The loss of loved ones is tough… Some tougher than others…

CATCHING UP

In an attempt to catch up with my ‘daily’ journal I spent most of my day Saturday catching up to the present so I could write about the ‘presnt’.  By the time Saturday’s long entry was finished I was realizing that a story about a broken leg and a battle with boredom was about to turn into a journal about life, my life.  The good news is that the writing is becoming therapeutic for me. It is giving me something to do and a sense of purpose, if only for my children, in a time when I felt useless, bored and at times disappointed with the situation I find myself in. A new sense of purpose that didn’t focus on me chasing my family around the forest or chasing my friends up a hill on skate skis would be a good thing.

Very quickly into writing I found myself relaxed and not anxious about my living room throne overlooking a winter wonderland and being stuck inside. I also found myself sitting, quietly, and thinking. It is kind of weird actually. I almost always have the music or CBC on in the background when I am home but nope. Not over the past week. I have sat in silence. The sound of the wind outside my home and the subsequent ringing of the wind chimes on my deck, the hum of the air coming out of the floor grate from the furnace and the sound of 8 little paws occasionally walking around my home. This would become the background music of my week. And you know what…. It was nice. My life was becoming calm and quiet and I was relaxing and even now while writing this I am pleasantly surprised with how relaxed I am at this moment as I have resolved myself to the fact that this afternoon I will not be moving from this chair, which is ironic.  More so… the idea of moving right now is stressful. What is going on? How can this be? My life is turning upside down. Not to mention that I am on a computer…. Technology (that is not in sports equipment) is my arch nemesis. Watches…. The 5 year batteries die in months…. iPhones… if I get 3 months good use I am blessed… Computers… Well don’t even get me started… they hate me….. My least favorite activity is sitting in front of a computer, technology hates me and I hate it right back yet right now, in this moment, I am, relaxed… in the quiet, confines of my home with a German shepherd, truly my best friend, and a bull dog, really more of a cat than a dog, curled up sleeping beside me.  And you know what? I think I figured it out… I think I figured out why I am not anxious sitting at this computer… why this is peaceful for me. You see, I may hate computers but I LOVE stories… I have LOVED listening to stories for as long as I remember…. sitting listening to my father laugh and share stories with friends and family and with me and my friends who would hand on his every word, but not just my dads. Just a few weeks ago Joey Smith and I sat and listened to James Boyd, maybe the best story teller alive today, tell stories in his basement while we laughed and excitedly waited in anticipation for where it would end all the time James himself self smiling as he controlled us like puppets… and I loved it. Following in my fathers footsteps I grew to become a young man who shared my fathers passion for sharing stories… stories of love, laughter, friendship, and despair… often finding the irony of humor and a smile in even the sad, broken hearted stories that some times fill our lives. What had I figured out in my hours sitting in front of a computer writing? The computer, a place that has felt more like a prison cell than a platform for release of anxiety, was becoming a place that I could tell a story, my story.  I love telling, and sharing stories far more than I ‘hated’ sitting in front of a computer… and the more that I wrote, the more that I realize that this is giving me the chance to tell a story that is far more significant than a broken leg and giving me a time to sit and reflect on many things including the tragic loss of  loved ones.

THE LOSS OF A LOVED ONE IS TOUGH

CANCER TOUCHES US ALL

A loss of life is a very very tough thing. We have all gone through it. As you grow up you need to say good-bye to older family members such as grand parents who blessed us with their love and presence. We see good fiends have to face the loss of a parent. The first true life changing loss for many of us and then comes a time when we have to say good bye to a dear friend. Someone we grew up with that lost his/her life way too soon. For me, that loss was Mark Deschamps, one of my dearest friends in the world who passed away in the fall of 2015 after a long courageous fight with cancer. Mark did not only leave behind 2 beautiful young daughters, and an incredible wife, he left behind an army of dear friends and family who adored him. For me, Mark was one of 8 guys that I grew up with in my formidable years.  One of 8 people that always got together with each other. We were all beyond the best of friends, we were all brothers in every sense of the word. We drank too much, stayed up late too much, did way too many stupid things and survived… way too many times… and we loved each other endlessly. To this day I still think about Mark near daily and take time when I do to think about how thankful I am that he was in my life but I still, at times, will have a relapse and forget he is gone. Just this past Saturday, St Patty’s Day, I was texting my buddies to let them know that if they go to Broadway in Orleans to see Johnny-O play that I would join them but that I would need a drive as I am immobile. One by one I linked my buddies on a group text; AC, and his number popped up, Hurtch and his number popped up, Leblanc, etc and then I typed ‘M’ ‘a’ and stopped myself... I was adding Mark to the thread. I paused for a moment, looked up and took a deep break and I smiled knowing that Mark was still with me. I back spaced and went on but at that moment I could feel Mark and everything he meant to me inside me and that was a beautiful thing. Mark lost his battle far too early in life and for countless friends and family members, our lives would never be the same now that Mark was gone. I guess if there is solace, it is that I have been able to make peace with this. I will never truly understand how or why but I have grown to accept this fate, it was his time to go and I am happy to know that he had a wonderful life that impacted so many…. But the acceptance of loosing a loved one can be a very very tough battle…. I have not found this peace in all of the friends I have lost.  

