What It's Like to Lose a Parent as a Kid

My father died when I was six years old. I have a strange relationship with this fact. On the one hand, it's not something I think about on a daily basis. I seldom talk about it. It doesn't noticeably impact the things I say or do. And, really, it just doesn't often cross my mind. On the other hand, there is no doubt that this is probably one of the major and most life-changing events in my life. After all, I doubt anything about my life would be the same if he was still alive (or even if he had died at a different time). So this is also something important for people close to me to know, and for me to consider on my life journey.

Kids with dead parents seem to show up in all sorts of media: just look at this and this and this and this and this. I don't exactly have a problem with this being visible in society. After all, with all the generally "bad" experiences I've had in my life, it's nice that at least one of them gets recognized in the mainstream, even if it is by virtue of being practical and convenient in storytelling. My issue, though, is that these tropes and narratives are monolithic and seldom accurately reflect the lived experiences of those who lose a parent as a kid. This really came to my attention this summer, when I went though a much-belated Harry Potter furur, and went as far as to participate in an online Potterverse role-play. As one would expect, RPs in a fandom for a story in which the main character is an orphan, and death, especially the death of parents, is a frequent in-universe occurrence, many people RP characters with dead parents. It was then, when RPing and actually putting myself in this situation, that I realized how inaccurate people's perceptions of what it's like to lose a parent as a kid are. I am thus targeting this post at writers and at critical readers.

I must note that everyone's experiences of losing a parent as a kid are vastly different. Although in this post I might speak as if I am generalizing my experience, I don't intend to do so. I do believe that some of my experiences can in some ways be generalized to describe the experiences of all or most people who lose a parent as a kid. Still, everyone's experience is different, and I do not know what generalizable, and what is not. That being said, I will begin by listing out a few things that might have made my experience distinct from others', so that my readers can keep these things in mind as I work my way though the rest of this post:

• My father died when I was six years old.
• I am an oldest sibling.
• I did not feel a lot of empathy as a child. I also had thorough understandings of some adult concepts, including death.
• I have very few memories of my father.
• My father was an alcoholic for several years before his death. This means that I probably did not have many meaningful connective experiences with him for some time prior to his death. It also means that the things I learned about my father growing up included both positive elements about what a kind, nurturing, loving father he was, and negative elements about the drunk and neglecting man he became in the years prior to his death.
• I was raised by a single mother who dated frequently when I was young and re-married when I was 13.

I will divide this post by separate but overlapping elements of my experience.

Grief

Grief for those who lose a parent as a kid has a complex dynamic that spans both the complicated ways in which children experience loss and the unusual ways loss impacts us through time.

The overwhelming truth is that it's difficult to understand death as children, especially the death of someone who plays as a significant role in one's life as a parent. From multiple conversations with people who experienced loss as children, it seems that many popular narratives of children's understanding of death are, indeed, true. Overwhelmingly, it seems, death is confusing to children: children may struggle to understand where someone went, and how, children may wait for them to return, or try and find them in other places. Personally, this was not my experience. I feel like I understood death for as long back as I can remember, and certainly I understood it when my father died. Nonetheless, as my experience seems to be the exception rather than the rule, we should not disregard and should perhaps promote narratives of children's understanding of death that do occur more frequently.

I am no expert on childhood grief. I am sure there are experts out there who's words you should take a lot more seriously than mine. Everything I say here is from my own experience, and from the experiences my friends have described to me. Yet it seems to me that childhood grief differs from adult grief in a few specific ways: (1) childhood grief is a lot less linear than adult grief; it's not that adults don't have fluctuating up-and-down emotions as they go through grief, but it's that this phenomenon is even more pronounced in children; (2) childhood grief is less cognitive than adult grief; by that I mean, childhood grief stems more from raw emotions, and incorporates much less introspection and reflection; (3) of the emotions that make up childhood grief, confusion (and perhaps non-cognitive fear) are probably the most powerful; this is in contrast to emotions such as sadness and anger that we typically associate with grief; (4) childhood grief, or at least the most powerful, intense period of grieving, has a shorter duration than adult grief.

