Translator: Victoria Perdikogianni Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
I'm here today to talk about the upside of grief.
Saying that out loud almost sounds contradictory -
upside and grief.
How can the two possibly go together?
Three years and 21 days ago,
I would never have believed those words coming out of my mouth.
But today, I hope whether you've experienced a significant loss
or not at this point in your life
that you can see how lessons of grief can be applied to your life.
You can see how light can be found in the darkness
when there is a community of love and support
allowing for the development of personal growth and resilience.
Three years and 21 days ago, I woke up to reality
that no one can prepare themselves for.
I was at home for my spring break freshman year
enjoying being an only spoiled child for the week,
while my older sister was still at school in New York.
I had stayed up late on the Tuesday night
watching a recording of The Bachelor finale with my dad,
who absolutely loved imitating the dramatic faces
of some of the contestants that year.
I went to bed happy, relaxed,
looking forward to breakfast and time with my parents the next day.
It only took one second to lose all senses of stability and strength
that I had ever previously felt.
The flashbacks, the details, come barreling back like it was yesterday.
And that's what happens when you experience a traumatic event.
I was woken up at 10 AM by my mom screaming my name downstairs.
I ran towards her voice coming from our bathroom,
and I screamed back.
This time, instead of my name, she kept repeating the words,
"I think Dad is dead."
In my downstairs hallway, in my home,
in a space that I had always considered safe and comforting and formational
from my childhood,
I could have never imagined watching EMS personnel
storm into my house, trying and failing to resuscitate my dad.
That would be the morning
that we lost him suddenly to a drug overdose.
March 9th, 2016.
Now when I said drug overdose, that might not be what you were expecting.
To be honest, I have no idea what anyone was expecting me to say.
But my dad's history of addiction,
his battle with this disease, began long ago.
I grew up with an alcoholic dad,
but labeling him as such doesn't do him justice,
because I know, whether you meant it to or not,
some type of image just popped into your head.
But addiction is not what defined my dad.
He was a doctor, a Navy captain,
a husband, a son, a brother, an uncle, my dad, and so much more.
Yet this cruel stigma, this uneducated stigma,
that still surrounds alcoholism and addiction today
tends to be why I don't feel comfortable sharing this truth.
But I have not come today to talk about addiction, though,
because as we saw earlier on this stage,
that is a topic worthy of its own speech.
This story is unique to me, but grieving is not a unique battle
nor should it continue to be swept under the rug.
According to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model,
developed through research
by a Denver-based organization called Judy's House,
one in 15 children in the US
will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18,
amounting to around 4.8 million kids.
That number almost triples by age 25
to now 12.7 million kids and young adults
now having lost an immediate family member.
When looking at the college context,
the statistics are even more staggering.
Actively moving forward,
a national organization with chapters at universities
geared to support grieving students
cites through their research that one in three college students
experience a death of a family member or close friend
who died within the past 12 months.
I want you to take that in -
one in three.
With BC's student population of almost 15,000 students,
that would mean 5,000 on campus, off campus,
are currently struggling or suffering
to whatever extent their loss forces them to grieve.
But if there are one in three students struggling from the same experience,
why is it that I felt so completely isolated
when I turn returned to campus my freshman year?
Why is it that our university administration -
and many administrations across the country -
does not have a bereavement policy for students,
only for faculty members,
that would set a precedent for teachers talking to their grieving students
and allowing them extra time to process?
As I've demonstrated with these numbers,
loss of loved ones - be it family members or close friends -
is much more common than I ever thought,
especially during our college years, the supposed best four years of our lives.
So how can those two mentalities coexist in the lives of students
who have experienced severe trauma or loss during their time in college?
I have found a way to prevent my losses from overshadowing my whole experience
in allowing some of the lessons I've learned through the grieving process
to carry me forward and make this time the best it can be,
given the circumstances,
eventually seeing the upside to this thing called grief.
But even that is quite privileged of me to say, though,
because I have built and continue to build resilience
because of the familial and community support
I've received over the past three years.
Not everyone has that luxury.
As Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Option B describes it,
"Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us.
It comes from gratitude for what's good in our lives
and from leaning in to the suck.
It comes from analyzing that grief and simply accepting that grief.
Sometimes we have less control than we think.
Other times we have more.
I learned that when life pulls you under,
you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again."
This mention of outside support is crucial, though.
Because especially in the college context,
it's extremely difficult to grieve.
Most students around you have moved on to the next issue
or big assignment in their lives after a day or so.
But that fast-paced lifestyle,
compared to what I've been going through the past three years,
has made me so much more grateful for the friends, the classmates,
who have taken that extra time to check in with me,
who realize that grief has no timeline,
who realize that even after three years, I still get really sad,
and I'm still adjusting to this new normal
without one of the core members of my family.
So it's time to leave the depressing statistics behind.
Because there is an upside of this that I want you all to see.
It may not be an upside you would have necessarily wanted
or chosen for yourself.
