Learning to carry what can’t be fixed

Dear readers, it’s been a while. I’ve started this post more than once in the past few months but didn’t feel sturdy enough. Please be aware the following contains raw and possibly triggering content, especially for those who have ever experienced trauma. If you are not in a place of strength at the moment, you may want to consider reading at a later time.

Five months ago, my daughter’s boyfriend was murdered in a double homicide. My heart races as I write this, and my fingers feel clunky on the keyboard. Where do I even start? Maybe at the beginning of their story…I will never stop remembering that Griffin’s short and brilliant life eclipses the tragic and wildly unfair ending.

Vivian met Griffin at Chapman University in September 2019. She was a freshman who had been hired as a student phonathon caller for University Advancement. Griffin was a junior and a supervisor for the student callers. They started out as work friends. I recall Vivian would often call us on the 20 minute walk back to her dorm after her shift on Tuesday and Thursday nights. She was always buoyant and happy after work. 

We first heard Griffin’s name in January 2020. He invited the phonathon team to his apartment for a party and Vivian decided to go, riding the Chapman shuttle bus over after her evening class. After that party, they played a cat and mouse game of mutual crush for a couple of months…and then March 13, 2020 happened. All the students were sent home, thanks to COVID erupting and shutting down the world.

Vivian and Griffin kept in touch all spring and summer via text and SnapChat. In August 2020, she moved back to Orange and into a house with 4 friends, where they settled in for online classes and college life in the pandemic. Griffin stayed at home in San Juan Island to work and take classes remotely, mainly because his apartment was Chapman apartment housing, and Chapman only opened up dorms that fall for freshmen to live in single rooms. During Fall 2020, their relationship ramped up to a long distance romance. When Vivian was home over the holidays, they FaceTimed every few days. Griffin finally returned to California in January 2021 and they became official. She called me the next day after he arrived and declared jubilantly, “He’s my boyfriend now.”

For my 50th birthday (there wasn’t much to do during the pandemic), I asked Vivian if I could meet Griffin over FaceTime. She was ambivalent about the idea, but he was game, so in early March 2021 we FaceTimed and talked for an hour! He was easy to talk to, relational, and genuine. About 6 weeks later I got to meet Griffin in person, when I traveled to California, finally vaccinated. The three of us went out to dinner and had a great time. When I asked the server for the check, he told me it was already taken care of. Griffin had paid for dinner! Let’s just say I never let that happen again. Later that night, it was just Vivian and me in our hotel room and as we were talking, she was a little emotional. I gently asked if Griffin had seen this side of her and she said “Oh yeah. If I’m upset, he asks me if I want comfort or solutions.” For the love of God! At that moment I knew he was her person. What an emotionally intelligent 22 year old who could school lots of grown-up men in this area!

Griffin graduated from Chapman at the end of May 2021 and after an exhaustive job search, landed a job as a media and marketing assistant at a wealth management firm in Southern California. He was under a tight timeline to find a job, so he could land an apartment and not have to move home to job search from a distance, as he had to vacate his Chapman apartment at the end of the semester. He finished final exams on a Friday, moved into a new apartment that weekend with Vivian’s help, and started work on Monday. That whole summer he worked his tail off, commuted by bus in his business suit (he had to save up money to buy a car) and worked long hours to establish himself professionally. We marveled at his work ethic.

Griffin embodied so many tremendous qualities. He loved Vivian wholeheartedly and unconditionally. They were planning a future together. He was kind, thoughtful, reliable, funny, authentic, generous, hard working, dedicated, enthusiastic, humble, and so much more. To know Griffin was to love him.

I saw Griffin again in August 2021, in January 2022 (our whole family spent time with him that weekend) and in April 2022, approximately 9 days before he was killed. He was murdered in his apartment building, as he was leaving for work that morning, and his roommate (a college friend) was also murdered. I won’t share more at this point, as there is an ongoing criminal investigation, and it’s painful to write about. Obviously, you can dig around on the internet to find details. Or, please feel comfortable to message me privately or call me. It doesn’t bother me when people ask questions and honestly, it’s cathartic to talk about it. I’m a verbal processor. When people reach out, it makes me feel like they care and haven’t forgotten.