To go through grief of that variety as a child is necessary but not sufficient in recovering from the death of a parent. Unlike (usually) losing a friend, a pet, a grandparent, or another relative, losing a parent is not something one ever stops grieving from (I anticipate this experience is similar when losing a sibling). That's because parents tend to be such an integral part of who we are, that it's impossible to truly separate the loss of a parent from one's current life. As one grows up, elements of "adult grief" become necessary in dealing with losses. In the case of the death of a parent, wherein the grief-wound never truly closes, this means that childhood-grief becomes insufficient and incomplete. Elements of grieving as an adult appear during this time. The first time I cried over my father's death, I was sixteen, ten years after he died. Since that time, I found myself grieving over him in ways I never had before. I have episodes of overboard expressions of love, a common symptom of death; I tie in my feelings about his death with other emotions and things happening in my life; and I find myself spontaneously in tears, battling feelings of sadness and anger. The other day, for example, I found myself tearing up at the thought of my father as a child, and how sad his parents (who I never really knew) must have been about his death. I had never thought about this before, and this was a grief-hurdle I had to overcome in order to move on.

Thus, because completing grief over a parent's death is impossible, and because childhood grief is so different from adult grief, grieving for those who lost a parent as a kid is an entirely distinct experience from the dominant paradigm of grief.

Jealousy

It's hard not to be jealous when you lose a parent as a kid. After all, loss in general feels so much like being denied an experience. Yet, unlike what the dominant narratives about losing a parent would like us to think, our dead parents are not always the ideal epitome of perfection that we always look back at, mourning how a bit of perfect was lost from our lives. Perhaps I am biased, since my father was anything but perfect. Still, overall, those who lost parents as children are well aware that fighting, bitterness, and tears would have been a part of growing up with that parent, just as much as all the good times would have been. And don't let anyone tell you that those things are still "good" because "at least you have a parent to fight with". Because, as far as I know, no one feels that way. And those things are -not- good.

The big-picture things seldom make me jealous. I never once, for example, found myself upset on Father's Day, and I actually really love the holiday now that I have a stepfather to make presents for. (Of course, unlike Mother's Day, Father's Day does not fall during the school year, so that might also be why). Likewise, I have many friends who are self-described "Daddy's Girls", and watching their relationships with their fathers unfold does not make me jealous, or at least not jealous in the way that one might expect. By that I mean, I frequently feel great envy when I see people interacting in close, open, honest ways with their mothers as well, because my relationship with my mother was never a positive relationship of that sort. Likewise, I experience analogous feelings about the relationships others have with their fathers, since I never did have that type of experience. Had my father still been alive, I probably nonetheless would never have these experiences.

When do I feel jealous by virtue of having lost a parent at a young age? The worst episode of this was when the Girl Scout camp at which I work had father-daughter weekend. It meant being surrounded for several days by an environment I never had access to by virtue of losing a parent. It meant systematically watching experiences that never could have been mine unfold around me. And that made me jealous. Usually, though, it's the little things; the brief insights into the lives of others, the more universelizeable parts of growing up with a father that I probably would have to some extent encountered had my father not passed away. For instance, I work in the men's section of Macy's, and the other day, a father-daughter pair came in, shopping for dad's jeans. Overhearing their conversation, for an instant, yes, I did get jealous, because it was so simple and brief and an insight into what my life could have been like if life could have been different.

The Question

Perhaps the most difficult part of growing up having lost a parent as a child is that, oh so often, I have to answer the questions:

• So, what does your dad do?
• You talked about your mom, what about your dad?
• Are your parents divorced?
• So you have a stepfather, what about your real father?

And so on, and so on, and so on. It's hard to avoid the conversation. There is a time when people want to know, want to find out about your parents. And that's when you have to answer it.

