Living through grief one day at a time
Children’s Grief Awareness Event on Nov. 17 increases understanding of children, death and grief
HER FATHER’S POLICE BADGE is tattooed in black-and-white on her left shoulder. Two angel wings wrap around the words: Archer, 979, police. When 17-year-old Victoria Archer needs her dad most, she can feel him right there behind her.
“Some days, when you’re done, when you’re tired, when you want to give up,” she begins, “I picture my dad over me and it gives me a push.
“He’s probably in heaven yelling at me. He would never let me give up.”
Her second tattoo, five simple words on her left arm: One day at a
time.
“After trauma, you have to take it one day at a time,” she says.
Her father, Daryl Archer, a constable with the Hamilton Police Service, died by suicide in his Vineland home in April 2015. He shot himself with his service handgun. He was 40.
Daryl lived with post traumatic stress disorder.
Victoria fingers a cross necklace. “You need faith that things will get better,” she says.
For her third tattoo, she chose the word “thrive” on her ribs. “You have to learn how to thrive,” she says.
When her father died, she was overcome by shock and disbelief.
“My emotions were all over the place.
“I felt like I lost myself,” she says. “I was never going to move past this.
“I was stuck in April 2015 for the rest of my life.”
She has received counselling, eventually with Angel Graham, a child and family therapist at Pathstone Mental Health. Graham specializes in grief and trauma therapy, a field close to her own heart.
One in 20 children will experience the death of a parent before they graduate high school, she says.
One in five children will experience the death of someone close to them.
On Saturday, Nov. 17 Grief Network Niagara will host its 3rd annual Children’s Grief Awareness day at Brock University. In the morning, children and families can watch the film, Coco. The film affirms that talking to a dead loved one is both normal and good for mental health, and that music and remembering loved ones is important in a grief journey.
In the afternoon session, offered to adults, discussions will include preparing a child for a funeral, talking to kids about death, reserving judgment and using books as therapy.
Grief is unique to the person, says Graham. It can surface in every area of a person’s life, from emotions to social experiences, physically and spiritually.
“Even if there is no outward sign on inner turmoil, those storms can still be raging inside a grieving child’s heart,” she says.
On this day, Victoria sits in Graham’s office and tells the story of her father and his death. “Every time I talk about it, it gets easier,” she says.
She is an example of the power of therapy to reframe thinking and move forward through life.
In a word, to thrive.
“It does get better,” says Victoria. “It’s not always going to be that painful.”
*****
Her father lives inside Victoria. “He was the most amazing dad in the world,” she says. She has three siblings from her father’s second marriage.
He gave her determination to never quit and the tenacity to find joy in life again. Daryl was always on the sidelines whenever Victoria competed in track and field events at school. She still feels his presence.
“I picture my dad over me and it gives me a push,” she says. “He’s probably in heaven yelling at me. He would never let me give up.
“He’s standing behind me to tell me, ‘Do it, go for it, don’t let anything hold you back’.”
One morning, he woke her up early in the morning to work out in the backyard of his home in Vineland. Together, boot-camp style, they flipped tires end to end and ran sprints the length of the yard and back.
“He’d do the whole workout with me,” she says.
At one point, when she felt too tired to continue, he told her to get up and get moving. “He pushed me so
much,” she says. “It made me who I am as an athlete today.”
That determination has spread to other parts of her life and it’s pushed her forward through her grief journey. She will go for a run or workout to help her “process my feelings,” she says.
*****
April 19, 2015. Victoria was home with her mother and step dad in their St. Catharines home. She looked out their big front window and saw two police cars in their driveway.
She remembers everything, absolutely everything, about the next minutes of her life. The show on the television. Her mother talking outside with the police officers and then “crying hysterically. Two officers, a man and woman, sitting next to her; one of the officers said: “Victoria, your father has passed away.”
She was 14.
Later on, she learn he killed himself.
“How could he do that?” She was sad. Hurt. Angry. In disbelief. And she felt a deep sense of guilt.
The day before he died, her father had called her three times. Victoria thought it odd. In their final conversation, he told her multiple times, “I love you” and to never give up, a mantra he had instilled in her over the years.
She hung up and went to bed. It would be their last goodbye.
His words replayed in her mind. “What if I said one different word?” she agonized. “Maybe he would have not done what he did?
“What were the clues I should have picked up on?”
Explaining a suicide death to a child or teen can feel overwhelming, even intimidating, says Graham. “As adults, we often want to protect them from the stigma and shame that can accompany such a death,” she says.
Parents need to tell the truth and start with short, simple explanations, allowing children’s questions to guide the conversation.
“Why?” is often the first question asked, she says.
Children and teens might blame themselves and wonder if
they could have done something to prevent the death, she says. “They need reassurance that it was not their fault.”
Listen to them, encourage them to come to you with questions, and help them find ways to express their thoughts and emotions, she says. Talking about it is key.
“If they don’t talk, it comes out in other ways,” she says.
Victoria misses her dad. She always will. But she has reconciled his death and her own love of life.
“That part is in the past. You can’t go back and change what has already happened,” she says. “There’s nothing I could have done.
“I’ve faced it head on. And I’ve learned more about myself than ever.”
After she finishes Grade 12 at Eden High School she hopes to study recreational therapy to help other people.
“I know he’s proud of me,” she says. “He’s super proud of me and he’s cheering me on from up above.”
*****
One day, when she has more life lived, she will get another tattoo. A flower.
“You need to bloom into a flower. After you go through all this, you have to be a flower,” she says.
“You have to bloom.”