Statistics and Algorithms

K.B. Sterling, circa 1980

I've already done two retrospective posts on Facebook, and now, here I am, about to do one here on the blog. I'm not going to apologize, however, because I find these periods of looking back to be informative and comforting.

The interesting thing is that the automatically-generated memes don't really allow for much thought or explanation. For example, my Facebook slideshow didn't make much of one of the major events of my year: the premature and unexpected death of my friend K.B.

Stormy Weather

Friday, September 5, 2014  

We got walloped with a humdinger of a storm on Friday evening. Banks of clouds rolled in quickly in the early afternoon, bringing gusts of winds, thunder and lightning. I listened to the thunder and the driving rain and thought about my friend, K.B., who absolutely loved a good thunderstorm. Seriously, she would act like a child at Christmas.

It seemed to clear out as quickly as it came, and we were getting ready to eat dinner when our younger son came in and told us he was going to get the hacksaw so he could help clear the many trees that had fallen on our street.

That's when I grabbed my camera.

True Love

Chris and K.B., May 25, 2013

A year ago I was absolutely thrilled to squeeze in a trip to Regina, SK, so I could be at my friend K.B.'s wedding. Mere months later, I hopped on another plane to attend her funeral service. Today, I am crying for her husband.

Dear Daddy

My dad hugging me on my wedding day.

Happy 90th birthday!

Oh, how I wish you were around to enjoy it, to give us all bear hugs and beard-burn, tell a few bad puns, and overindulge in chocolate birthday cake. I've already eulogized you (more than once), so I won't dwell on my grief, except to mention that I think of you every day.

I'm writing to fill you in on how my life has continued since your heart failed, though I firmly believe you've been watching over me.

Thankful Thursday: Looking Back

My 100 Happy Days board on Pinterest.

It's been many months since I wrote a Thankful Thursday post, partly because last fall I was simply not feeling terribly thankful. But that does not mean that I have not practiced gratitude on a daily basis. In fact, since the losses of Scooter and especially of my friend K.B., making a conscious effort to recognize the joy and beauty in my life has been important and fruitful.

One Month

K.B. with her horse

It's been a month since my friend K.B. died. In some ways, I can't believe so much time has passed already. In others, it feels like it was just yesterday.

If you knew K.B. well, you would know that she really loved animals, especially horses. For a time, she part-owned a horse in Regina. I, myself, haven't been on a horse since I was in early high school.

You might also know that she was fascinated by dreams. (Dreams really are a strange phenomenon, I must agree.) The fiction she had begun writing on her blog concerned "dream guardians."

Here is her first entry in the story she was working on:

The Sorrow Sisters

Our Lady of the Wayside

I went through a period of depression when I was in middle school, and my best friend couldn't understand what I was talking about when I told her. Was I sad? What was I crying about?

"Haven't you ever been depressed?" I asked in astonishment.

"No," she answered frankly. "I guess I haven't."

We looked at each other like we were from different planets. 

I was surprised to learn that there are people who have never been depressed. Depression has been such a regular visitor in my life that, to this day, it astounds me to meet someone who's never experienced it. Like my own husband.

He's been stressed, exhausted, anxious, sad -- he's experienced many, many of the feelings that go along with depression, but he's never had that prolonged inescapable feeling that spirals down to hopelessness, that makes you hate your life and your very own self.

Last fall was pretty bleak for me as I struggled with health issues, stress at work, and depression that didn't want to budge. It was not until I kicked the first two factors out of the way that the mood finally lifted. In fact, it lifted enough that I've been able to go through two significant losses (our dog Scooter and my friend K.B.) in less than one month without revisiting the place of self-loathing.

Having so recently weathered the storm, I was worried that I would fall again, but was fascinated to observe the difference between grief and depression. I've decided to write about it because I expect that, for many people, grief is as close as they will ever come to experiencing depression.

Much has been written about grief, and the "five stages of grief" popularized by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross include depression as one of the stages:

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

But I would say that, as I've bounced back and forth through these stages (and I am by no means "through" my grieving for K.B.), the "depression" stage has been significantly different from classic depression. I think there is a distinction between emotions and mood.

