WEBVTT

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[music]

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I, I think we just all
went into complete shock.

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During the surgery,

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uhm, there was some blood loss but
they were monitoring it, they

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thought. And in the end, uhm,
there was too much blood loss

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and her heart stopped and they weren\'t
able to get her revived again.

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He basically went into some
water that have a very strong

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current and he lost his grip and the

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water took him.

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Somebody invited him to go
on a, a sailboat in between

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uhm, Amsterdam in Holland and Harwich
which is in Southern England.

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His boat basically just never arrived.

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So we\'re left with a lot of questions
as to what happened still.

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When I got the news, I can\'t really

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put into words what kind of like
level of devastation it was.

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In my mind, I just couldn\'t accept the
fact that she had passed away until

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I saw her body. So they
did take me to see her

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and then it hit me.

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She was still warm and when I touched her,

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I just couldn\'t believe it.

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While my Dad is on my phone, my sister is helping
me with my Mom was pretty much out of control at

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this point and then I looked
at my Dad and I see something

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this face that I\'ve never seen before.
It was this... it was like a life just

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left his faith and it was
this, a point of sadness

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that I\'ve never seen on him. And
when I saw it, I got really scared.

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Originally, we\'d been told
that he... 80% chance that,

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that he was alive and he\'d be found. There was
just some small mishap that had happened.

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And then gradually, we were
down you know, 60, 40, 20,

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and then there was really no
hope that he was alive, and

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at that point, I think shock just
completed and numbness set in.

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I wanted to be alone in my grief. I
didn\'t see no one or have anyone around

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me and ah, I am... I lived alone.

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So I headed home and once I got home,

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it started the... that complete
breakdown, the tears.

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I couldn\'t stop them. I had the
shakes, I was cold, I got into

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bed and ah, and I just shook and cry it.
I don\'t know

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how he died, why he died. I don\'t
believe what they\'re telling me.

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I\'m so tired. People keep coming in, I can

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barely see cuz my eye... I\'m breaking
down all the time where it\'s just, I

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can\'t do anything except just cry.
And seeing

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my parents like in such bad
shape, it doesn\'t... it\'s

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so hard to see that. My Mom

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probably was the most fragile of all of us.
She\'s not, not the

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healthiest person to begin with and this
just devastated her. She had a hard time

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getting up, carrying on
with everyday activities.

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Gradually, that came back and I
think with it, some of her healing

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came as she... ah, actually she was
able to care for me as, as sort of a

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child who would come home and she still, she
still had me and so she was ah, she was next

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in support to me in that regard and,
and hopefully, vice versa, don\'t know.

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Uhm, my father

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really... uhm, he\'s a traditional man.

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He didn\'t believe in showing grief.
Certainly, he\'d been pretty adamant

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that we wouldn\'t cry or show
emotion publicly during either

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of the memorial services for Chris.
And, and that pretty much carried

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on. He felt that... I th...
I think he felt he was so

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close to breaking apart
to himself that if he saw

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somebody else do it, that would be the end.
The question you get more than anything else

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is, \"How are you? How you\'re
doing?\" You don\'t even wanna

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answer that. You don\'t wanna talk to them. What
do you want me to say to you? You can\'t...

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Most people there, thank God, didn\'t understand
what I was going through. A lot of my friends, a

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lot of my brother\'s friends would come through the house. I
was friends with most of my brother\'s friends. It was good

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to see them because they were people that could
relate to my brother better than my own friends

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could. And they were closed to me so I\'d
loved... I was happy that they were there

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but I hated the \"How are you doing?\" question
because you know, I could either lie to

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you or I could cry cuz I can\'t talk.

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Don\'t ask me this right now. I don\'t like
the question and that question is, is a

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stupid question. Some of our
closest family friends as well,

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ah, I guess I see, they ca... they... it wasn\'t
that they weren\'t there, but they didn\'t

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wanna listen. They didn\'t actually wanna
engage with it and so, they would come and

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puzzle around and leave very quickly
and there was almost like a whirlwin...

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Whirlwind coming through our lives
as opposed to bringing the peace

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and security and stability
we\'d wanted. Uhm...

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The funeral itself was difficult.

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Uhm, it was ah, something that...

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I guess for me, it was
especially difficult because

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six months before Shirley died,
uhm, our mother had passed away

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and this was bringing back memories of

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Shirley and I being there
for our mother\'s funeral

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and I didn\'t realize that six

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months after burying my mother
that I would be burying

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my sister.

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My Mom, she didn\'t get better. She was
pretty much better and she couldn\'t

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get out of bed, ever. She spent all day
in there. She cried literally all day.

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You know, we take turns trying to
help my Mom. Seeing her in that much

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pain just adds to the pain that we\'re in.

