You Will Need This Someday

Checking in from the frontline.

It’s been two months since my life changed forever. My brother Oscar was killed when he was hit by a tractor trailer while riding his bike on January 3, 2020.  Some of you will know this already, but others won’t. I’m learning the algorithm gods make it difficult to spread important information. Misinformation, well we know that’s rewarded.  

I am sure many of you unfortunately already know the time warp that can happen after the shock of death. The calendar stretches slowly into the arid desert of loss and loops back to speed into the realities of life, sometimes all at once. I have found that I am quite good at weeping a deep and mournful cry while doing dishes and preparing for a busy day at work. Fortunately I’ve started counting good days — productive, joyful and busy, where I’ve only cried four times — and have discovered who my true A-team is in times of crisis. I am incredibly grateful for the friends, colleagues and family who have buoyed me.

The analogy of grief being like waves in an ocean is apt. At the start I felt like I was in a turbulent ocean with my back to the waves, which would take me under at regular intervals with no warning. I had a hard time breathing and my chest hurt. More specifically, my heart hurt. I’m still in the ocean now, but the waves are further apart, still as strong. And maybe because some other aspects of life feel more normal, they often take me by surprise. A note on normal though: There is no normal. I’m still building a new normal. 

I spent the holiday weeks leading up to that date imagining the new decade and trying to envision the changes and the growth that I hoped to gain over the next 10 years. I spent a lot of time reflecting as well and consulting astrological charts, moon cycles, and wisdom from the sages I’ve collected in person and on Instagram. I had a sense that something big was coming as I tried to imagine how I’d build life to the age of 55 by 2030.

In an end of year post on December 31, I even wrote that I looked “forward to what may come and ask that life open me further and ask me to grow in bigger and brighter ways than I can imagine. For I know there is limitless possibility in surrendering to the process, love and life.”

I did not know what I was inviting. I had no idea my biggest opportunity for growth would happen so soon into the new decade. I had no idea the biggest lesson would hit me so violently: You can plan all you want, but the only guarantee is this moment, and that too will change. 

All I know is that I have survived the worst shock of my life and I am still standing. The feeling of being so raw and vulnerable that I was afraid to cross a street against the light, viscerally shaken when near a truck, and so fearful of people that I couldn’t make eye contact during meetings, is subsiding. I am able to laugh and go long stretches without hearing the words “Oscar is dead” replay over and over in my head. I feel myself shedding the hair shirt of grief and considering a new way of living, one where I honor Oscar’s memory by creating beauty and joy and making the most of this one wild and precious life. I intend to respond to this wake-up call and make the most of this life. But first, as a wise colleague recently said, I must grieve what is lost in order to make room for the joy. And I’m going to need a lot of room.

Things That Have Helped: 

The book  “Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief,” by Joanne Cacciatore. I’ve told everyone to have a copy of this book. You will need it someday. I created a list of some of the other books that have helped me in the past two months on Instagram.

My new favorite waterproof mascara at Nordstrom (thank you, Oscar) I discovered while buying what is now to become my funeral dress.  

The opportunity to speak on a panel at NewYork Life about using data to inform content strategy fewer than two weeks after Oscar died. Part of me thought it was crazy to do it, part of me wanted to keep my promise of participating, and another part of me was surprised to see that that part of Carla still exists and that I could summon her into action.

In a similar vein, I accepted an invitation to moderate a panel at the annual She Opened the Door conference at Columbia University, my two time Alma mater. The panel in February, which was about women’s health, labor rights and education, was inspiring and reminded me of the resilience of women, including myself. 

The Egyptian cab driver who drove me home after therapy after a very difficult day of grieving who gave me a date bar from his bag, something he had from Cairo. Pretty sure he was an angel. Also, that Uber driver from India who told me when I had a case of the hiccups that it means someone misses you. I miss you too, Oscar.

This guided meditation course for grief on Insight Timer. 

Coping With Grief by WellCast.

A beautiful video on grief by the School of Life 

A private Facebook group for people who have lost a sibling. It’s been amazing to connect with a global community who is going through the same thing.  

Learning so much about how to be a resource for those who are grieving, something I needed to learn a lot about myself.

And Rachel Syme’s Twitter thread about how people live glamorous lives. I’ve been using it as a template for how to bring beauty into my own life. Because the most important thing I’ve learned is that beauty heals.

PS I ate a bagel on the A Train. Fuck you, coronavirus. I’ve survived this year so far, what YOU got?