Jodie Foster playing the intensely vulnerable Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Grace and I met in an online grief group for young adults who had lost a parent.
Every Wednesday, I would see Grace’s gorgeous face through a screen.
She was only 25 at the time, an incredibly eloquent speaker, an advocate for human rights, a published author, and unbeknownst to her and I, a future post-graduate of Columbia University who’d be speaking at the United Nations before she was 30.
I fell for Grace hard. How could anyone not?
The grief we shared over losing our single mothers as only daughters—Grace’s loss much more recent than my then 10 year stunt—had suddenly exacerbated beyond complete comprehension.
We believed this was by way of:
a) our collective pandemic fear in the United States (her’s on the West Coast, mine on the East),
or
b) the everyday banality of masking up, wiping the groceries to smithereens before they dare grazed our kitchen counters,
or, most simply,
c) because it’s the worst feeling in the world. A monster to survive through as a lone, silly female.
Even with an incredibly loving support system around, no one ever wants to be part of the dead mums’ club, even if they jest otherwise.
During a regular online grief group, Grace and I, amongst 5 to 6 other young adults, would meet so we could suffer in our unfair grief collectively. Though pain loves company, smiles were surely more of a likelihood.
Covid, alcoholism, suicide, cancer, freak accidents, car crashes, surgeries gone wrong. In any case, every young person in the meeting had prematurely lost a family member to a horrifically wide range of causes. From the ages of 24 to 32, they would log-in from all over the world.
Accompanying us losers (or winners on a good day) was an incredible woman called Lily who had volunteered her entire life to this project. She had proactively transformed her grief by helping others heal theirs’. It was a presumption of mine that these organized meetings had been realised throughout her own personal journey with loss. It seemed as though Lily had created a channel that should have been available to help her when she needed it the most, but wasn’t.
Alongside Lily, amongst no more than 10 participants at a time, (she had strict rules), there was also a certified grief counsellor present at every hour-long session.
Her name was Alicia.
Alicia and Lily would request we all have our cameras on during the calls, and contribute to the conversation. A pretty non-trivial request, but some nights were harder than others.
Like many, I’d log on through blinding streams of tears soaking the collar of my shirt, pretending to hold it all together but crumbling, anxious the cracks would become more and more visible to others on the outside. What if the dents in me began to concave further, so deeply so that the larger parts of my dissolving, fatty, stone-cold body would have to be beholden to incessant maneuvering in order to just exist, or form a breath?
I wasn’t focussed for a majority of these online meetings—they were more like a means to an end. A free therapeutic tool to help me get through to the next day, often attended with a sense of hazy urgency. I first noticed Grace when she used the same language as me to describe her reconstructed family unit. She had a “pseudo mum”, and a “pseudo-sister” like I did, but I hadn’t heard anyone else use those terms before. I was not only awestruck by Grace, but I distinctly remember feeling less alone when she spoke.
A surefire way to my heart, Grace’s words reminded me of a powerful anecdote from the unprecedented Toni Morrison: We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
Over time, I have learnt that grief can disguise those that are right in front of us. The only person I could truly see was Grace, but perhaps that was because she was the only person I wanted to see.
I didn’t take notice of anything, nor anyone else.
Jodie Foster. Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Alicia and Lily provided a caring platform for us to talk about the depravity of our lives—surely the acceleration of such was to blame on the unfortunate, tragic deaths of our parents. We talked about complicated relationships, as death, especially when sudden, can completely unearth. Sometimes we hate the special someone that’s died, and often we feel as though we could have shown up as better person for them, regardless.
But now we can’t. Shucks.
Knowing certain moments are lost for good can transcend, rather ironically, into unbearably hefty baggage. Baggage that follows you around constantly, even when its wheels are oiled, and its contents nicely folded.
With such kindness in their volunteering, Alicia and Lily would teach us techniques to consider in order to look after ourselves better. To reset if you will.
Drink less
Love right (or better not at all)
Eat
Exercise
Shower
Sleep
A lot of us valued learning how important the basic needs of a functioning human being really were, especially for where we were at. It was so easy to lose our way.
As Alice and Lily softly reiterated the importance of committing to one’s self, specifically in order to provide our healing process enough nutrients to flourish into the light at the end of the tunnel, (for lack of a better phrase, or any other of the million and one clichés about tackling steep hurdles), our meetings with them quite quickly became a weekly life-line. Granted, this was way more exciting during Covid, where days would dissolve dystopically, often without the mere sighting of a room mate. These meetings became my ‘looking-forward-to’ online excursions, and better yet, they were just for me. Oh, I guess they were also for mum.
Actually they were always, really, for Grace and I.
After each session, Grace and I would stay online while the others logged off. We’d finally be able to have a private catch up, a much needed vent where we’d gossip about the other grievers.
‘They can’t compete with us, surely” we’d joke proudly.
