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| from The Daily Gleaner, Jan. 28, 2014. Photo: Erin Wells |
It started with her sister, she said.
"Maybe it was because she hadn't slept in days. Maybe she just wasn't capable of hurting anymore. Maybe she was going a little nutty," she said. "her hand shot to her mouth to stifle the noise, and she looked horrified, but she still laughed. And then I laughed."
Instead of offering an explanation or answer, a last "I love you" to her daughters, or an acknowledgement that she knew she was loved, Nemecek said her mother's letter laid out her final wish: for her body to be thrown away with the garbage.
Soon, Nemecek said, the laughter turned to heavy silence as the absurdity of the situation set in.
"An illness had convinced my mother we were all better off without her, yet there we were, surrounded by old photos and boxes of tissues, clinging to each other like lifeboats in her absence," she said.
After almost three years working at a daily newspaper, I rarely get anxious when it comes to interviews, but I knew meeting with Catherine a few weeks ago would be different.
We grew up in the same town and went to the same schools but she and I weren't close. We had different friends, different interests and after graduation, we headed off in different directions.
So, when our paths crossed again seven years later and I found myself sitting across form her at a coffee shop, taking notes while she shared the details of her mother's depression and suicide along with her personal experience with bipolar, I felt a little nervous.
We grew up in the same town and went to the same schools but she and I weren't close. We had different friends, different interests and after graduation, we headed off in different directions.
So, when our paths crossed again seven years later and I found myself sitting across form her at a coffee shop, taking notes while she shared the details of her mother's depression and suicide along with her personal experience with bipolar, I felt a little nervous.
When Catherine contacted me on Jan. 10 pitching a story on Bell Let's Talk day and offering to share her experience with me, I wasn't sure what to expect. There's so much stigma associated with mental illness and even though the whole point of Bell Let's Talk day is to encourage more open discussion, mental health feels like such an incredibly personal thing and on some level, I expected her to be guarded in what she shared.
But she wasn't. Instead, she was open, offering raw and emotional reflections without hesitation.
"It wasn't that long ago I didn't think I would ever be happy again, and now I can't imagine feeling that way," she said.
"I can't imagine hurting the people I love that way. I think about all the things I would have missed out on had I been successful (in taking my life) and the things my mother is missing and will miss and I want to tell people struggling in similar situations that nothing is permanent, everything changes, no matter how bleak things seem."
The immediate words I attached to what she had shared were honest and brave but it's only been with a few days of reflection that another word has come to mind: selfless.
Telling her story couldn't have been easy, but the chance that her story might make a different for someone else struggling was enough motivation to speak out.
***
And every day, I get to hear them. I listen and I ask questions and then I sit down and write, documenting it all and turning those thoughts into tangible records. It's a job I take seriously - stories, I've learned, have a lot of power.
Stories were the focus of my readings last week and it couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. Specifically, the content was focused on how sharing stories about who you were before you knew God can have an impact on others. The readings looks specifically at the apostle Paul (Acts 22) and Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4), two men who have incredible stories about the kind of people they were before they met God, how God changed them in a moment and what they were able to do after they were changed.
One of the things I find most difficult about keeping a blog is that I don't think I'm all that interesting. I live a pretty average life and I almost always prefer writing about others (or writing fiction) to writing about myself. Besides, who really wants to read what a 24-year-old with a weird family situation, living a middle-class life thinks about faith and God, anyway?
When I started this blog, my intention was simple: to write for God. To make this space, however small and insignificant, a reflection of my heart and an account of where I've been, where I am now and where I'm going. I didn't expect anyone to read it or care, but that hasn't been the case. The feedback I've received, online and in person, since I started writing here has been amazing to me. I feel very blessed to have been able to encourage others in some small way.
It took me a long time to figure out how I wanted to conclude this piece of...word/story vomit, but I guess what I'm trying to say is even though, like me, you might not think your story is anything special, it's worth telling.
You never know who's listening or who you might be encouraging.
Talking to students about the time he spent in Korea has gotten easier for Harold Perrin over the years he said, but he still remembers that first difficult presentation in 2003.
"It was devastating," he said. "It took all my will to not start crying because of the memories that come back to you from 1950 and 1951. It was a long time ago but you never forget."
Since that first presentation, Perrin, the past president of the Oromocto Branch 93, Royal Canadian Legion, has made Remembrance Day presentations at more than 15 schools in the Oromocto area, where he shares his stories as a volunteer with The Memory Project Speakers Bureau.
I met Harold Perrin on Oct. 19, 2011 at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown.
James and I made a morning trip out to the base to cover a reception for The Memory Project Speakers Bureau, a national program that arranges for veterans and serving Canadian Forces personnel to speak with classrooms and community groups across the country.
More than 1,500 volunteers across the country participated in the program that year, making more than 700 visits and reaching about 175,000 Canadians a year. About 70 of those volunteers were from New Brunswick and Harold Perrin was one of them.
After a quick interview with the program director, I asked who she thought I should speak to and she immediately suggested Harold.
Harold wasn't even 17 when he went to Korea. When we sat down to talk, he told me when he came back from Korea in 1952, he didn't talk to anyone about what happened overseas.
"I remember telling my wife I can't talk about this. I just find it too hard," he said.
"Then finally I realized if they (young people) don't know what's going on, no one will ever know. So I think it's time."
Harold passed away on Jan. 7. When I started making calls for a tribute piece two days later, all conversations looped back to the same point: the way he gave, without seeking reward, for the betterment of his community.
"He was an all-around good person and an outstanding citizen. I don't think I remember him ever saying anything ill about anyone," Tidd said. "He didn't criticize, he just encouraged. Even when the children were a little unruly for a little bit, trying to get them to sit still or whatever, he would just say a few words and all of a sudden their gaze was on him and that was it.
"It wasn't that he was demanding respect or demanding attention, he just got it because of his presence. He's going to be very missed."
***
Everybody's got a story that could break your heart.
And every day, I get to hear them. I listen and I ask questions and then I sit down and write, documenting it all and turning those thoughts into tangible records. It's a job I take seriously - stories, I've learned, have a lot of power.
Stories were the focus of my readings last week and it couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. Specifically, the content was focused on how sharing stories about who you were before you knew God can have an impact on others. The readings looks specifically at the apostle Paul (Acts 22) and Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4), two men who have incredible stories about the kind of people they were before they met God, how God changed them in a moment and what they were able to do after they were changed.
One of the things I find most difficult about keeping a blog is that I don't think I'm all that interesting. I live a pretty average life and I almost always prefer writing about others (or writing fiction) to writing about myself. Besides, who really wants to read what a 24-year-old with a weird family situation, living a middle-class life thinks about faith and God, anyway?
When I started this blog, my intention was simple: to write for God. To make this space, however small and insignificant, a reflection of my heart and an account of where I've been, where I am now and where I'm going. I didn't expect anyone to read it or care, but that hasn't been the case. The feedback I've received, online and in person, since I started writing here has been amazing to me. I feel very blessed to have been able to encourage others in some small way.
It took me a long time to figure out how I wanted to conclude this piece of...word/story vomit, but I guess what I'm trying to say is even though, like me, you might not think your story is anything special, it's worth telling.
You never know who's listening or who you might be encouraging.
I'm an empty page, I'm an open book
write your story on my heart.