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At the end, after the service at
the grave, I was the last to leave

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and I didn\'t want to leave. I felt I was

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leaving her behind but ah, of

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course, one had to go.
So I uhm, again, I was

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invited to go back with everyone
to meet with some people at the

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house who were from out of town that were
coming but I really didn\'t want to do that so I

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didn\'t. And I just said
I needed to be alone.

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But I think that\'s me as a person.
I just wanted to grieve

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upon myself.

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[sil.] So

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my, my relationship with my parents has
changed pretty dramatically since Chris\'

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death. Uhm,

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I think my Mom, particularly,

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it\'s, it\'s affected her greatly. She\'s lost
actually two kids now and, and I\'m the one that\'s

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left and, and she gets very scared for me.

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Where my family is now
since my brother died is

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wha... i... it\'s an interesting place.
My Mom has

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more fear that I wish she would towards me.
She doesn\'t want me to do

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anything. But over just maternal instinct, she, she
doesn\'t like it when I do things like snowboard,

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anything whether there\'s
any risk whatsoever.

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And i... I, I try hard to understand that.
I know where she\'s coming from

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but at the same, I can\'t just stop living.
If, if anything for my brother,

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he... that would destroy him if knew
he knew that I stopped living when he

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died. In my mind, they\'re kind
of excessively afraid for me

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sometimes and uhm, and they have
to let me go because I have

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to live my own life and
in... on the same hand,

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I can\'t make it all okay for them. I...
They have to find their own friends

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and I don\'t think you can never fill
the gap of, of the loss of Chris but,

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but you can find new experiences that you might not
have had. Maybe search out a new friendship groups

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to, to fulfill some of those
social, social support

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needs that you now have. So
I guess I\'d say we\'re a lot

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closer and we look after each other
a lot more but at the same point,

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it\'s something that we... we\'re
continually negotiating. If my Mom, Dad

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and my sister went somewhere and they\'re
a couple hours late, now the worst

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scenario runs through my head
and I feel so uncomfortable

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because I think what would
I do if I lost them.

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And it puts me in even worst place cuz I\'m...
You know, I lost my brother and know what it

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feels like. If I lost the rest of them, I
don\'t think I could live through it. That\'s

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how I feel about it. I need them
and I hope... I think they know

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that. I don\'t express
it as much as I like to

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but I tried to. It just...
It\'s hard to express the

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words that I, I felt inside.
That it\'s... that I guess

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I wasn\'t alone cuz after the loss of my

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parents and Shirley, I felt that I
was very alone. I\'ve... in the sense

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that I had lost my immediate
family but Jonel(ph) and

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Lindsay(ph) and Ken(ph) kept saying you know,
that we\'re, we\'re together, we are a family

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and you know, we are gonna be there
for each other. So that means

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a lot to me.

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Anger, I feel a lot of anger and I...

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Sometimes I think I\'ve really gotten control
of that and sometimes it just brings up.

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I, I was saying that uhm, this last, this has
been the sixth anniversary of his death and

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oh, I felt the anger again.
Uhm, I feel angry

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that he depended on people
and, and they let him down,

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that he went into life and in to an experience
trusting that nothing could go wrong.

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And that really it was a human
error and a bit of chance

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that almost seemed to have
inspired against him.

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I can remember this distinctly waking up in the
middle of the night about a week after he\'d

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gone missing and thinking that he was,

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he was ca... or he had been calling
for me and that he\'d been hoping

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that I would be there and that I\'d come and
maybe even believing that we would even

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though, realistically, there, there
was no way we could have changed the

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event. I, I have felt a
lot of guilt thinking

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that he, he was waiting for me and I didn\'t
come and that somehow... I don\'t tell

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emphatically I should have known...
Uhm, cuz, cuz frankly, I didn\'t have

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any sign that he was... I... that there was
something wrong. I, I had no inkling. I was going

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along pretty happy in my life and the news
of his disappearance came as a complete

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shock. So when this happened,

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I wasn\'t angry but I wanted
to blame God to some

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level because you know, everyone is saying this
is God\'s will, they want the better people,

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ya-de-ya-de-ya. I don\'t
wanna be angry at him. I, I

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don\'t lose faith. I still think he... I
know he\'s there but I don\'t wanna be angry

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with him so I\'m using all my
faith and power not to hate

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God for taking my brother. I do feel
some anger at, at Chris himself

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because he, he has left

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behind so much distress and I know
he never would have intended it

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and I know that, that wherever he is,
I\'m sure he, he, you know, he\'s walking

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not with us in terms of the pain that we still
feel and the, the loneliness for him and

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uhm, the sadness. But sometimes I

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feel angry why did he have to go on that boat.
Why did he always have to be so adventurous?

