I’m Teaching My Teenager to Grieve the Best Way I Know How
By the time we’ve turned sixteen, most of us have encountered great loss, and the accompanying heartbreak.
At the age of six, my son Patrick, felt the devastation of loss for the first time as we said good-bye to our beloved golden retriever, Griffin, who’d had a good run of 13-years and finally succumbed to a stroke one Saturday morning in April only days after his birthday.
I built a shrine for Griffin in our dining room and we placed all our favorite pictures of him on a cabinet alongside of flowers, his partially-chewed leash, and faded collar with tags still attached.
We cried a lot and I wrote a poem on a blog no one ever read. My son’s kindergarten teacher reported Patrick had been drawing pictures and writing about his dead dog during class. She and I both found this to be, not only adorably sweet, but a wonderful way for a young child to learn the grieving process so many adults never allow themselves to embrace.
Shortly after Patrick turned ten, I lost my Mother suddenly and unexpectedly after and 18-day traumatic ordeal at USC Keck Medical Center in Downtown Los Angeles, not far from where we live. I had to call upon other parents at Patrick’s school to help me take care of my son when my normal single-parenting routine became impossible to maintain due to countless and continuous hours I spent at my Mother’s bedside in the ICU.
Patrick worried about me constantly and wondered when I would be coming home. I had never left him for long periods of time, especially on school nights, and my absence created anxiety for my little boy, and added stress to my already unbearably stressful situation.
After my Mother died in my arms as I held her in the hospital, I returned home traumatized and broken. I didn’t leave my house for days except to drop-off and pick-up Patrick from school, and occasionally run into Trader Joe’s for provisions.
My little boy felt relieved to have me back and to know where I would be everyday, but sensed my overwhelming sadness which I explained to him was part of the grieving process I had to go through.
“How long are you going to be sad, Mama?”
“As long as I need to be. But, I’ll be okay- as long as I let myself feel all the sadness inside of me, and until my heart is ready to feel happy again.”
My heart stayed in a broken state for months and Patrick developed an uncanny skill of being able to detect my concealed spontaneous outbursts from the other side of the house. Without warning, he’d run from wherever he was, and interrupt whatever he’d been doing, to give me a big hug while gently patting me on the head and wiping away my tears.
“Mama, is it okay for me to be more worried about you than I am sad about Grandma?”
“Patrick, you don’t need to worry about me, this is what grieving looks like. And, I will be fine. You don’t need to be sad about Grandma, ’cause she already is.”
I’ve taught my son about an afterlife, grief, letting go of things we can’t hold onto, and the idea of never really losing a spiritual connection with any living thing. Though, at sixteen, he remains skeptical and is currently at a point in his life where challenging your parents beliefs is a natural part of his development. Bring it on.
I don’t know what Patrick’s spiritual philosophy is right now, but this is something he’ll have to figure out on his own and my job as his Mother is not to try and force my beliefs onto him. But, I remain open to his questions and happy he still brings them to me. Especially when he’s hurting.
“Mom, why did Kobe have to die? He was so young and had so much to live for. I don’t get it, it shouldn’t have happened!”
“I don’t get it either, Patrick. It’s heartbreaking. All nine of those people shouldn’t have died in that Helicopter accident. It’s so tragic for all of them and for their families, friends and fans. I don’t have the words to make this any better right now.”
I usually have words. I usually can draw upon my deeply spiritual beliefs to find them. I usually can come to an understanding or acceptance of why terrible things happen in the world. And, I usually find peace in knowing all things have a purpose, and all lives have a divine beginning, divine ending, and eternal existence.
But, I had no words on that foggy Sunday morning in the San Fernando Valley- only grief shared with millions around the world searching for their own way to make sense of the awful tragedy responsible for robbing our planet of a true legend and hero.
Patrick came into my room in the middle of the night shaken and crying. He couldn’t sleep and felt overwhelmed by the sadness and mounting grief which had taken him by surprise. I felt the same but had pulled out my personal grief management tool box and gave myself permission to weep and believe those nine people were in a better place- even if the mere mortals still here on earth would have a lot of healing to do for a long, long time.
