Painting by Olivia Austin
Periodically, TheBurg highlights the work of student writers at Capital Area School for the Arts.
Over my 17 years of life, I’ve attended numerous funerals. As a child, I never knew what to expect, as I wandered around and looked at everyone and everything. As I became older, showing sympathy became more of a feeling than a responsibility to the grieving world. Having both parents alive in my life, I questioned what it’s like to lose a parent at a young age.
The microwave timer read 5:50 p.m. Quinetta Jones, a middle-aged woman, stood over the stove mixing a pot of Hamburger Helper ingredients. She then added a spoonful of the food onto a plastic plate and made her way over to the kitchen table. “I was only 15 when my mother, Kathleen Jones, passed away, on Dec. 14, 1986,” Jones explained in a soft tone. “That was the day when my life took a different turn.” Jones did not want to discuss the cause of her mother’s death. “My mother had her 12th child two weeks before she passed. I am the second oldest and the closest thing my siblings have to a mother figure in their lives.” She looked down at her food and ate a bite. Then she raised her head and stared off into another dimension. “My mother was independent, a comedian and a good cook.” She smiled, and I realized the memory of her mother was as fresh as the pain of losing her.
According to the website, www.hospicenet.org/html/understand, children of different ages hold a different perspective about death. Between ages 3 and 6, a child imagines death to be a punishment of bad behavior. Children have difficulty understanding the term “grieving” and what causes it. Their grief is acted out with regressive behaviors like bedwetting or magical thinking, where they think their loved one can come back into their life. Adolescents, aged 13 to 18, view death as the enemy of living. A teenager may show different ways of grieving: escaping pain through alcohol and drug abuse or becoming depressed and anti-social. They may also accuse themselves of being the cause of their parent’s death. As time passes, they may find joy in talking about them.
At 6:20 p.m., I interviewed a close relative of mine. Haneefah Muhammad, 22, answered my call. We caught up a bit before the real work began. “Aug. 15, 2003, my father’s birthday, was also my mother’s death date. Her name was Miranda Jones. I was turning 14 that year. I was hurt because I was losing the person I looked up to,” she said as she began to silence herself. In an effort to lighten herself up, she recalled a memory of my mother Quinetta, who’s also her aunt, eating peas, and one falling from her mouth as her son Quazil dropped the bomb about Haneefah’s mother’s death. Haneefah laughed about the situation to break the quiet between us. “My mother passed away from a leaking brain aneurysm that eventually ruptured.”
According to Robert D. Brown, head of neurology at the Mayo Clinic, a brain aneurysm is a ballooning in a blood vessel artery in the brain. “When the small balloon bursts, it causes blood to spill into the brain or over the brain tissue that’s underneath the lining of the brain,” Dr. Brown said in a documentary, “All About Brain Aneurysms.” “Most people who have an unruptured brain aneurysm don’t have any symptoms at all,” he said. “But on occasion, the aneurysm can grow to the point where it can put pressure on the brain tissue or some of the nerves in the brain.”
Grief, the emotional suffering you feel when someone or something you love is taken away, can’t be forced or hurried, there is no timetable, and it can impact a child’s personal and social life on many different levels.
“It felt like somebody dropped a nuclear bomb on my life,” 9-year-old Michael Schultze said about his 12-year-old deceased sister, Elizabeth Schultze. He was a participant in the support group, “Highmark Caring Place,” cited in the documentary “Highmark Caring Place—A Place of Hope.” Expressions of grief can range from reacting with violence to shedding little tears. “Grief is knowing that things are never going to be the same as before,” Allison Mohn, another participant at Highmark, said.
“On Jan. 5, 1993, my daughter Elizabeth, 12½, died in a drowning accident,” Mohn stated in a sympathetic tone, remembering her child. She looked at different corners of the room while talking. She became teary. “I felt lonely.” Stephen Barber who lost his best friend, spoke about it. He too, looked off into the distance. He paused, then said: “People sort of would back away from me. I was extremely depressed. My schoolwork started to slip. I just had a rough time.”
“Grief never tends to fit anyone’s agenda at anytime. It can surface at anytime. During this initial period of grief, you will feel numbness and a disassociation with the world around you,” Helen Fitzgerald, author, “The Mourning Handbook,” stated. “The loss of someone can make the world feel like an unfamiliar place,” Brook Noel said, as part of a series on grief found at www.funeralplan.com/griefsupport.
When grief covers us with its dark wings, it can mimic a serious illness, making people become emotionally and physically depleted, with a variety of symptoms to follow. “We become so weak that we actually feel like we have the flu. Because of our lack of experience with energy depletion, this weakness frightens and perplexes us,” Dr. Catherine M. Sanders stated in her book, “Surviving Grief.”
“I lost my mother after I turned 8. Her name was Laila McCullough. I’m the third oldest out of five females,” Zaida McCullough said. We conversed over Facebook. “I know she died from cancer, I just don’t know the type. Being eight, people didn’t want to me to wonder much about my mother, or where she’s going. She passed June 6, 2005.” McCullough said. “She was a loving, caring, role model for all her children.”
Cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues (www.cancer.gov/cancertopics). There are more than 100 different types of cancer, and they are named for the organ or type of cell in which they start. Statistically speaking, African Americans have the highest death rate and shortest survival of any racial/ethnic group. Cancer is the leading cause of death in the United States and can be triggered by many factors. For example, smoking any tobacco product can be a cause, especially ones with menthol. Menthol is strong enough to open chest holes inside the human body and makes it easier for someone to catch a chest cold.
“My mother’s name is Shirby Kirksey. She passed away on March 12, 1996, nine days prior to my 21st birthday.” Ayesha Mayers, who’d recently married, spoke in a tone that was hard to hear between the telephone lines. She spoke softly, dragging the words from her mouth. “When she passed, I didn’t know what to do. My entire body felt sick—mentally, physically and emotionally,” Ayesha stated. “I’d felt so sick I couldn’t even celebrate my 21st birthday.” She did not feel comfortable enough to specify her mother’s death. The tone in Mayer’s voice suggested that she was not up for the interview.
There are multiple ways to help support someone who’s grieving such as never forcing them to open up about their feelings until they are ready. Each interviewee expressed emotions in a different way. McCullough chose to face the “wall” of Facebook, Muhammad and Mayer’s spoke over the phone, and Jones spoke to me face-to-face. “Holding your breath all the time is stressful. But being able to let it out and know that grieving is normal is a huge sigh of relief.” Amy Winters, a participant of Highmark Caring Place, said.
I knew speaking about a loved one who had passed was already hard, but everyone recalled the death date of a loved one with no hesitation. The wheel of life has a start date, as well as an expiration date. Some are unforgettable.
Quadriya Cogman is a senior at CASA.
