Mourning Has Broken Read online

  Dedication

  For Lauren

  As everything in my life has been and will forever be,

  this is for you.

  For Colin

  May you come to know the sweetness of your mother’s heart

  and how full it was with love for you.

  For Phil

  You have beautifully guided this sweet boy into the

  world without Lauren’s loving hand in yours.

  You and Brooke have got this.

  For Rob

  . . . and I could not ask for more.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  PROLOGUE:Mother’s Day: The Exit Interview

  CHAPTER 1:A Very Special Child (Just Like Yours!)

  CHAPTER 2:We Are (REaL) Family

  CHAPTER 3:The End of the Beginning

  CHAPTER 4:Saying Goodbye

  CHAPTER 5:No Easy Answers

  CHAPTER 6:Moving Forward: Life After Lauren

  CHAPTER 7:Soul Survivors

  CHAPTER 8:Surviving the Worst That Could Happen

  CHAPTER 9:I’ll Drink to That: My Own Personal Rock Bottom

  CHAPTER 10:Purposeful Mourning

  CHAPTER 11:Dreaming a Little Dream

  POSTSCRIPT:The Story of “Our” Hummingbird

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Foreword

  THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN PREPARE YOU FOR life, nor is there a single thing that can prepare you for death—your own, or for one of your tribe, your flock, your family, blood or otherwise. Death comes down either by hammer or feather, neither of which is particularly kind.

  What Erin Davis has managed to articulate with her gut-wrenching and brilliantly inspiring memoir dumbfounds me. Page after page is filled with such grace and insight and openness that quite often I was wiping a tear off my cheek or a laugh from the corner of my mouth.

  How do you reconcile the sudden death of your only daughter? How do you also navigate a marriage and a job and myriad friendships and errands and appointments and just day-to-day breathing in and out? Erin bares all and in doing so gives us the opportunity to share our own losses—making us feel less alone in our own rivers of grief. That river that winds in and out of our days, stealing sleep and happiness and eventually our mental, physical and spiritual health.

  Grief shared is more bearable.

  Grief shared heals tender hearts.

  Grief shared is a gift that Erin Davis and her beautiful book, Mourning Has Broken, give to humans everywhere.

  —Jann Arden

  PROLOGUE

  Mother’s Day:

  The Exit Interview

  Lauren and Colin, Christmas 2014

  MAYBE IT IS, AS WRITER JOAN DIDION SO aptly put it, the “magical thinking” of those who grieve—the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive—but in the days and months and years that have added up since the morning our world stopped turning, my husband and I have come to believe that we somehow knew deep down that our time with our only child would be far too short. Perhaps that’s why, when she left us, we sought consolation in something with which so many who lose loved ones are not blessed: the absolute surety that we had left no loving word unsaid, no meaningful shared experience denied. In fact, my final tweet about Lauren pared down to 136 characters just some of the immense love and pride I felt on that special May 10, our daughter’s very first Mother’s Day.

  Nothing has made me feel more like a mother than witnessing our daughter @laurenonair grow into the role. So rewarding. #HappyMothersDay

  Rob and I called our only child our “limited edition.” Just how limited we would find out via a phone call that came in the early hours of the very next morning.

  Like her baby, who beamed often and easily, Lauren had been a happy child. Her disposition was as bright as her blonde curls; she loved to sing and lived to make us laugh. Now she was learning that life could hold even more happiness than she’d ever imagined. In a daily internet blog read and heard (in an optional audio version) by thousands of my radio show’s listeners, Lauren agreed to answer some questions in the lead-up to her first Mother’s Day. Although she sometimes rolled her eyes and graciously passed when I asked her to share the airwaves with me (I thought a mother/daughter podcast would be a great idea if we could figure out the geographical logistics), she surprised me a little by saying “yes” to this request.