SOME LOSSES ARE MUCH TOUGHER TO COME TO TERMS WITH…

Yesterday, I got the news that one of my staffs best friends had lost a battle with mental illness and resorted to taking their own life. My heart fell for them in that moment and it immediately took me back to a phone call I received fall of 2016, the morning I found out that a dear friend of mine, Tristan Hannington had succumbed to a struggle with mental illness. 

This past Sunday was not a ‘perfect’ day for me. It was day 6 after the surgery and I had a long day. After a Saturday of Sheri taking the kids to activities as I relaxed at home by myself trying to heal I was starting to miss my children. Sunday morning came around and they were leaving for swimming. By the time they got home I wanted to get out. I wanted to get out with them. Not that getting out would be the best idea after being specifically instructed by Cory (Dr Richards) to stay put for 2 weeks but I didn’t want my children to be imprisoned in our home with me and I wanted to spend time with them so I suggested going to the movies and we did. In a nutshell I will tell you that this was not in my best interest mentally or physically. Very shortly after our departure my leg started to get sore, and not in the sharp pain at the break point sore that I had been experiencing, it was a general throbbing and entire ache of my lower leg. It started in the car and by the time we got to the theatre I was trying not to let it agitate me. I did my best to recover at the theatre but I could simply not get the throbbing to stop and I was fighting to keep my sanity. The plan was to leave the theatre and go to Cosmic Adventure allowing them to burn some steam off as I watched but that was not going to be an option after the theatre and we reluctantly headed home but the kids understood. I was tired and feeling sorry for myself.  I could not even do the simplest of activities with my children away from my home and for lack of a better description, I was feeling down and depressed by the situation and it was in that moment I got that message from my staff about her friend flinging me back to the passing of Tristan. I think about Tristan a lot at times it feels like a near daily basis. Although I had known Mark much longer and was much closer, Mark was family, a brother, not a friend, Tristan would be a tougher one for me to shake even to this day.

I met Tristan through my business. If you have seen the Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo car wraps and any of our graphics for that matter… well it was Tristan & Chris and their company K6 Media that had some roll to play, if not all of it. Since the beginning and still today they are involved with every graphic we put out. From the moment I met these 2 I loved these guys. I remember our first meeting at their new office that was not even constructed. 2 young, well dressed, fit handsome guys that were full of excitement for their new company and what they were going to build. Not to mention they were super stoked to work with me. They probably thought I was a far bigger deal at the time than I did. I thought to myself…. ‘If I am going to start to invest in better graphics and branding, why would I go with a larger established firm…. These guys are awesome… They are young, new, super excited… they are just like me!’ and the rest is history and the beginning of a wonderful friendship.  For the record, I found out a few years later that they were not a couple…. Man… I really thought they were a couple… not that this really matters and I only share this as we often laughed about this years later when they were both getting married (to women) and starting families. I have been with K6 Media ever since and would have no problem saying that my professional relationship with K6 Media has been my most cherished and influential business relationship in the 23 years of our existence. I am where I am today largely because of their friendship, support, guidance and the incredible work they have done for my business. And the loss of Tristan, well that has been one of the toughest losses for me to process and I hope to be able to come to terms with it one day but I may never find the peace I have found with Mark’s passing.

When Mark finally had to go it was his time. He was courageous and strong seizing every moment he could with friends and family. He had a great life and it was his time. For Tristan, I will never be able to believe it was his time. It was much too soon. Tristan had been fighting some unexpected health issues but he was on the other side. His physical strength was returning but this was not enough. As it often does, strong prescription medications can often send your mind off kilter… combine this with the stresses and ups and downs of running your own business, the pressures of  being a new father and the struggles and battles that perfectionists face. In the end it was too much. In all of this I believe that his desire to be perfect and never make a mistake was probably the straw that broke the camels back that day. You see, no one is perfect… we will all make mistakes…. and if you do you have to be able to forgive yourself. I am a perfectionist and I always have been. This will never change.  I have always believed that I could do better. I can be a better boss! I can be a better friend! I can be a better husband, son, brother, and father! I can be better to myself! There is always room for improvement as you strive to be perfect… For me, when I struggled with disappointment and failing to attain my goals… failing to be perfect… I started to realize that striving so hard for perfection was a gift and I could channel that. I could look back at what I had accomplished as a friend, boss, father, son, and husband and even falling short of perfection, I could be proud of who I was becoming and my accomplishments even when they were not perfect. I still remember at parent teacher interviews in elementary school, my teachers telling my parents that I was a perfectionist and that I was setting myself up for failure and my father coming home and telling me, “Keep working hard son, keep shooting for the stars, you are setting yourself up for success.” I look back now and I know he was right, at least for me, this would be the only approach that would work and his role was to help me find success in falling short of perfection. You see, I would never not be a perfectionist, that was who I was, that was in me.  I believed in my heart that in spite of striving for perfection and falling short at times that I was paving the path to success which in the end would lead to something that I could be proud of and that my father would be proud of too. I am a good father, a great friend, a good boss, and do believe Sheri would tell you that I am a wonderful husband but I am far from perfect. I not only have made mistakes, I have made huge mistakes, although I do have very few regrets as I believe I have grown and learned from these mistakes. But what I also had to learn to do was to learn to forgive myself. If you are a perfectionist and you make a mistake, the only thing more important than having others forgive you is having the capacity to forgive yourself and accept all human beings make mistakes, including you. That in itself is part of being human and I am not sure that Tristan could forgive himself when he fell short of perfection.

For me, I still cannot shake that day that Chris called me to tell me that Tristan had passed away. As I’m certain that everyone who knew him did, I started to think back about all the interactions I had with Tristan over the previous few months. I knew about his physical health issues and I knew he was on the other side of these. And I also knew about him mentally struggling to keep himself grounded but it never occurred to me that he was struggling this deep. I all too well now remember the conversations about going for a bike ride… grabbing a drink… getting together for a scotch night… I think back at every time I was not available… was that the night he needed me most? Was that the night that I could have been there for him and started him down a different path? Was that the night he was asking for more? Well… it is those moments that haunt me. I will tell you that there was one conversation we had in particular at the shop that really stuck with me. It was about 2 months before Tristan passed away and it was a conversation about moving on and forgiveness. I remember at the time that it was a weird conversation… the middle of the day… in the middle of his shops floor… with staff around… and even today I can see it as clear as day. I remember the expression on his face, his voice, the desire for answers in his eyes, the curiosity… he had questions about forgiveness and moving on but at the time I did not realize these questions were not just about forgiveness, they were about forgiving himself.  On that day I did my best to answer them and we engaged for a bit but I think I missed something that day, an opportunity. I look back now and I really, really, really wish at that moment that I said to Tristan, “Dude, clear your schedule. Let’s go have a beer. This is important.” But I did not see it at the time. I did not realize how heavy the weight of the world was coming down on his shoulders.

In the end, I am not sure that I will ever shake the loss of Tristan or accept it fully because it was not his time and I am certain I am not the only person who struggles with this today. Questioning what you could have done different and wondering what you may have missed is something I’m certain everyone deals with if they loose a friend or family member to mental illness.  Tristan, such an incredible young man and wonderful friend to all left us too soon. Many people will read this and tell me that I need to forgive myself, that I need to let go as this is what Tristan would want… he would want me to remove that weight from my shoulders and many would tell me that there really is nothing I could have done. They will say that it is easy to look back at tragedies such as this and see messages and signs that were not actually there but I do wonder if that is just therapists trying to help you or me deal with our own forgiveness and mourning. They may be right, they may be wrong, maybe there is nothing I could have done but what I can tell you is that I don’t think I will ever fully let that weight off my shoulders and in writing this I just realized that I don’t think I want to. I see now that it is that weight I carry for Tristan that keeps me attentive and makes me listen. If I hear of or see a person who may be struggling. It is Tristan’s weight that will ensure that people will have my full attention.  I will listen, I will clear my schedule, and I will grab that beer.

Mark Deschamps & Tristan Hannington. I trust you know how much of an impact you both have had on my life and just how much you impacted who I have become today. I feel very blessed to have known you and have each of you as a brother and a friend. Thanks for the memories…..

Mark Cedric Deschamps - Simply the BEST!