Cold Chicken Soup: Rejected Essays by Two Siblings Grappling with Grief
***This post contains two essays, one authored by James’s sister, Katy Anderson, with James’s assistance, and the other written by James. A few months back, we submitted the essays to Chicken Soup for the Soul for consideration in light of the call for submissions for the forthcoming book, “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Grieving, Loss and Healing,” scheduled for publication on February 22, 2022. The Chicken Soup crew accepted 101 essays. Our stories did not make the cut. Rather than discard our rejected stories, we figured our “Cold Chicken Soup” still worth sharing. We decided to publish the essays together here, juxtaposing our respective sibling perspectives. Katy’s piece can be read in full for free. Although I was wary of commodifying grief and loss, Katy and I reckoned that since the submissions would’ve been remunerated if accepted anyway, and since I’m a big proponent of writers being compensated for their work so long as the existing socioeconomic system prevails, it wouldn’t be wrong to erect a paywall at the point where her piece ends and mine begins. Paid subscribers to Waywards can read both Katy’s story AND my deeply personal self-disclosure. You can subscribe to Waywards for one month for $5.***
Grief Comes in Waves
By Katy Anderson with James Anderson
I’m fortunate to have had both of my parents until I was well into adulthood.
But recently, I watched my mother die right in front me. She collapsed on July 9 in the hallway in the house I shared with her and my partner, now husband, Blake. Our dog, Oreo, a beast of a black lab closer in size to a small pony than to a canine, died in almost the exact same spot two months prior.
When my mom first collapsed, survival seemed likely given that her emphatic tone did not immediately disappear. But in just five to ten minutes time she went from telling me, in her oft-obstinate way, “Don’t call the fucking ambulance,” as I paced and a friend of the family sat with her momentarily, to slow belabored breathing with weak gasps for air coming few and far between.
After I called the ambulance, she was rushed to the hospital. Given how quickly her breathing changed, I couldn’t shake this foreboding feeling that she might not make it. Once I arrived, and she remained in critical condition, I hit the hospital floor crying.
Mom was gone within a few minutes. I had to get out of there too. In a surreal stupor, I started walking home from the hospital with my then-fiancé.
In a weird instance of synchronicity, my brother, who lives in California, already had a plane ticket to fly into Illinois that night so he could visit us and friends. It’s a good thing he was on his way. I’m not sure how I would’ve handled it all otherwise.
We put together what I thought was a beautiful visitation and funeral service. For the funeral we played “Amazing Grace” by Willie Nelson, the transcendent country artist my mom and I had the chance to see once in concert. I remember we were a little late, and once we got there we ran up the steps toward the live music, my mom with a fanny pack around her waist, a cup of beer in each hand, yelling, “I’m comin’ Willie” as we ran.
My dad, who died in 2019, also attended the concert. I grieved both my father and my mother, but I lived with and was closer with my mom, so her death seemed to take more of a toll, as I’m still processing that loss.
My partner and I had tentatively planned on getting married before my mom’s unexpected death. Blake and I had been engaged four years already, but we had yet to tie the knot. We figured it made sense to go ahead and make it official while my brother was here, so he could leave home on a happy note. A whirlwind of emotions encircled me. Within a week, I lost my mom and came together with a man in holy matrimony.
After the small, ad hoc wedding, many of the same friends and family members who attended my mother’s funeral gathered for a reception-like celebration at a local coffee shop in our Southern Illinois town. My husband and I danced to Dylan’s “Wedding Song,” the final track on an album he recorded with The Band.
Blake, who was with me when my mom collapsed in the hallway of our house, and when I fell to the hospital floor, still supports and, importantly, understands me. He doesn’t judge when I go from being fine one minute to crying when a thought of mom passes through my mind.
But up until recently, Blake had been working the graveyard shift throughout the week, and I was dreading time alone late at night in this big empty house.
It was my brother’s idea for me to get a dog – a girl’s best friend and therapeutic aid throughout the grieving process, it turns out.
A day or so before my brother left, he drove me to a shelter in Benld, Ill., a small town surrounded by lots of corn and/or soybean fields (I can never tell the difference).
When we arrived we were shown a 12-year-old beagle, Max, bless his soul. He was pleasant, but he looked to be on his last leg, and I wasn’t sure I could handle another death in the family. Then they brought out a puppy, all black and apparently incapable of barking – though we learned that, unfortunately, was just a phase. They said he was a black lab, but not a purebred. Probably mixed with terrier, they said. When they told us that he was born on Mother’s Day, I couldn’t not take him home. The once ostensibly mute dog now barks incessantly, but he also still lets me hold him like a baby, providing me comfort as I comfort him. My brother and I were going to name him Wilbur, after the Traveling Wilburys supergroup and after the pig in “Charlotte’s Web,” the children’s story by E.B. White. But my oldest son, Sam, who didn’t get to name Oreo, the black lab my brother brought home from the pound a decade ago, decided on Toby, so Toby he is.
With my mom gone, a new wedding ring on my finger, and Toby entering the scene as the newest addition to the family, everything appeared to be changing. But not only were things changing around me; I had been changing on a personal level as well.
With my recovery journey beginning just four months before her death, and my regular church attendance starting only a month before that fateful day, I was fresh in faith and fresh out of addiction when my mom passed.
I remain blessed beyond belief to have a supportive community from church and from weekly meetings. Consistently, my support network has been there for me. Many showed up for the funeral.
If I were still dwelling in the depths of addiction, nobody would’ve showed up.
My Celebrate Recovery group went so far as to prepare a dinner for everyone after the services.
Fleeting thoughts of my mom still bring me to tears from time to time. On occasion, I think I can still hear her voice. The grief comes in waves, washing up old memories, both good and bad, against the shore of my consciousness.
God, my husband, my dog, my family and friends are what help me make it through another day.