  I believe that in becoming a mother herself, our daughter began to understand me as more than just the local celebrity she’d grown up with in Toronto. Her son’s birth had brought with it, as all births do, a newly added layer of responsibility for and bonding with this little human. Experiencing this meant Lauren was only now beginning to relate to the depths of my love for her, and to understand the ache that simmered in me constantly as I watched her, her loving and tender husband, and their sweet son live their lives a four-hour drive from us.

  Just as Lauren saw me in a different, softer, closer light, I was seeing in our twenty-four-year-old daughter further fulfillment of the promise she’d shown from the earliest days of her life, when she shimmered with intelligence, wit and musical brilliance.

  We accomplished our audio interview by recording it separately, from two different cities at different times, but very much from the heart and in the most modern of ways. I wrote questions and emailed them to her; she recorded her responses into her own microphone at home, put them into an audio file and sent them back to me. Lucky for me, I had in my home the handiest of handymen: my husband since 1988, Rob, was a radio producer. He seamlessly cut together my recorded questions and our daughter’s answers, and together the three of us, in our last collaboration, shared our special Mother’s Day interview at www.erindavis.com/erin-s-journals/may-8-2015/just-thought.

  First, I asked what Colin had given to her.

  Pure joy! He is such a happy baby—his smile is contagious and we’ve already shared so many laughs together over the silliest things.

  He’ll cry to wake me up in the morning, but as soon as I poke my head over the side of the crib, his face just lights up. Even when we’ve had a trying night with Colin, that little dimple will make me forget any frustration we’ve had at 2 a.m. My husband, Phil, and I talk almost on a daily basis about how blessed we are to have him in our lives.

  Colin had been the answer to a prayer that had been whispered for generations in his father’s family. He was the first son of a first son of a first son in a chain that can be traced through Japanese history back to the tenth century and Emperor Shirakawa, or so family lore has it. But his nickname, Coconut, was admittedly not quite as noble. As a baby, Colin’s mother had become “Peanutty”; “Coco,” therefore, just seemed a natural fit for her son! And so it was that Lauren’s Mother’s Day gift from her adoring husband was a small ceramic coconut, brightly painted and hanging on a delicate chain. I had found it on a craft site and suggested it to Phil, who agreed that it was perfect and ordered it months in advance. She wore it proudly in the family picture she posted on Facebook that day, along with these words:

  Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, Erin—my advisor, mentor and confidante—and thank you to my boys, Phil and Colin, for making me feel like a queen every day of the year.

  Lauren was young, energetic and embracing a full, happy life with her new husband and their soon-to-be seven-month-old son, Colin. When she stepped away from her job as midday news anchor on Ottawa’s news and talk radio station, Phil dove in even further to help them make their mortgage payments, juggling three jobs, six days a week. No wonder he was exhausted whenever we came for a visit. But he never complained;
marriage and family life were sources of great fulfillment for this soft-spoken thirty-year-old who shared the same passion for radio that his wife and parents-in-law had long held. The plan, moving forward, was for Phil to take over as a full-time stay-at-home father once Lauren returned to her job. Just as she had followed in my footsteps, Phil would be following in his father-in-law’s, taking on a role that had given Rob feelings of tremendous satisfaction and accomplishment.

  * * *

  LAUREN and Phil looked forward to Sundays as their day to run errands, to unplug and to reconnect with each other. But this one was even more special as their little family celebrated its first Mother’s Day.

  As Rob and I prepared for an especially challenging workweek ahead—one that had already begun with a trip to a warm foreign land—back in Ottawa our daughter, son-in-law and grandson spent part of the day bundling up and walking to a nearby park. Only three weeks earlier, in that same park, we had painted a cheery family scene: as I reclined on the damp grass, with Colin snuggled in a sling on my chest, Lauren played softball with her husband and dad, something she’d done often with Rob in her childhood (but rarely as an adult). That day, like a scene out of The Natural (or perhaps The Incredible Hulk?), something remarkable happened: in an incredible show of strength, Lauren hit her father’s arched underhand pitch so hard that her aluminum bat broke. Right in half. And in the joy and surprise of that moment, we all laughed so hard that it stirred Colin from his sleep.