The tragic news coverage took over the air waves and social media. Deep sadness could be felt everywhere in the city and around the world and seemed impossible to escape.
Monday’s darkness fell upon us the same as the night before.When Patrick woke me up at 2am again, crying, I began to worry about him being distracted by grief and possibly slip into depression, which he’d experienced in the past. I’d never seen him be this upset about anyone dying and I realized he’d not yet experience the loss of a hero. For whatever reason, this death hit my boy hard.
We’ve all been there: JFK, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Lady Di, Selena Tupac, Prince… And, on and on.
Losing a hero, a leader, someone who makes us want to be a better version of ourselves, or simply makes us feel happy and inspired, can be a strange and profound loss. The pain of this loss can be as big and real as losing a loved one or relative- though for some, this might be hard to conceive.
I made Patrick get up and go to school, even though we both were exhausted and had little sleep. I decided after school let out, he and I were going to face this thickening darkness head on as I couldn’t let the mounting sadness take us down. We were about to walk directly into the eye of grief- The Staples Center.
With purple and gold flowers laying carefully on the back seat of my SUV, I drove to North Hollywood to pick up Patrick from school. His red-cheeked face looked expressionless under the bill of his Laker’s cap as he crawled into the passenger seat beside me and tossed his backpack on the car floor.
“Let’s go to Staples Center.” I said without hesitation.
Still staring down, “Okay.”
We stopped at Big 5 in Koreatown because Patrick insisted we buy a basketball. He found a sharpie in the console and wrote a message to Kobe while we continued driving downtown. “Thank you….” was the only part of the message I could make out while trying not to look.
The city buzzed with energy. Mixed energy of sadness and love. Of belonging and grieving. Of celebrating and remembering. Of pride and loss. Of being touched by a hero who now shone down on us from multiple jumbotrons overhead. The city buzzed and made us feel good and we knew we were exactly where we should be.
Looking up into the backdrop of a sunlit sky, which had finally cleared of the strange weekend fog, we saw digital images of smiling faces everywhere- a man and his daughter, larger than life, and the names of the seven other people who died alongside of them in the hillside of Calabasas on Sunday.
As we quietly walked around the growing memorial with other mourning fans, we saw countless flowers, cards, Laker hats, Nikes, candles, mylar balloons, jerseys with the numbers 8 and 24. Everything looked beautiful and had been given with so much love, adoration, appreciation, and so much sorrow.
Patrick contributed to the five or so feet of gifts lining the sidewalk in the plaza outside of our city’s famous basketball stadium. He lay down the flowers and his ball with a personal message to Kobe in a carefully chosen spot. My courageous boy took his time, having his moment of silence to sort out whatever he needed to sort out in his head and heart.
We stood quietly, with arms around one another, staring into the sea of colorful offerings, as tears rolled down our faces. I prayed for those families who had a lifetime of healing ahead. And, for my little boy who bravely took on his feelings and didn’t stuff them deep, down inside out of fear over being judged for having them.
We each wrote a message on one of several large walls brought in for the purpose of doing exactly this. Hundreds of people sharing grief. Sharing love. Sharing hope. Sharing pride. Sharing gratitude. Sharing personal stories of how a fallen hero shaped their life, and how they were forever changed for the better because of ‘knowing’ him.
People are so beautiful when they come together to honor, remember, celebrate, pray, or just hurt. We were in good company. And, the crack in our broken hearts, began to fill up slightly.
A couple of hours later, Patrick and I eventually walked out of the plaza together as more people carrying flowers and gifts continued to stream in. He wrapped his heavy, long arm around my shoulders as we headed down the crowded sidewalk towards the car in the slowly setting sun.
“Thank you, Mom. I feel a little better.”
This is grieving. I wrote on the wall, “Please, say hi to my mom, she was one of your biggest fans.”