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Why when I needed him

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wasn\'t he there? Cuz I, I really needed
him to actually understand and deal

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with his death. I mean, it\'s sort of
just this crazy experience that you...

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Just when you need the person
who, who means that much to you.

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[sil.]

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The advice that I\'d give
to somebody who\'s ah,

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who\'s recently lost a, a brother

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uhm, I think it would be to, to

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be very gentle with yourself. Uhm,

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not to minimize the experience
through the last that you\'ve had

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because certainly, there\'s a
lot of focus on parent\'s loss

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and, and it\'s a tremendous
loss to parents, no doubt

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about it. But the loss of a sibling,
that, that person you\'ve grown

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up with who has shared all those
little things in life that you have,

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that, that loss is, is profound.

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With people that knew him, I like to
talk about him. Unfortunate that one of

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his best friends is my neighbor and she is
a big talker. She loves to talk so it\'s

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easy to talk to her about it and she\'s
right there to talk and that helps.

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In, in my case, I think we had
some people come by and sort of

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suggest that I needed to slow
down and in a very quiet,

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in a very gentle way but in a way
that, that made stop and think.

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There\'s no shortcuts that you...

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I feel you have to grieve, you have to

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let the pain... you have to go
where the pain is, not to ignore

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your feelings or perhaps you might think,

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\"Oh, I\'m not gonna think about that or look at
her picture because it brings too much pain.\"

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And I found that is the way you heal, is

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by going and facing the pain and the grieve

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and letting it come out.
I think another thing

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we found really helpful were resource books and
I think the reading in the books out there

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were way that we could each and equally find that...
A different approach to understanding grieve.

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My father had to go to the philosophical
understandings of grieve.

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Uhm, mine were mostly
stories is what helped me

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and then my Mom seemed to get
in to more of the spiritual.

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I feel that you have to

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be there for one another. You
know, life is short on this Earth

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so if you can find

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the good in everyday and do realize

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how lucky you are to be here and
don\'t waste it, don\'t waste your

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time.

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I hope I don\'t forget Jamie. I don\'t think

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I will. I made a little scrapbook not for

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anybody else, just for me that I wanna
look at whenever I feel I could.

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It\'s full of pictures. It\'s full of words.
It\'s full of letters. It\'s

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just for me. I don\'t wanna forget him.
I don\'t think I will.

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[music]

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In terms of feeling

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connected to Chris, there has been a big
shift in the first... I\'d say, even the

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first two years, I could hear his voice.
I still remembered his

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expressions and uhm,

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I... you know, you could still actually
smell the, you know, the... yeah, well,

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he was an athlete, let me say. Yes,
his, his clothes, he didn\'t know

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smell sweet. But uhm, there

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was a lot of tangibles that were
still there, that we could rely on

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and with time, those, those do go.
I, I can\'t hear his voice

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the way I used to. I have dreams about him.

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I love it when I have dreams about him. I don\'t...
They usually don\'t make sense, I don\'t care. If

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he\'s in it, that\'s great. Sometimes it\'s realistic
like he just shows up and I\'m going, \"God,

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where have you been? I knew you weren\'t dead.\"
I can picture him on my mind and certainly, he

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comes to me in my dreams sometimes
but some of it\'s a little sha...

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You know, it\'s, it\'s getting a little shady
around the edges I can\'t quite picture him.

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I do talk to Shirley. I... both in my head

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and out loud. Uhm, sometimes ah, there\'s

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situation going on and I\'ll say, \"Shirley,
I need your help here.\" I guess

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I believe that it\'s... she is there
with me as well as my parents.

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Uhm, coming today, I was talking
to Shirley and my parents

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
and I was asking them
to give me the strength

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
to do this. I feel her
presence, her spirit,

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
she\'s with me. I\'m curious what\'s gonna

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
happen when I\'m 30. I hope I\'m still dreaming
about him. Is he\'s still gonna be 24

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
while I\'m 30? I don\'t know what\'s gonna happen, I just
have to wait. I really hope I keep dreaming about him.

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
So what I\'ve, what I\'ve done
recently and I guess the, the

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
strategies I have is I try to do
activities that we love doing

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
together and really going out and searching

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
for them. Uhm, my, my husband and I have
started doing adventure racing. So we, we

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
go up to the mountains and do this really
long trail runs and kayaks. And I just

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
know that although he, he wasn\'t there
or he... you know, he was never actually

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
there with us, it\'s something he would
have wanted to do and he\'s there in spirit

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
and I feel really connected to him
when I do it. I had a dream once

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
that I went sailing with him. I
like to sail. My brother never has

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
and I know he would love it.
And in my dream, I took

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
him sailing and that made me
feel so good when I woke up just

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
feel as though I did take him
sailing and he loved it.

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So I don\'t want those things to stop, ever.