I play with words all the time. A blunt, unempathetic child, I used to simply respond: "Oh, my dad is dead", but that threw people so far off guard that I gradually changed my phrasing. "Passed away" is a term I never found especially appealing. Somehow, this soft euphemism seems to skirt the truth and create a brittle, sensitive environment around the topic. "My father died" is the phrasing I prefer these days, and, more specifically "my father died when I was six", since the age at which it took place plays as great of - maybe more - of a role in determining who I am than the fact that it did once happen.

More difficult are the responses I face in return. More often than not, answering this question causes people to shut down, apologize, then tip-toe around me as if any wrong word is going to set me off in a state of hopeless weeping. A low-battery phone is suddenly "passing away" and not dying, and the father visiting over the weekend becomes "one of their parents". Sometimes, people prod me as if I am a strange object, poking me with the blunt end of a broom from ten feet away. They ask me if I am ok, then hint that they are curious to know more in hushed tones.

I dread the question(s). I dread the shocked responses. I dread the first time I have to tell new friends that I lost a parent as a child. I've even lied before, told people I never expect to know well that I never knew my father, or that my parents are divorced. Here is the thing. Talking about my father's death does not upset me. I've had to do it my whole life. It does not trigger me, it does not break me down, my voice does not crack. For fifteen years I've had to answer the question, and yes, you get used to it after a while. What upsets me are the responses I get in return. I am not fragile or weak, you are not a villain for asking. There is no need to make this part of my life awkward and dreadful in addition to already being sad. Be polite. Be honest. Ask me questions. And please remember: I've talked about this before; I'll talk about it again; and this is nothing new to me.

Talking About It

On the topic of talking about it, let me say this: sometimes, that is important. Personally, I find it necessary to share most of my thoughts and feelings, since I am an extrovert, and I gain a lot from my conversations with others. This is one topic I seldom find myself being able to talk about, especially given the things I just discussed above. I haven't quite figured out how to go about sorting this out. I usually prefer to talk to the friends who have that also lost a parent as a kid, because they seem to understand the things I am going through better. I wish, though, that there was a way to bring this up to other people without the awkwardness that makes it impossible to say anything past the surface. It's hard to cry and have no one to talk to about it, it's hard to have thoughts and feelings that you can't share, it's hard to have all those experiences that I described above, and to keep them to myself. Family, too, is not an option for talking about these topics, since, within my family, it is a sensitive topic, and it's not one I am comfortable navigating.

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In conclusion, those are just some of the feelings I have around the experience of growing up having lost a parent as a kid. Feel free to ask me any questions about it, but also please consider these things as a critical reader and writer, and when encountering people who've lost a parent as a kid in everyday life.

Fuck Famous Dead White Guys

My astronomy class just covered history of astronomy, a very upsetting topic. I mean, have you ever heard of a more racist discipline than history of science? OK, you probably have, but suffice to say that history, including history of science, is written in a really fucking RACIST way.

Actual slide from the powerpoint.

Well, my professor is white. But he’s certainly not racist, is he? I mean, he’s not even colorblind. In key with our wonderful, liberal, post-racial city of Boulder, he’s not afraid to say the truth: history of astronomy, he says, is just a bunch of “Famous Dead White Guys”. No, I’m not kidding, that’s exactly what he says. And, I mean, he can’t be wrong. After all, there is such a high percentage of POC at CU that they would certainly say something if he was! Besides, isn’t that all we are learning about in class? Famous Dead White Guys?

The history of science chapter (called "The Science of Astronomy") in my textbook (The Cosmic Perspective, Sixth Edition, by Jeffrey Bennett, Megan Donahue, Nicholas Schneider, and Mark Voit) is divided into five parts. (1) "The Ancient Roots of Science"; (2) "Ancient Greek Science"; (3) "The Copernican Revolution"; (4) "The Nature of Science"; and (5) "Astrology". We skipped over Part I.

