“Cover me in sunshine
Shower me with good times
Tell me that the world’s been spinning from the beginning
And everything will be alright
Cover me in sunshine”
–Pink
(Note: Written in on January 9th. The day we dropped “Sunshine” off at airport.)
I am a big Pink fan girl. Ok, not the belong to her fan club, follow her tour fan girl, but I realized about two years ago that most of my old iTunes playlists had Pink in heavy rotation. She now makes Spotify top 5 annually. So, naturally when this song came out a year ago, with everything we were and still are managing during this pandemic–I loved it.
It also spoke to me as I was watching my youngest manage grief…again. A few years ago, she lost a a childhood friend, Anna, to suicide, about four months after another classmate/friend was killed in a murder-suicide by her father. The next couple of years she lost two more classmates to suicide and it sadly became almost an annual event. What I learned as a mom during the first death? I don’t know how to help a grieving kid.
I like to think I’m empathetic–I try to feel what she is feeling, but I had my own fears and grief to manage. I was friends with Anna’s parents through our kids’ activities together, I was trying to understand what they were going through, and processing it as a mom, not as my daughter. With Anna’s death, I don’t know, I went into survival mode. Go to school, make life normal, comfort when crying, but try to establish normal. I had NO idea what that normal looked like and all I wanted was my girl to be ok. I was completely unprepared for her outbursts. The night before the last day of that school year she was inconsolable, she just realized that Anna and Brooklyn would never have those days again. I hugged and comforted her, but I didn’t realize how much she was changing with each loss.
My husband and I have always called her our “sunshine and butterflies” girl. She was born cheerful and as a young child, she adapted to every situation with her big eyes and dimples leading the way. She woke up happy and temper tantrums were few and far between. (I have photos of most of them because they were actually cute.) Even in elementary school, she didn’t struggle with changes like moving to new schools or making friends too badly. We had a few things here and there, but overall, she was resilient.
What started to happen over these past few years? Anxiety. She tended to be more nervous about uncertain situations, insomnia more often. Nothing that really triggered me to get her help until her senior year of high school when college was looming and things were becoming more sleepless and more anxious. She went to counseling a few times, but again, her call on if she felt it was helping and she said she was “Fine.” To be honest, she was ok, and just needed to work through whatever it was.
Fast-forward to this past fall–she’s survived a wild freshman year. By “wild” I don’t mean parties and crazy, because well after she got over homesickness and adjusted to school, she got sent home for five months due to pandemic. The same wild we are all surviving.
She moved back to school, moved into an apartment with three girls she friended the one semester she had been at school and they all get hit with a mild case of Covid-19, which, in a way, bonded them, all is well, then boom.
Her roommate’s older brother and his girlfriend die suddenly over Thanksgiving–another suicide. It is horrible for her friend and her family. And while she is trying to be there for her friend–it starts to bring back the grief and buried feelings.
A month later, a young man she is friends with, and one of her cousin’s best friends dies in his sleep. While she was just a ‘SnapChat’ friend with him, and hung out with him with the group every time she was there–it hit her hard. Devastatingly hard. She goes from bubbly and social to staying in her room getting homework done and good grades (a positive!) but isolating from her friends and becoming fearful of going out. She’s easily agitated on phone calls to home and when she’s close to her ‘cycle’ omg…tears and fears of everyone hating her, and more isolation. I encouraged her during this time to get counseling, see a doctor, but she insisted she was fine and in the big scheme of things, she probably wasn’t too horrible, but she was not my sunshine. It is hard to support and coach her with her being an 8 hour drive away, but I do my best.
Finally, late in her spring semester she sets up her annual physical to update her medications. I suggested she discuss with her new physician not only her physical things, but the anxiety issues as well. She did tell her physician what she was feeling, and included some of my observations. After some discussion, they decided it was time to try medication. She is now on a low dose antidepressant that has worked wonders. The sunshine is back, things aren’t SO HARD and she’s thriving again. Now, I know that medications don’t work the same for everyone, but this is one time I can safely say…it worked. So well in fact, I followed her lead and asked my own physician later in the summer. That will be covered later…but wow, so helpful.
Does she still grieve the loss of her friends? Yes. She had an Anna dream just a few nights ago as she was preparing to leave for her study abroad. Just a casual dream and she felt good that morning–calling it “a nice visit.” She has a brighter outlook on her life and is on her way to Europe now–trying out something new. She was horribly anxious as we awaited her departure today, but we know she will be ok. She knows she will be overwhelmed, and she knows the first month could be limited to a small area in Brussels due to the continued pandemic, but she knows she has meds to help her manage. She has learned to cope with painting and writing as well. If she gives herself time…the sun will stay shining.
I'm not them...am I? 