  The next day, after we’d checked out of our hotel room and stopped in for a brief visit with the sleepy couple (it had been one of “those” nights that are often visited upon new parents), we drove away from their townhouse and pointed our car west for the long drive home. Before we pulled out of the parking lot, I sighed and said to Rob in a sad, soft monotone, “That was too short.”

  How prophetic that comment would turn out to be.

  On Mother’s Day, the small family shared a rare dinner out. Lauren was intent on being as healthy as she could be in order to, in her words, “be around for a long time” for her son. This dedication was typical of the behaviour she’d shown in the past year: from the earliest moments of her pregnancy, she swore off caffeine, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, her beloved sushi and anything that could possibly harm her child before or after his birth. As she did in everything, Lauren embraced her new status as a mom with enthusiasm, intelligence and a strong sense of purpose. She would do all she could to give her son a head start in life.

  In our interview, I asked Lauren if becoming a mother had changed her perspective on the role her mother (or father, even) played in parenting her. She responded that it hadn’t yet, but added: “I’m sure in the years to come, especially when he’s a teenager, I’ll be asking myself, ‘What would Mom and Dad do?’”

  What would we do? We would just try to keep going for the sake of that little boy, whose cries in the pre-dawn hours woke his father, but not his mother.

  The night before, as her first Mother’s Day came to a close, Lauren was drifting off to sleep when she heard Colin’s cries from the tiny nursery she and Phil had so lovingly decorated and painted in a bright, sunny yellow. “Right on cue,” I can imagine her saying with a half-smile. Lauren had shared with Rob and me how she often marvelled at her son’s almost psychic ability to know when his mother was about to close her eyes. It was as though the click of the lamp being shut off was some sort of signal for him to wake up and let his mommy know he was hungry. She climbed out of their warm bed, left her sleepy husband and went to rock and feed their son.

  “I love you,” she said quietly to Phil. Those were her last words.

  The next morning, her heart stilled, Lauren lay lifeless, draped over the side of their bed. The wailing of sirens approaching their home, coupled with the cries of a devastated husband and a hungry boy, signalled the end of her happy life—and what we thought was the end of our world. On that desperately dark morning, our search for reasons, for strength and eventually for hope was about to begin. We would experience the shattering pain of losing the dreams we’d held in our hearts from the moment we learned we’d conceived this most cherished and wanted child. But we would find, also, in the wake of such immeasurable loss, that it truly is possible to keep moving forward until the painful days gradually become less frequent and more bearable. And that there can be light once more.

  CHAPTER 1

  A Very Special Child

  (Just Like Yours!)

  Cover of Today’s Parent magazine, November 1993

  Rogers Media Inc. All rights reserved

  OUR HEARTS WERE FULL OF EXCITEMENT THE morning of May 9, 2015, as we boarded a plane bound for Jamaica to host the winners of an annual contest on Toronto adult contemporary radio station 98.1 CHFI. Trip winners were to arrive the next day, but my husband, Rob, and my radio partner and our producer were being given a chance to settle in and become familiar with the all-inclusive luxury hotel a day in advance. The tradition was to greet our listeners with big hugs, cool towels and cocktails as they emerged from their air-conditioned buses at the resort. It was almost always a highlight of these events.

  On a few listener trips, we’d been lucky enough to bring our little daughter along, and I’d even tried to entice her as an adult to come with us for extra hands-on help. But this year in particular, she had her own hands full at home with her new seven-month-old son.

  That was fine with me. I knew that when the week was over and we were on our drive home from the airport to our cottage (probably in the dark), the journey would be brightened by a long phone conversation with Lauren, catching up on her week’s adventures with Colin and Phil and bringing her up to speed on our trip. And we always had countless emails and texts; her last text had reminded me to have fun and be sure to have “a virgin piña colada for me.” That was the plan, anyway. The best part of coming home from a trip was always knowing that Lauren—at any age at all—was waiting to see us or talk to us. Every ending was a new beginning.

