The Worst Best Thing That Happened In 2020
By: Jen Mcgahan
Tags: Grief, Parenting, Mental Health, Peace, Death

The Worst Best Thing That Happened In 2020

The only good thing about grief is the wonder of it all

Photo by john vicente on Unsplash (cropped by the author)

It’s been almost nine months, yet every morning I lose her again.

I wake to a world without Katie, and that’s still my first cognizant thought. As soon as my eyes open, it’s “Oh, crap. Here we go again.”

Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, I hurry through the stuff I already know how to do, alert for some small opening — some pinpoint of light — into a future where I feel some control again, or where I can make some blind headway at least.

If I learned anything from my daughter’s death, it’s that now I know for sure, no one really has any control. Every day, you’re just along for the ride. Some days I slip backward and some days I move ahead, either a lot or just a little. My life is one big Chutes and Ladders game since February 2nd.

I’m beginning to formulate some sort of strategy for staying in the game.

This morning wasn’t so bad. I was moving through it, but then it got worse…

I read a story about toxic masculinity.

Actually, it was about toxic femininity, if that’s even a thing. The story and the ensuing comments explore the issue.

I don’t know what “toxic masculinity” really even means because as a natural health practitioner, massage therapist, and student of life, I know that too much of anything is toxic. So toxic masculinity is as damaging as toxic greed, or toxic guilt, or toxic laziness.

But then I realize no, that’s wrong, because masculinity is also a good thing, whereas greed, guilt, and laziness are not.

I try to think of a time when I thought of Katie’s “boyfriend,” that man who was hanging around her too long, as a toxically masculine character. I admit it didn’t occur to me. I didn’t have the foresight to look for trends or labels to describe him. I had never seen the Power and Control Wheel.

He had yet to make a statistic of my daughter.

Toxic grief: Is that a thing?

At what point does grief get the better of you? I’ve had my moments. Lashing out at stupid people, cussing, drinking too much wine, and then calling people to talk too late at night.

Grief can look pretty ugly. They say it’s only natural, to go with it. Everyone gives you a pass, but no one tells you when it expires. So you push it. My pass is looking a bit ratty. I know Katie would be shaking her head.

Fiercely independent, Katie never asked for money, but let me buy her dinner a couple of times a month if I was lucky. That last day together, Katie and I agreed Kyle was a jerk, the second bad boyfriend in her life. My daughter was 21, almost 22. She was trying to come into her own, I could see that. As we drove to the dinner theatre, she told me how she was working on some jokes to try standup comedy, and how ridiculous it was that Kyle claimed he wanted to do standup, too.

“But he’s not even funny,” I pointed out. “I know, right?” She did her signature exaggerated head bob.

“He keeps trying to steal my jokes and say they’re his,” she complained. She went on to explain the premise and the set-up behind a joke about men being color-blind. Only she could have thought of it, as it was born of her experience. She was so frustrated, I told her I was sorry.

I felt I owed her some accountability, a mom's confession to her adult daughter, a woman now. I apologized for choosing an emotionally absent man to be her father. (Yeah, I made that leap.)

“Oh mom, he has his good points.” She bounced right back, reminding me how her dad taught her how to play the guitar. I left it at that, knowing it was a sore point last December when Kyle and her dad left Katie hanging as they jammed without her.

I know how it feels to be drowned out by louder, drunker people. Like shouting behind thick glass. I know how it feels when masculinity, or insecurity, turns toxic. Katie was learning that, too. No wonder she wasn’t afraid to try standup.

When was she was going to break up with this one, this Kyle? I asked her. “I’m trying,” was what she said.