The Singing Nurse

And her deplorable friend, Grief.

We all heal differently. We can choose to navigate that journey alone, or together; but we’re all trying to get better. The prescription varies for each of us, but what doesn’t change is the fact that time doesn’t wait for us to arrive. We are all experiencing life at the same time, which is both precious and brutal. We can pretend it’s not. I did for a bit, and ignorance is bliss. You never know what you have until it’s gone; a poetic paradox. I spent much of my 20’s, feeling insecure as a singer-songwriter because I felt I hadn’t “earned” my pain yet. The pain I was writing about. I hadn’t been to prison, or been addicted to drugs. Aside from creative loss, like being held at major labels, or losing out on a dream acting role, I hadn’t experienced much on the pain scale. It was only when I experienced the shatter of my first heartbreak that I understood my own lyrics (queue Skipping Stone). Before then, I went red in the cheeks when someone congratulated me on something, or opened up about how my music healed them, I felt like a fraud. And until 33, I never would have thought anything could be more painful than a broken heart.

If you don’t understand this sentiment than you haven’t experienced the kind of grief that makes you want to dip your head underwater and never come up for air. You will, someday, if you’re not taken first. I’m not talking about an alien abduction (as epic as that farewell would be!) or the emotionally painful preparation of a terminal diagnosis. I’m talking the kind of unexpected departure you couldn’t bring to life from your thoughts. The kind you never knew was coming.

I personally have to share in order to heal. I have to write to understand who I am and what I’m doing here. I understand the Apostles now. It only took me losing two siblings.

I need to process my impulsivity by turning into something other than cigarettes and alcohol, which can help in fulfilling the self-loathing prophecies we hide behind (I know from experience). It’s braver to believe you’re worthy. It’s braver to create.

I’m grateful my brain doesn’t shut off because it’s just trying to help myself understand this mess we call life. Is it just me, or does 6ft underground feel welcoming some days? Especially when no one ever told me how to navigate grief in motherhood. Or, at least I didn’t get the memo. Nothing prepares you for the moment you meet yourself at your worst, or worse yet, when your children meet you at your worst; sitting right beside your new, but deplorable friend, Grief. My Mom always told me, “you are who you hang with”…

I’m talking the kind of howl that comes from an unexpected phone call. The cry that didn’t quite make it out the door before your children echoed the same cry in response to a sound they’d never heard from your mouth before. It wasn’t meant for them. It’s guttural, it’s natural, it’s spiritual and it’s traumatizing. There’s a haunting to the sound that echoes in your home, possibly forever, I don’t know yet. Echoing through the night, between feeds, baby cries and nightmares that keep you up until you’re greeted with little faces asking if you’ve had a good sleep, Mommy. You can’t fix it, because it can’t be repaired. If we can’t find the words for the unbearable pain of loss, then how must our children be feeling? I ask myself this question every moment I have alone, which is only when I’m in the bathroom. I cry a lot in the bathroom, too.

When I was a little girl, I experienced my Nanny fading away from Alzheimer’s. She would ask me to sing to her while she was in hospital. It led me on a trajectory where I spent the rest of my childhood telling strangers I was going to be a singing nurse. I became a songwriter instead. A songwriter who sings. It’s the closest I got.

I want to be the type of person that is a pillar of strength for those who are experiencing the immense pain of sibling loss or any loss for that matter. The unfair loss. The kind where you feel you’ve been stolen from or betrayed. There is a difference, and you’d know if you’ve experienced both.. I don’t know if that’s what I am or what I will be in anyone’s life, a pillar. All I know is if I don’t get these words out of myself, I will just become sick. So, in theory, if I don’t create, I think I might just die.

I don’t want to be living in a world where we sequester our feelings and realizations from others. It doesn’t feed the garden. It doesn’t bring life or spark thought. I don’t mind making people uncomfortable if God is at the forefront, and if I can, in someway help somebody else through the worst moments of their own lives, hallelujah. That one connection is worth more to me than a sea of people who don’t understand me. More than anything, it will keep my garden watered and growing, and whatever you need to do to feed your soil, do that. It’s only in being ourselves that we can connect to those who feel themselves around us, and through understanding ourselves, we can begin to heal.