Nicki Pike has been a mortgage broker in Alberta, Canada for over 15 years, She loves her job and being her own boss but over the last few years she has gone through several traumatic events that have had a huge impact on her life. She had fertility problems and difficulties conceiving a child, went through a divorce, suffered the loss of her mother after watching her battle with dementia and the,n a few months later, lost her brother suddenly when he had a fall and developed a haematoma.
Grief is different for different people but Nicki was surprised and scared by what she felt. She had lost her grandparents when she was growing up so had experienced grief but it was nothing like what she was now feeling. Her mother had been her main help and support and they had been very close, so she found it very hard to watch her change every day before her eyes. Although she had anticipated her death. when it happened it was very sudden and unexpected. Nicki’s brother had struggled with the dementia diagnosis and already had addiction, alcoholism, anxiety and depression issues himself. When Nicki was told he had passed away, she thought he had committed suicide which actually gave her a sense of peace but then she found out he had died of a hematoma caused by falling and hitting his head.
Nicki felt very angry. Her mother and brother had both been relatively young and she felt robbed. Her brother had been clean and sober for two years so when he died so all the anger and feelings she had about her mother’s death also came back. She was in a very dark place. Her grief didn’t feel logical and rational. It was so raw and emotional that it surprised her. She could talk about what she was feeling but the raw emotion she felt scared her. The level of grief she felt knocked her over. She just did what she needed to do for her daughter but could do nothing more. She had never felt so emotional and describes the feeling as an impact zone - waves of grief that were so strong and close together she was left feeling as if she couldn't breathe and was drowning. Although the waves didn’t get smaller, gradually they became further apart so she felt she had time to breathe.
There is a lot of information about grief but lots of it is irrelevant. Nicki feels that we don’t talk about grief and loss and what we go through in the early days enough. We need to have an idea of hope and a path towards it but we don't need to have someone telling us it'll all be great. Logically, we know we’ll come out the other side of our grief and that we’ll get back to what will be a new normality without the person we’ve lost. Lots of people offer support at the point of someone’s death but then after the funeral it disappears. There is often so much going on at that point that the loss doesn’t really hit us. We need support later on, through anniversaries and things that remind us of the person we’ve lost. We need our friends to be there when everyone goes back home to normal life and our life has changed forever.
Nicki was a quiet child but when she when found voice she started to use it. A high school friend who she reconnected with after brother’s death told her she had always thought of Nicki as being strong and this started Nicki on thinking about the different labels she’d had through her life. During her marriage her labels had been a lot more negative – demanding, emotional, crazy and high maintenance, and she had believed them because she’d heard them so often. Later on as she started getting different labels - grieving daughter, grieving sister, single mother, divorced woman, she realised that living under labels was not a good place to be. When you lose people, you often get reminded of how strong you are, that you’re still here and can still get to live your life. Nicki thinks that in the early stages of grief that's not what you want to hear. She didn't feel strong, she didn't want to be a survivor because in the early days all she could think about was that her mother and brother were gone. We can use these words and labels but need to consider if the person at the receiving end is in the right place to hear them - are we helping or hurting?
Some people may say we’re strong because that is what suits them and their narrative of you. It then allows them to deal with you in a certain way. But dealing with grief is about what we need, not what they need. Some people just don't know what to say. They have a fear of experiencing it themselves, of not saying enough or too much, or of triggering an unwanted response.
You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Nicki here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
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