Here are excerpts from my journal entry on July 1, 2022. This was the first day I had written since the murder:

April 19, 2022 – the day that will forever divide our lives into separate pieces. The day Griffin was murdered….in my adult life, I’ve had an awareness that I had not experienced the grief that accompaies the loss of losing someone. I was always a few degrees removed. I felt sad when grandparents died, aunts, uncles…but not a profound sense of loss. The closest was probably when Roscoe (Jason’s and my first dog) died, but I was 7 months pregnant and busy with a 2 ½ year old. I recall grieving hard, but only for about a month.

Grief is a lonely journey. What I have learned in this experience is that we live in a grief-illiterate culture. Shortly after we lost Griffin, I read It’s OK that You’re Not OK by Megan Devine. It should be mandatory reading for every American. The general population (myself included, before April 19th) does not know what to do with someone who is grieving. We say the wrong things (i.e. platitudes like  “they’re in a better place now” or “at least you had many wonderful years together”) We do one thing, like send a card or a text, and/or go to the service, drop off some food, and naively think that’s sufficient…check-check! We make assumptions on what the griever needs i.e. “giving you space” and leave them alone, not realizing that can make the griever feel abandoned and even more lonely. Or people say and/or do nothing (the worst for me) because they DON’T KNOW what to say or do, so they play it safe and keep their distance.

Since April 19th, I’ve experienced countless emotions through this tragedy that I could not have ever imagined would happen to me. Shock, pain, horror, loss, regret, despair, powerlessness, overwhelm, anger, frustration, aloneness, fear, incomprehension, desperation, devastation, mourning, grief, sadness, trauma, incompetence, doubt, emotional battery, disconnection, hopelessness, exhaustion. There are so, so many layers. The grief journey feels endless. It negatively impacts my energy, my ability to concentrate, pay attention to detail, take initiative, problem solve – even little things like picking up the phone to schedule an appointment feel like a huge chore. I’ve never experienced this kind of detriment. It’s weird and I don’t like it.

Supporting Vivian and bearing witness to her pain, grief, trauma, and loss has been excruciating. The hardest thing I’ve ever done. Author Megan Devine asserts we never “get over” our grief, we simply learn to carry it. Grief cannot be fixed! Grief must be integrated into our lives, our personhood, our life story – inch by inch, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade. It’s a lifelong journey.

As a parent, I feel so much despair and fear for Vivian that she must travel this arduous journey of a lifetime, beginning at the pivotal age of 21. My faith, which has always been a bedrock in my life, feels squishy right now. I question, knowing I will NEVER understand, how God allows such violence and brutal loss. These questions well up from a deep place in my soul that harbors the wreckage of this grief, trauma, and loss. 

Intellectually, I understand there are forces of evil in this world. Bad things happen. Bad things happen to good and undeserving people. As much as I wanted to believe that the world is inherently good, safe, and loving…the truth is, it’s not. There is darkness, violence, and injustice everyday and everywhere. I have just been privileged to live my life in a way that darkness, violence, and injustice haven’t bumped up too close, let alone exploded into our existence. Maybe if I was poor, or a person of color, living in the inner city or a third world country, I would have been forced to grow up dealing with violence, death, injustice as part of my daily life….then the utter shock and disbelief wouldn’t be as harsh and unexpected. But of course, the grief and loss would still be acute.

Thank you for sticking with me. Today is a day, and we are living day by day. Learning to carry what can’t be fixed. Life feels fragile and if anything, we have learned that very little is in our control. 

Vivian is back at Chapman for her senior year and continues to navigate the journey of her grief, trauma and loss, step by step…hour by hour, everyday. For inexplicable reasons, there still has not been a memorial service, which has added an unnecessary layer of pain. I don’t need to emphasize to you how difficult it is. We are immensely proud of her. Her courage and capacity to keep going amazes me.

If you are experiencing grief or know someone who is grieving, I encourage you to check out the resources on Megan Devine’s website, Refuge in Grief. 

I believe there’s an opportunity to evolve from a grief illiterate culture to a grief affirming culture. We can start with the small things. Let’s be honest – whenever there is a change in our lives, there is a loss of something. We must recognize and grieve that loss, even if the change is for something we chose or hoped for. We need to talk about these small losses…and be okay showing our vulnerability. Then perhaps, when there are significant losses, like a death, we can more readily enter into someone’s pain with them when they’re grieving.