But because of my grief, I've learned important lessons
to apply in the college context and to my life in general.
The first of those being it's OK to take time for yourself.
It's OK to acknowledge that a day is sucking.
And instead of expending the last bits of your energy
trying to put a fake smile on your face, you're allowed to cry.
But you have to have faith that the next new day
is going to be a little bit brighter.
In the case that you can't assume that positive of a mindset -
especially immediately following a loss -
that's where your community of support comes in.
Having my mom, my sister, my family, my roommates, classmates,
remind me that I wasn't going to feel this way forever,
I wasn't going to have this heavy weight on my heart forever,
was extremely beneficial.
Taking time for myself also helped me get to know myself,
know the ways in which I grieve and experiment with self-care techniques
that I can now apply to other stressful or upsetting situations
that might arise in my life.
This next lesson might seem cliche, but it couldn't be more true.
Losing someone so close to me forced me to feel so much more gratitude
for the people and opportunities that still remain in my life.
It encouraged me to pursue and strengthen relationships
that are healthy and rewarding
and not waste time or energy on those that give me nothing in return.
I learned the hard way that life is too short for that.
Love takes on a different and deeper meaning
in the face of loss.
It's a type of loving without boundaries,
of loving fully without knowing what is going to happen tomorrow.
Grieving has also given me a much wider perspective.
As a smaller example, I used to be the type of person
who would have internal freak-outs with regards to test grades,
how many likes I got on my most recent profile picture,
you name it.
But having something so much more serious happen in my life
encouraged me to spend less energy and stress on these more trivial things.
As a bigger example of my perspective being widened,
because of my grief,
I can now recognize and understand pain of others
in a way that I never could before.
I can have, I hope, more meaningful, more productive conversations
with those who have lost loved ones
because before this happened to me, I had no idea what to say.
I was intimidated. I was scared.
It made me nervous.
But now, being on the other side,
I recognize how powerful it is
when someone strikes up a conversation with you,
when they want to hear about the person you lost
so you can keep them alive in your stories, in your memories.
Lastly, knowing that you've been to hell and back
and not only survived,
but you took a horrible situation
and decided that you were going to love the people in your life that much more,
that you were going to take some risks you might not otherwise,
and in my case, that I was going to pursue passions I didn't even know I had,
like in health communication, in raising awareness about grief,
especially among young adults because that's just not talked about,
and also in understanding addiction,
which was a huge part of my dad and my life.
And knowing that I can hopefully make a difference
in the lives of other people suffering from this disease
is pretty rewarding,
that I can take on a new meaning bigger than myself.
So as someone speaking from the "other side" of a devastating loss,
know that it's not all bad.
It's not all clouds.
It's not all tears.
I don't want your pity, and I don't want your prayers.
The people who showed up for me,
who asked me the hard questions,
who listened,
who let me and were open to me talking about my dad
and didn't make weird faces when I said his name,
those are the people who enabled me to build my resilience
and continue to today.
So how will you be that person for the next individual in your life
who is facing something as incomprehensible as grief?
For the next student who loses someone,
how do we show our care and concern,
letting them know they are seen and heard
in a way that takes a step beyond merely saying,
"I'm sorry for your loss"?
"Sorry" doesn't cut it.
I know because I've had thousands of people - not thousands -
but many people tell me that over the course of the past three years.
A conversation - that's what could be the start of understanding their pain
and maybe even alleviating it, if only temporarily.
A policy change at the university administrative level
could mean students are granted a mandatory amount of time off.
And it could guarantee that professors are actually addressing
the gravity of the situation,
that they're creating a welcoming environment for students
to return to in the classroom,
because I certainly did not get that my freshman year.
So whoever you identify as in this audience -
a fellow student, a professor, a parent -
how will you celebrate the resilience of the large community
of grieving students, grieving young adults,
that go more or less unnoticed on college campuses,
who go more or less unnoticed in society?
I don't have the answers to all of these questions,
but I hope I have at least planted a seed and made you more aware of a community
that you may not have been paying any attention to.
So Dad, if you're listening somewhere,
know that I love you to the moon and stars back.
I sure as hell wish you were here. (Voice cracking)
But because of the very fact that you're not,
I have learned to love more deeply
and recognize that healing comes from living through painful experiences
rather than running from them.
I understand the fragile nature and beauty of life
in a way that I never could before.
So now it is your turn to open your heart and make your community
one that doesn't cast away grief to the shadows.
It's time to open the door to conversation about loss -
not just in a text message, I'm talking face to face -
because much more people need that space than you'd realize.
Suffering students like myself
should not be confined to the space of a counseling office, a grief group,
or confined to privacy altogether.
It's time to embrace a resilient, strong culture of processing,
not repressing,
of lifting each other up to enable recovery and healing.
Thank you to those who have helped me find light in the darkness.
And to those of you listening, I hope you can help others or yourselves
see the upside of grief.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheers)