Death and grief as a fifteen-year-old
On my fifteenth birthday, my friend Carla, and her twin sister, gave me a card filled with photographs of us together, and a jar of nutella.
Only a few weeks later, Carla lost her life to a rare form of pneumonia and a hospital bug.
Death is normal. I always knew that. I had lost pets, and my maternal grandfather. I remember being eight and sitting stony faced through my grandfather’s funeral while people, including my mother, delivered speeches and weeped. While I knew my grandfather, I never really had a strong relationship with him, and his death did not have a big impact on me. Before I was fifteen, I had never really grieved. Not until 2012 when I lost one of my oldest and dearest friends.
Carla reminded me of a hyper bunny. She walked into any space with an infectious amount of energy and life. She had a wicked sense of humour, and would squeal in laughter leaving everyone else in tears. It wasn’t all fun and games though, Carla was one of the most competitive and hard working people I ever met, who loved to be in control. I remember countless occasions I spent with her and her twin sister, staying indoors eating sweets and playing Monopoly. If we were eating rascals or smarties, Carla would divide the sweets by colour, and ration them out into perfectly even numbers between all of us. And if there was one or two sweets left over, those would be cut into three pieces and shared between us. Playing Monopoly, or any game, went perfectly well only if Carla was winning. However, if she happened to be losing, the game was ‘boring’ and we should ‘do something else’. Boys fell in love with Carla all the time, and she always had a sea of admirers. However, she refused to settle for anyone less than absolutely perfect.
Carla was admitted into hospital on August 14, after contracting a rare form of pneumonia. Twenty days later, on September 3, Carla passed away. She had contracted a secondary hospital bug, and was in a critical state during her time in hospital. She had a million machines keeping her vaguely alive, her organs were failing her and she was receiving up to seven blood and platelet transfusions a day. Yet her death was still the hugest shock. Losing Carla taught me that no matter how much warning you have, you can never be prepared for the pain of losing someone important to you.
I know that I was in class when I heard the news of losing Carla over the school intercom. The next few hours are a blur. I remember feeling claustrophobic as too many people touched and held me. People were talking and crying, but it was if I wasn’t really there. Then my mom’s arms were around me, and everything felt far better.
The next few weeks were incredibly hard. The kind of pain I was accustomed too, would come at me full blown, and then leave. But grief was so different. Some days I was fine, and I was certain things were getting better. I would actually have a good day at school, and laugh with my friends.
Other days the pain would come crashing in. I never knew what to do. I would cry occasionally. But mainly I would withdraw myself from the world. Lock myself in a bedroom or bathroom. Listen to “Dark Paradise” by Lana Del Rey on repeat, and play memories I had with Carla over and over in my head.
Carla would often feature in my dreams. She was always so real, my brain somehow always managed to convince my unconscious self that she got better, and she is okay. Then I would wake up, and weep when I remembered she was gone.
My healing began a couple of weeks after losing Carla. I began writing about her, writing to her, burning letters over a candle stick in the hope that they would reach her somewhere. I created photograph collages over my bedroom wall, of us at the beach, on her trampoline, at a music festival wearing ridiculously over-sized glasses. I had a collection of every newspaper article about her that was published while she was sick. Somehow, commemorating Carla in this way, helped me tell myself that yes she was gone, but it would be okay.
It is almost five years since the dreadful day the world lost Carla. I still dream of her occasionally, and in my dreams she is fine, she got better, she’s just been hiding from the world since she got sick. I am always left confused. I still think of her often, but not with same amount of pain and sadness that I always held for the first year after she left us.
Grief never really dies. I am not sure that I, nor anyone else, will ever come to terms with losing someone who had so much life, so much character and so much potential at such a young age. Death is meant to be reserved for the old and the fragile, not for the young and the robust. Carla’s family, including her twin sister, will never recover fully and will never be okay with living in a world without her. But it does get easier.