Now, to be honest, I don’t blame the textbook (which, upon further observation, I discovered was written in part by two professors from CU, which is making me want to get confrontational) for grouping geographically and historically broad and vast astronomical discoveries under one chapter of "ancient astronomy"; nor do I blame my textbook for distinguishing Ancient Greek astronomy from other astronomies of and before its time, and designating an individual chapter just for this historical period. For an introductory class that goes over these things so quickly, you have to make some sacrifices. And, yes, that might include skimming over interesting and big astronomical discoveries. The Greeks, however, are a lot harder to skim over. I am not saying that they were the only ancients to make ground-breaking astronomical discovery, but, for historical reasons, their ideas are more causally linked to our astronomical understanding today. I do think, however, it was incredibly wrong of our professor to choose not to teach the chapter on ancient astronomy. He specifically chose to ignore that which was already under-represented, and I am not ok with that.

But what bothered me even more is that from there, it skips straight to Renaissance science. And there's where I bit my lip in frustration. There's a lot that happened in between.

Our favorite time-period to ignore in world history is the Golden Age of Islam. I never learned it even existed until I was twenty-one years old. Until then, I thought pretty much nothing happened during the Middle Ages. Man, was I wrong. And yes, I had studied history; I had taken World History. And I still knew so little about this. To this day, my knowledge of Islamic and Middle Eastern history is not that thorough. But I do know, vaguely, but I do know, that astronomy was important in the Muslim World during this time.

I decided to bring this up in class to see if I could get my professor to talk about it. I did this in form of a question. After patiently waiting for the end of Famous Dead White Guys, I raised my hand and asked: "Can you tell us anything about medieval Arabic astronomy".

The short answer is he said "no". That's a quote. "No".

He then admitted that he knows almost nothing about medieval Arabic astronomy, and directed us to take the ancient astronomy class or read the ancient astronomy chapter in the text book. Since when is medieval astronomy ancient? It isn't neither, chronologically nor causatively. Nor is it my responsibility to educate myself on the history of science just because my silly professor does not care enough so learn it himself. Hint:if you only know famous dead white guys, you don't know history.

Here is the thing. History; history of science; history of astronomy; none of these are famous dead white guys. That's just how we learn them. That's just how the text books are written, how the professors teach the classes. That's just how we learn history: by ignoring anyone who's not white or male. This is not how history actually is. And it makes me angry when we ignore that.

The Shore

When you are on a ferry, the first few yards go quickly. You can't take your eyes off the land. The shore backs away so fast, then seems to slow down. You take a moment to glance around. You get distracted. You look the other way. Then, you look back. And it's gone, hidden behind the horizon.

I just reached that point. I'd been looking forward for so long, that I hadn't glanced back since my freshmen year. But something - a new 17-year-old friend, to be exact - made me look back. And I saw that I couldn't see it anymore. Highschool fell behind the horizon.

In retrospect. I really do miss it. There was a degree of stability to being in one place five days a week for eight hours a day. There was something nice about most of the people you know being surrounded by the same campus. It was easy to fall into a rhythm, easy to develop a pattern. Easy to make new friends through old friends.

It's funny to think how young you are in highschool, discovering those very mature things like sex and drugs and which academic pursuits interest you most. But, the whole time you are still a child, and so much of highschool feels like a game looking back. Like dressing up for school dances, decorating cars, doing drugs, it was all like childhood play.

I can't quiet swallow it, looking back, to see what a difference three years make in life. It's so far away I don't know the person I was then anymore. And that scares me.

Hard to Answer Questions

There are just so many questions I never know how to answer.

