close to going crazy. Grief should be hidden. People close to us who never lost a loved one were judging Mom. She was whispered about and a friend told me she was “mentally ill.” I was ashamed and tried to cover it up. I was asked, “How’s your Mom?” and answered “She’s doing a lot better.” It made everyone smile and ease up on me.
I wanted so much to cry to Mom and tell her I didn’t understand, and tell her how much I missed Geri, and that I hated when people confused me with her. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to make Mom die if I told her my feelings.
Our family Rabbi told Mom to get her “eyes done.” The therapist said we should move to a new home even though we loved the house that Dad built, that we all shared decorating. He also told me I should go away to college so I wouldn’t see Mom “like this.” These “experts” advised our family to “move on.” Maybe that is why I cringe each time I hear that phrase.
They were wrong. It would have been better if I didn’t go away to college and stayed home with my family. Maybe then I would have felt like I still had a family even if we were a traumatized family. Maybe if I told the truth to Mom and Dad they could have explained their love for me was mutually exclusive from their sorrow. Maybe if I cried my heart out to Mom she would have shown me her depth of strength by listening to me without cracking up. I wanted to talk so badly but I couldn’t take the risk. After all, I was only 16 years old and the adults must have known more than me.
Instead, I began shutting down emotionally, believing I was helping my parents and myself. As I shut down and shut up, my body cried out. I developed migraines and the doctor gave me blue pills called Fioricet. I had nightmares regularly and I was given yellow pills called Valium. I was jumpy and frightened all the time. I was worried something bad would happen and I began to live waiting for the other shoe to drop. I lost the adolescent arrogance that “it can’t happen to me.” It had happened and I wanted to control whatever I could. I had to push the terror down that was always threatening to rise in my throat. The world became a scary place because the earth cracked open when Geri died and I didn’t feel like there was any ground under my feet.
It was clear: grief was being depressed; grief was bad; grief was something to hide. All my friends and their families knew me as Barbara and Geri. Now no one mentioned her name. When I tried to talk I got a painful silence or pity. I quickly learned my job was to make them feel comfortable; otherwise I wouldn’t have any friends. I just wanted to be like everyone else but I couldn’t. I couldn’t turn back the clock and my scars were public. I learned how to put on a mask and hide in plain sight.
My bags were packed for college. I was scared to leave home but I didn’t tell anyone. Instead I lied and said I was really excited. When I met my roommate, she asked a seemingly innocuous question, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I lied and said no. I had learned that lying was easier than telling the truth. Not easier for me, but easier for others. I learned to lie and say I was an only child, instead of saying my sister died. I learned to push my sorrow down, hide my pain, and bury my grief in my body, heart, and soul.
My life was in a constant state of fear. I couldn’t even consider getting high, drinking, driving while under the influence, or partying. What if something happened to me? Mom would certainly die. I avoided risks at all cost. I was lonely and craved my family. At nineteen, I became engaged briefly. I didn’t love him; I just wanted a family again. Love wasn’t safe anymore. I didn’t want to fall in love and get married, have a family and risk the heartbreak of another shattered family. I knew it could happen to me. Instead, I broke my engagement and became deeply involved in the feminist movement. I wanted power. I wanted to own my life. I wanted to protect myself. I identified with victims and the downtrodden and other people battered by life. I was only 18 years old but I felt much older.
Copyright 2006-7. Barbara Cole. All rights reserved.