  Ask any mother if her child is special, gifted or extraordinary in some way (or many) and there’s little chance you’ll get any response other than “of course!” Even that one on the playground who insists on celebrating the perfect fit of finger and nostril at every opportunity—as well as the child whose knack for public meltdowns makes every outing seem like a (tenser) sequel to the bomb-defusing scenes in The Hurt Locker—has a mother, father or grandparent who will attest to just how amazing that child is.

  It will come as no surprise that Rob and I were pretty much in awe of our offspring too. And now that we count our time without her not in weeks or months but in years, we have come to adore her even more, if that’s at all possible. As the saying goes, hindsight may indeed be 20/20; there is a certain amount of gentle airbrushing that the heart and mind undertake when remembering someone who was so loved.

  Just let me give you a few reasons why we felt we had every right to be the proudest parents in North America from 1991 onward.

  We knew we had someone special in our midst before she even arrived. At twenty-one, Rob, having considered other options for birth control during his first marriage, had undergone a vasectomy. When we married some twelve years later, Rob decided he wanted to be a father after all. Two vasectomy reversal attempts later, Lauren was conceived. She literally came to be out of joy and laughter (we tried to embrace the adventure of attempting to conceive against the odds, rather than feel pressure or angst), as well as a deep desire to bring a child into our happy little family.

  Her arrival nine months later was also comical in its way: my water broke on a busy Saturday in a shopping mall because, well, that’s how I roll. We were in the mall on that chilly spring morning to replace a video camera we’d borrowed to shoot aspects of the baby’s arrival—modestly, of course. When we tested the camera, we found it to be malfunctioning. Although I wasn’t supposed to give birth for three more weeks—Lauren’s due date was April 12—we wanted to make sure we had a camera that was in wo
rking order when the big day arrived. Told by the department store clerk to go away for a bit while they found a replacement for us, we wandered off.

  Rob and I had been sidetracked from our other errands by my sudden desire for an Orange Julius, a fruit-flavoured shake available in many food courts but, as we would learn, not in this mall. We never did find one—because somewhere in the middle of the search, I felt a slow, warm trickle of amniotic fluid beginning to dampen my fleecy track pants. My water was breaking! Rob steered me by the elbow into a stationery store, where I breathlessly asked to use their washroom. Inside the tiny staff facilities, I ascertained that what I thought was happening was indeed occurring. I padded myself up with some toilet paper, took a deep breath and headed back into the mall. Before I did, though, I thanked the people behind the counter for the use of their washroom. I also pointed to their overhead speakers and thanked them for having our radio station, 98.1 CHFI, on in the store, which is also how I roll. Rob and I then returned to that department store with a much more urgent request for a replacement camera. Fortunately, they came through for us. Since labour hadn’t actually started yet, we were in a state of “calm before the storm.” Perhaps it was shock or disbelief, but we were both remarkably chill about the event that was about to change our lives forever. We drove our minivan home—a thirty-minute trip—where I made a pasta lunch. Then I had a bath, determined to be as well-groomed for the event as possible. “Ready for my close up, Dr. Addison!”

  As we made our way back downtown to the hospital we had toured months earlier, reality began to set in. “I’m not ready for this!” I told Rob. Perhaps no couple about to become parents for the first time really is, but goodness knows we were excited to bring home the baby that two or three ultrasounds had assured us was almost definitely a girl.

  We arrived at the hospital in the late afternoon and parked our van, its baby seat anchored and ready to protect our precious little one whenever she was ready to come home. We thought it might be in a day or two, but once again, things were not going to run on our schedule. In another one of those “are you kidding me?” moments, as I stood filling out paperwork in the admitting area of the hospital, a radio on a nearby desk was playing my station. Rob’s eyes met mine as we heard my voice in a pre-recorded piece saying, “I’m Erin Davis, and here’s what’s on in Toronto tonight. . . .” Rob turned to me and said, “Guess what else is on in Toronto tonight?” We both laughed quietly.