Part #3 about Grief

On life after the funerals

Woohooo, where were we?

A quick recap:

In January my mother and her husband (who is also my sister’s dad and has been in my life since I was born) were killed in a car accident in Arizona while on a short trip. They were visiting me from Germany, where I’m from, we spent NYE together and after their little trip had two more weeks of together-time planned.

I talked about the experience in two public livestreams here:

Part #1 Part #2

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Since Part #2 a lot has happened.

-we finally had both officially identified and then cremated. The urns were then shipped to Germany (reminder for everyone to get travel insurance before you go on a trip. It’s quick and cheap. Do it for your loved ones.)

-I spent four weeks in my hometown Düsseldorf, Germany and lived with my youngest sister and little family. I hadn’t spent this much time there since I left in 2000.

-We had a memorial in Tettnang, a small town in Southern Germany where they lived together for the last 12 years. The urns had been shipped there.

-I was responsible for transporting the urns from there back to Düsseldorf and keep them safe over the weekend before dropping them off at the local funeral home. Six hour car ride with my brother, the urns on my lap, then two nights with them next to my pillow.

-The second memorial with burial near my grandparent’s gravesite.

-clearing out my mum’s little flat that

she rented for visiting her kids and grandchildren and friends

-back to California and sick in bed for 6 weeks

-I read the medical examiner’s report and later the accident report

-I obsessed over every detail of the accident until I had to stop or go mad

Have you seen those reels where a semi hits a passenger car from behind, pushing it into a concrete wall? You can compare how high the survival rate for the passengers would be at different speeds on impact and for different car models.

I’ve been shown those clips on socials for a while after the accident and I couldn’t stop watching. Once they even showed the exact model my mum was in. A BMW X3. 0% survival chance, it just crumbles upon impact. Most cars do, to be “fair”.

“Our” semi driver was driving at 45mph or faster. We know this from the airbag device which police retrieved from the BMW two weeks after the crash, cutting it out of the wreck with the help of firefighters. And with the permission of Sixt who own the wreck.

The device seems to be a bit like a black box for cars, it’s another thing I had never heard of, like so many I had to learn in the past months.

For example, did you know that bones and teeth don’t turn into ashes during cremation? They are ground after cremation. Tooth gold however melts and is impossible to spot within the ashes as it mixes in with everything else. Human cremated remains also don’t look like ash, more like very fine gravel or not so fine sand. And they differ in color from person to person. My mum’s were almost white and his ashes were dark grey.

Back to the black box.

It revealed the following: the BMW carrying my mum and stepdad had come to a full stop with warning lights on. (It was snowing and traffic had stopped in front of them) Then it suddenly went from 0 to 50mph, end of data.

This, in combination with the ME report stating that my stepdad, who was driving, was healthy and had no drugs in his system (except caffeine from his morning coffee 🥹) proves that they did everything right and were at no fault.

It took three months for the report to be released and until then we had no way of knowing if maybe they had a part in causing the crash. Especially because the few news articles I was able to find suggested they were involved, which turned out to be wrong info given to journalists by police. No bad intent, just a very messy accident scene with dozens of cars, heavy snow and… I will skip some of the more gory details here to protect my loved ones.

Time to look at some feelings.

Right now, almost five months after their deaths, I am deeply in grief.

My chest is tight most times, I cry sometimes but not as often as I expected. When I do, it really hurts.

I’m starting to remember little things about my mum and be sad. Daily.

I dream of her sometimes, it’s very real albeit unrealistic. Most dreams she is pregnant or just had a child.

I woke up from one of those dreams the other day and said out loud: but you are dead.

I also have very heavy mornings which remind me of being depressed. It usually passes by itself after a few hours.

The first four months I was numb. I found it a tough state to be in. You know the gravity of all those feelings inside you, you know that nothing will stop them from coming out and tearing you apart and ripping you out of life. You know you have no say over when or how that happens.

At the same time you don’t feel. You don’t cry. You see all these sad faces, you receive sad messages, you hug sad people. But you cannot join them. I felt like a sculpture sometimes. A robot.

After a while I became scared that I might not be sad enough to cry about my mum. Am I an emotionless wreck beyond repair? So fucked up that even the death of my mother won’t make me break down my carefully crafted indestructible inner brick walls? No, I know how much I love her. I love her so much and I feel that love so much more than ever before since she died.

It helped that my sister struggled with that same numbness. We always bonded over our mental health struggles and this was our brain’s way of coping with the tasks we just couldn’t avoid. We had to function before the feeling could start.

Welcome to the club, said my dear friend who lost her father a few years ago.

I knew instantly what she meant. You just don’t know until you’ve lost a parent.