• Where are you from? (Depends why you are asking.)
• How many states have you lived in? (Five? Four, plus DC?)
• How long have you lived in Colorado? (Well, I first moved here ten years ago, but I've since moved out  five times for anywhere between four and twelve months.
• How long have you lived in the US? (Most of my life). How old were you when you moved to the US? (Seven) When did you move out of Russia? (When I was nine). When did you last live in Russia? (When I was ten. Are you confused yet?)
• Where in Colorado are you from? (Denver? Boulder? TR/Bailey? I've called all these places home at one point).
• Where in Denver are you from? (Well, I'm not actually in Denver, I'm from the suburbs...) What suburb are you from? (My address reads Englewood, but a more accurate answer would be Greenwood Village or Centennial, I guess...?)
• What school do you go to? (....CU Boulder, I guess....)
• What year are you? (Senior? Junior? ... Fourth year?)
• What do your parents do, or worse, what does your dad do? (Well, I could answer the question honestly and you'd apologize for asking it, or I could skilfully dodge it so that you don't learn that my father is dead).
• What pronoun do you prefer? (The one that won't make you assume my gender identity... oh wait.)
• How many countries have you been to? (Does Vatican City count as a country? Do I count Wales and England separately, or the UK all together? Do I make a political statement and count Catalunya and Pays Vasco separately from Spain? Is it fair to count Germany if I've only been to Berlin, France if I've only been to Paris, Ireland if I've only been to Dublin, and Mexico if I've only been to the beach-side tourist resorts?)
• What's your name? (Kae? Ksenia? Ksyusha? Cream/Kreme? Depends who is asking, your native language, the context, and which of my friends you already know. I always pause before answering this question...)

Oh, questions....

Queer Isolationism

There was a short time when I lived a mostly queer-isolationist life. It was my freshman year of university. I came out three times in that year, all with different identities. I was exploring my sexuality and my gender for the first time. For the first time, the girls I met were potential partners. For the first time, the pronouns people used to refer to me held a lot more weight than before. And I embraced it. I surrounded myself with people who supported me and knew what I was going through. 90% of my friends were queer. Every conversation I had was queer. Every extra-curricular activity was queer. I began to act cautious around straight people. I began to actively seek out queers.

I no longer live this lifestyle, and now have several distinct and overlapping communities based on common interests beside being queer. For example, I love philosophy. I love to travel. I watch Doctor Who. I work with children. I read books. I play the violin. I hike. There is a lot more to my life then being queer.

If someone hung out only with philosophy majors, or only with other Whovians, I might laugh critically at their decision. There is a lot to be gained in life from reaching out to different communities and people. Yet, despite that, I strongly support queer isolationism, and still revert to it on occasion. Because, you see, there is something about being queer that none of those other things have.

I will never walk into a philosophy classroom, look around at my fellow philosophy students, and know that each and every one of them at some time cried because of their love for philosophy. But that does happen with queers.

I will never tell a new acquaintance that I like to travel, and watch their eyes skirt away from mine, turn to the floor, as they step back awkwardly and say "oh". But that does happen because I am queer.

I will never walk into a grocery store with a Doctor Who t-shirt, and notice people staring at it and at me. I will never sprint from the store to my car, fearing for my safety because I am a Whovian. But I have done that because I am queer.

I will never lie to my parents about going to babysit to avoid another fight. But I make these lies because I am queer.

I will never fear bringing fellow book-lovers home with me. I will never have to search for a place to live which is book-friendly. But that's happening because I am queer.

I will never hear of orchadorsks like myself being murdered, knifed, and beat. I will never see it on the news. I will never hear of friends of friends who are no longer around because they played violin too much. But that has happened to queers.

I will never be told to act differently because I am a hiker. I will never have someone tell me that hiking is ok, but only if I dress and speak like a city person. I will never be asked intrusive details about my hike, because people are curious. But thay do that because I am queer.

Being queer is more than a mutual interest. Being queer dictates every part of my life. Although I am a lot more than just queer, being queer is the integral part of my identity. In an ideal world, I wouldn't need to be a queer isolationist. I wouldn't need to occasionally surround myself with only queers to feel safe. But this world isn't ideal. It is a world that continuously mistreats me, hurts me, and beats me for being queer. To survive, sometimes I must make a world of my own. A world of queer isolation.

My Good Luck

I've always had very good luck. Which is odd, since everyone else seems to have bad luck more often than not. Perhaps I took all their luck away from them. Perhaps I actually deserve this in the form of karma. Or perhaps all this good luck will come back and kick me in the butt with some really bad luck, but I'm still waiting for that to happen.

This is a story of one of those incidents of really good luck. This is how my good luck works.