What could possibly be worse than losing your mother so early as a single child? Going on to, not only inherit her debt, but forced to empty out her estate, become houseless overnight, and bullied into planning a departure ceremony with little to no resources—for Grace, a funeral in California, for me, a tangi in Ōtaki.
We were naive back then, but perhaps we rated grief on a competitive scale to help us deal with its wrath. Whilst in the grip of grief’s grasp, every little win counts.
Like any other Wednesday evening, a hard but rewarding meeting had come to a close, as Grace and I anticipated our post 1-on-1 session to begin. This time, much to our shock, Lily abruptly decided to stay online with us. There were now 3 of us who hadn’t logged off deliberately, making for quite the crowd.
Grace and I were flawed. We must be in trouble, I remember whispering to myself before holding my breath.
“I think you two should meet each other, girls,” Lily chimed in. “My zoom tells me who stays in the chat room, and for how long…You clearly can’t get enough of each other. Clare, can I fly you out to LA to meet Grace, and hey, while you’re here you can even meet me!?”
In the most relieving of exhales, I firstly thanked my mother Desiree, and Grace’s mother Pam in my head. I then of course thanked Lily through my screen, (though I really could’ve kissed her, french).
Jodie Foster. Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Landing in LAX, I finally got to embrace my newest, deepest friend, who, even after an entire 12 months of talking strictly online, felt like a family member. Our impact on each other was immense, mutual, and immediately felt. We rejoiced in our union at In-N-Out Burger’s drive-thru. Because that’s what people do there.
“Should we just go and see this lady now so we can make the most of your trip, just the two of us…Grace asked me mid–french fry. “What’s her ZIP code?”
“9-0-2-1-0” I said, like a dumb non-American.
“For fuck sake, of course it is.” Grace replied.
After a 45 minute, nausea-inducing winding road, we finally arrived at the largest automated garage door I’d ever seen. “Drive on in” a friendly voice bellowed, recognized immediately by us as Lily’s, “and make sure to take your jewelry off. People will follow you in if they get a glimpse!” she continued from an unidentifiable source.
“Fucking hell Clare, what have you gotten us into?” Grace turned to me first in giggles, which quickly transitioned into a funny-mood panic. As she looked between her jelly bracelets, and then across to my fake nose ring, she extended her arms anxiously taut, and grabbed the steering wheel as if to plead with its unlikely magical powers.
Maybe if she rubbed it just the right way, she’d be able to evaporate.
Unfortunately, Lily’s garage door was already 75% open by now, revealing torturously stale Buddhist sculptures. The type that only white westerners would buy, and in this case get helicoptered in. Six of them monstrously lined a glistening, chlorine drenched pool and spa (separate from the koi fish pond) that overlooked the wondrous, celebrity ridden Beverly Hills.
“Maybe we should’ve kept this part of the arrangement online” Grace told me, reluctant to relax her elbows in order to get this over and done with already. In other words, to meet the wonderful woman who had brought us all lovingly together.
As per Lily’s request, we changed into our bathing suits before heading across the mansion’s venetian tiled deck for a cocktail. Though our eyes were hurting, our feet were being taken care of, lightly heated even, and our thirst was quenched at the very least, as we prepared ourselves for a glamorous, leisurely float.
“Are you getting in with us?” I asked Lily, as Grace and I began to awkwardly dip our toes.
“No, I’ve just had a boob job, but I’ll sit and chat…” Lily pulled up a plushy linen, wicker beach chair that swallowed her tiny body with its greige folds.
“…God, I hate it here,” Lily continued, just as Grace and I had reached (natural) breast-level submergence in her ice-bath temperature pool.
“How is that possible?” I asked her, having a 360 degree view of her neighbors’ abodes, neither notably modest on the left, which once belonged to the creator of the cassette tape, nor on the right, which belonged to Will Smith and his family.
“My political opinions aren’t so popular here,” Lily confessed. “I’m a minority, and I’ll be moving to Florida before everything around me becomes way too Anti-Trump.”
My eyes widened. I unfortunately never inherited my mother’s poker face.
Grace, in all of her name’s sake, came to the rescue swiftly, as we both simultaneously urinated. Our telepathic, subtle, and luckily invisible protest. Lily seemingly had no interest in the truth, anyway.
“Completely off topic, but I was curious if we’ll get to meet Alicia while Clare is here. It would be nice for us to meet her. After all, she’s had to deal with the both of us crying about our dead mums’ for over a year now… Is she also in LA?” Grace asked our new MAGA friend.
“Ah, its such a shame. Alicia is in LA, but it’s Oscar season right now.” Lily replied, leaving Grace and I, yet again, utterly flabbergasted.
“Why would that effect Alicia?” Grace asked appropriately.
“Well, ‘Alicia’,” she gestured in air quotes, “is only the name she goes by when she works with us as a grief counsellor” Lily teased.
“So, what’s her real name?” Grace and I asked in unison.
“Jodie Foster” she said, as if we’d known the entire time.
Love this story.
Whew. Damn.