I’m unsure I even contacted her when her father died. I hope I did. There is no question I will send words to anyone I know that loses someone, from here on until I die. Any words, no matter which, helped (and help) me. To know that people are thinking of me, no matter how well I know them, was and is extremely soothing.

At first I was in disbelief. Of course they would come back. They’ll turn up eventually. I know the trooper called me and I know he picked up their dead bodies. And I have spoken many times with the lady at the ME office to make sure again and again that they were dead instantly and did not feel pain.

Only when I received the accident report did I find out that the ME lady was also on site and picked up the bodies with the trooper‘s help. She never told me. I thought she just worked the front desk and her sole job was to answer calls of distressed relatives.

She, and so many other people deserves a thank you letter from me. The amount of people involved in helping us get to the point where we could bury them was astonishing.

I keep losing my thread.

There was a moment when I realized that I lost my mother. My mother, the one person that would never leave me alone. That would take me in whenever I needed. My secret backup plan for when everything fails in my life. My safety net.

No, we weren’t close like Gilmore Girls. Nowhere near.

I didn’t tell her certain personal things because she knew no boundaries. She was nosy.

A very good friend of hers described her in the most fitting way: “she was such a loving dynamo, intimidating at times.”

She couldn’t help but treat everyone like her best friend. Which is a beautiful thing if you’re not the daughter. I was always on guard, afraid she would offload her problems on me like she did when I was young. I consciously kept a distance between us and she knew.

But she also knew that I loved her deeply. And I knew she loved me deeply. We didn’t need many words to know how the other one felt.

The relationship wasn’t just easy and I have had years of therapy in order to live what‘s good between us and not be hurt by what wasn’t.

But what is missing now is so huge. So existential. Nobody and nothing can ever give what a mother gives. I cannot find words to describe it but if you’re in the club you know. And when you join the club you’ll know.

There is also a deep feeling of love and gratitude that their deaths created. Love for my mother, for her husband, for myself, for everyone that loved them and misses them.

I feel very spiritual and this is not a word I use lightly. I feel the need to nurture the few true friendships I have. I am not afraid to show my love. I am so painfully aware how precious every minute alive as a human on this planet is. Nothing shall be wasted. And at the same time I have no issue slowing down. Listening to the birds. Loving my dogs. Tasting the food I eat.

And all of this makes me more grateful to have had this exact mother that left me as a gift this warmth. I will feel this as long as I am alive.

There are a few nasty details I cannot talk about in order to protect the privacy of my family. I’m not used to holding back with you, my people. Maybe one day I can share.

I started therapy using the BetterHelp app.

Once the emotional numbness started to wean off I had a first moment of massive grief overtaking. It felt like pure panic. The panic of realizing I will never see her again. I find it unbearable. I remember it vividly from when my granddad died suddenly and unexpectedly. I was a teenager then and my emotions ran wild.

When I had a hint of that panic this time, I knew I needed professional help and quick.

With BetterHelp it’s very easy to switch therapists and even though it feels wrong, I kept switching until I found my match. She is perfect. Smart, experienced, specialized in grief and neurodiversities.

She had me work through an exercise over the course of about 6 weeks and my grief was transformed. It’s not easy to describe, it feels a bit like the weight was lifted. I’m still sad all day every day. I think of them all the time. But the black dog has vanished. It’s easier to get through the day. I am grateful to myself for seeking help before I hit the ground.

I also joined a grief group online, I attended only once so far and it helped so much to be with people that understand. I am so open to trying things that I would have never considered before. Anything to prevent me from drowning.

One last thing before I let you go: I built two crosses and drove to the accident site and set up a roadside memorial.

I had to go there. I had to do what can be done to remind drivers that people died here. I had to feel if their souls were haunting the place. I had to see so I could compute.

I didn’t expect to find so many leftovers from the crash. I found some of their personal belongings. The glasses he wore. Parts of her suitcase. A European phone charger, covered in dirt and badly scratched - it still works. The broken rearview mirror. Lots of bags with flower seeds. And more. I wasn’t prepared and it was tough. Nauseating. I started to talk out loud to my mum while sifting through the rubble. “What am I doing here mum? Why am I here? What do you need? Give me a sign.” That’s when I found an almost finished crochet project of hers, next to the crocheting needle. At the exact spot where her body would have landed.

She was crocheting when it happened. I took it as her sign to let me know she’s fine and has let go of the accident site. Told ya, I’m all spiritual now 😂 I just feel stuff. I am but a vessel and I don’t ask and I don’t judge. I give and I receive. Life is too short and precious to try and make sense of things.

There’s more but this is where I shall end for now. If you have ANY questions at all, I will answer them in the comment section.

With all my love, Janine