It came after a string of bad decisions, especially concerning my sleep. First, I took a friends shift at work on my only day off in two weeks. What more, it was an opening shift (6:45) and I was closing the night before (12:15). But I volunteered for it anyway, with the impression that I can just sleep during the day. Which was very unwise, since I know full well that I don't sleep during the day. The night before, I was also closing. I worked until 12:15, went to a party, stayed up until three or something equally ridiculous, went to bed for a few hours, woke up at 7:20, attempted to take another nap during the day, and, after no success, went to work. I worked until 12:15, went home, slept for a few hours, and was back at work at 6:45. In short, I was exhausted.

On my lunch break, I ate what I brought, but was unsatisfied and wandered over to the food court to get some cream cheese ragoons from Panda. And, of course, there was no line, given my good luck. And, of course, I found a seat right away, given my good luck. So I enjoyed those ragoons and headed back to Macy's. Well, there's this candy shop by the foodcourt, and I always pass right by it, but that day I couldn't resits. That day, from my exhaustion and a powerful craving for strawberry gummies, I wandered in to the Sweet Factory.

First, I stood in the middle of the store, glancing around me at all the candy in the way one might look at an unrequited love. I knew full well that I shouldn't have walked in, that a five dollar bag of trifles is not something I want to spend money on. And then I saw it:
                                   Camera pans left.
                                   Zoom in.
                                                  75% OFF ALL CANDY
                                   Zoom out.
                                   Camera pans right.
                                                   75% OFF ALL CANDY
                                   Zoom out.
                                   Zoom out further.
                                   God's eye view.
                                                   I'm surrounded by signs that say
                                                   75% OFF ALL CANDY

So I got myself a bag of delicious for 71 cents.

and it was the last day of their sale

lucky me

Nightmares

Have you ever had nightmares? Nightmares that repeat over and over again? Nightmares not of monsters but of real life at its worst? I didn't used to have nightmares until just over a year ago.

They started when I was nineteen and a half, just as my twentieth birthday seemed near. But these thoughts - these fears- these started even sooner, before I even turned nineteen. I never thought they'd turn into nightmares, but they did.

They repeat, exactly the same, sometimes more or less vivid. They are nightmares of my 21st birthday. When I wake up from these nightmares, when I spend all day crying because I still feel that fear, it's because these dreams are so real. "Can you imagine?", I beg my friends, "being alone on your 21st birthday?". I don't think they understand. I don't think they can imagine. Me? I don't have to imagine. In my dreams it's real.

In my dreams, it's December 22, 2011. Evening. My sister approaches me occasionally to tell me how jealous she is that I am 21. How excited she is for me to "party it up tonight". I pretend I am excited too. Inside, I am shaking. I cannot breathe straight. I feel sick. I want to disappear, to die. It's my 21st birthday, and I have no friends to go out with.

As the evening draws on, I am scrolling through my cellphone contacts and facebook friends, thinking of who I should message. I've already texted a few or my closer friends, but they are out of town, or working, or out of money. They aren't there, and there's no one else. I have no friends.

I post a hesitant status: "It's my 21st, come hit the bars with me!" or something along those lines. Inviting, only I can't tell anyone I don't have anyone the truth: that I'm alone on my 21st birthday. People "like" my status. People respond: "have fun tonight!" or "I'm so jealous, can't wait to party with you when I turn 21". I'm not alone. But I have no friends.

The night draws on. My sister is preparing for her own party to go to, and I know I have to leave soon. She can't know. She'd look at me in that way, with that insulting pity. Like "why are you so stupid/socially incapable that you can't even have friends". Insult. Pity. There she is, parties every weekend. Of course she thinks I'm inferior. I'm in college, and I don't have any parties to go to. She doesn't care that I'm suffering. She'll tell me how to fix the problem by making me feel worse about myself. She doesn't understand how I struggle.

So I leave. I look up some bars on Yelp and I leave. I take the lightrail downtown. Things get blurry past this point. Not so clear, since I've never been to a bar. I enter. I show my ID. I order a drink-whiskey. The bartender looks at the ID, at me. "Happy birthday". Then he steps away. And I see him, with a few other people, looking back at me, laughing at me. I have no one.