On Grief and Trauma

Inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Do not resuscitate.

There is nothing more traumatic than signing a DNR form.

It’s something you see on TV but, in reality, there really isn’t something more grounding in life than looking at a DNR form and having to sign it.

Never in my entire life did I think I would have to be signing something like this. Let alone being asked to be in a position to do so in such an unexpected but also unemotional way.

The truth is I completely forgot that I experienced this. Trauma has a way of wiping out your memory. It wasn’t until I started reflecting on things and decided to express my feelings on grief and trauma that I began to remember some of the details of that fateful day in October 2020.

I had left the hospital in the early evening expecting to come back the next day for visitation hours until I got a call from the hospital asking me to come back.

When I got to the hospital, I was told that my late mother suffered another cardiac arrest. It was on the evening of October 18th and in a span of 12 hours, my late mother suffered four cardiac arrests.

The doctors informed me that a decision had to be made and that another cardiac arrest was expected overnight. What decision? I was so confused.

It was a terrible moment, the doctors rightfully told me that another cardiac arrest would happen and that it would be too much for my mother’s body to take. They could resuscitate her again, but we would not know what the consequences would be.

My mind was racing. What am I supposed to do? I knew what I was told, but I was probably in a state of shock to comprehend what was supposed to happen next.

I called my siblings to inform them about the options.

We agreed that it was important to sign the DNR form and prayed that my mom would make it through the night.

There was no way she would not make it through the night right? I did not want to leave the hospital that night and felt the longer I stayed, things would improve. That was my thought process at the time. Traumatized, but still trying to make sense of things even if now, in hindsight, I was just on auto-pilot.

I felt that if I stayed, or at least stuck around in the area, I could feel some sense of control.

If I left then things would get worse.

I had no idea at the time, but this was just grief kicking in. I did not want the inevitable to happen without me being there. I ended up going home. I couldn’t sleep waiting for the phone call from the hospital. Waiting for a positive or negative. But I waited for the call which never came, so we had a sleepless but quiet night.

That morning, October 19, I missed one of the most important calls. I was in the shower rushing to go to the hospital. When I left the shower and bathroom, I saw a missed call from a number I could not recognize. But deep down, I knew it was the hospital.

I knew she was gone.

When I called that number back. I was informed that my mother passed away that morning from another cardiac arrest.

Grief is such a profound emotion. It’s such a collective but individual feeling.

But calling grief an emotion insinuates that it is a two-dimensional feeling that is easily explainable. It’s probably the opposite. You really cannot understand the true meaning of this emotion until you experience it.

There is a lot we are told about when it comes to grief and losing someone close to you. But it’s only after you experience losing a loved one when you can truly appreciate the impact it has on you, those around you and your outlook on things.

There is something quite calculating about grief. It disorients you, re-centers you and breaks you down but with the unlikely intention of building you back up.

Losing a loved one is a painful experience. Losing a mother is an emotion and experience that is hard to describe. You are shaken to your core.

The highs are great — you are grateful for the time spent and the life that was lived; the lows are low — questions feed the anger that leads into rage; questions around whether you missed something and you were not paying attention — and the bottom is acute — depression, breakdowns, alcohol. But that’s grief.

You get a crash course in the complexities of human emotion. There are a lot of things people do not tell you about grief.

Relationships you thought that were unshakable become shook. Relationships that you thought were not great become the relationships that you needed the most.

Those you thought you could always rely on made it feel like the grief you and they were feeling was the fault of your actions. You became heavy to those that you love and care about. You become a burden. And frankly, you get into your own head.

The crazy thing about grief is that as much as it is an emotion that many people have felt, it is still a lonely one.

As we approach nearly two years of the Rona life, it’s crazy how used to death we are as a community and society. Death is now common. It is now something we expect and not something we get surprised by. We’ve become numb to it and as much as we know death is part of life’s journey, it has just been relentlessly constant these past couple of years. As a result, just about everyone is grieving or has grieved.

But what we should not lose sight of is that grief is real. Trauma is real. The journey that one travels in trying to be ok after suffering loss is a long one, but it is a path one chooses on their own.

It’s ok not to be ok.

But what is not ok is to say you are ok or you are fine when you need help.

I learned this the hard way. We need to be better about being honest with ourselves and each other. Therapy and seeking out help is so important for one’s journey towards feeling better. I was absolutely skeptical at first, but over time, and about four sessions later, therapy and speaking to someone did help.

Timing does make it better. The missing never goes away but over time you can turn that trauma and grief into something more meaningful and if you are lucky liberating. I was lucky enough to get some strength to turn my grief into something meaningful, something that was able to leave a lasting mark for my late mother and what she stood for. Doing so, also gave me some sense of peace.

I found that meaning by doing something that was way out of my comfort zone but something I am passionate about. Setting up the Amne Salim Fund for COVID-19 research in Tanzania with the Muhimbili University Hospital for Applied Sciences (MUHAS) was my own way of channelling my grief towards hope. The Fund was not something I wanted to do to only remember my late mother, but over time, I want it to be an initiative that might prevent others from going through the same grief me and countless of others have gone through over the past two years. The more we understand this disease, the more we can protect ourselves and our families.

And maybe, just maybe, it might make us live a little.