In grieving, I have felt intense emotions, feelings. My own feelings of the so-called depression stage have included sadness or sorrow, regret, loss, longing, and loneliness. There have been plenty of tears and heavy sighs. (The sighs were completely spontaneous and were almost laughable at how frequently they happened.) It sapped energy but also felt cathartic and honest. Rather than withdrawing, I have found a great sense of community with others who shared my sorrow. I've even made new friends through this valley.

Depression, however, is a pervasive mood. On top of the sadness, longing and loneliness, there is despair, hopelessness, irritability, and self-hatred. When my depressions are at their worst, I just want to "make it stop" (though I couldn't really tell you what "it" is) -- by whatever means necessary. I don't feel like I will ever get through it. And I become so enveloped by the bleakness that it is all but impossible to feel empathy, compassion, or connection. Not surprisingly, relationships suffer.

The two states are rather like sisters: they share a lot in common and, from far away may look identical, but, up close, are very distinct.

Here. Have a purring kitty.

I want to conclude with two points.

1. If you've never struggled with depression, but have gone through grief, then you have some idea of the nature of depression.
2. If you are grieving and find you are "stuck" or want to hurt yourself in hopelessness and despair, you may actually be depressed on top of the grief. Get help. And bookmark this article: 21 Tips to Keep Your Shit Together when You're Depressed.

I'd be interested in hearing if any of you have also noticed a difference between grieving and depression. If you've never been depressed, did this discussion help you understand?

Time to say goodbye

I flew all the way to Regina, and K.B. didn't meet me at the airport, didn't even text me.

I stayed with her best friend for three nights, and still never heard from her. (Though her ears must have been ringing because, Lord have mercy, did we talk about her!)

I talked to all sorts of people who loved her. I even saw her body, but she was not there. There is no way they could have contorted her face into one of her full-body smiles. It would have been horrific.

I saw her children and was helpless to mend their hearts, because she didn't tell me what to say. She would have known.

I listened to the children's eloquent and profound eulogies and thought: oh, K.B., you must be so damned proud of these two, they do you such honour.

I hugged her bridegroom and wished that things were different, tried not to be angry on his behalf that their honeymoon had really only just begun.

I was regaled with stories of kindness, generosity, and weirdness ("How many teapots in her cubicle? Eight?! All with matching cups?").

I spoke to her ex who seemed only just to have really added up the costs of his choices, of what he had let slip through his fingers.

One friend cried as she asked, "How did I not know?" How did she not know that K.B. was really a sister, a twin. And I felt the same: everybody else knew how much she loved me. I didn't give her nearly all the love she deserved.

I saw the home she loved, touched her dance shoes and glittery scarves. I walked through the tiny kitchen and imagined all the love she had cooked up, but there was no yeasty smell of rising bread. I pictured her dancing in the dining room.

I packed a bag full of her shoes, because we shared a ridiculously small foot-size, and I pondered the metaphor of "walking in her shoes." It means I will have to dance more.

And all this time, after these hours and hours of obsessively picking at the wound of my grief, she didn't come.

Because she's gone. And all that is left are the bits of her that are in me, and the bits of her that are in these wonderful, wonderful people. And now I miss them, too, but I'm glad to add them to the circle of my friends. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves:,

In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets... Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, 'Here comes one who will augment our loves.' For in this love 'to divide is not to take away.'

My life has been augmented in so many ways for having known K.B. This last one - the gift of more friends, is a surprise to me, and I am so grateful.

Too Soon

K.B. in high school

I have a stomach ache. Not because of any bugs or food gone bad. My stomach is roiling because I just learned that my dear friend, K.B., died in the wee hours of this morning, January 9, 2014. Her death was sudden and shocking, from an extremely rare allergic reaction.

UPDATE: It may not have been an allergic reaction. 

Last spring I shared with you that I was delighted to attend K.B.'s wedding. In her fiftieth year, she was in love and full of optimism about the future. She'd found a soul mate in Chris who understood her passions.

Back in July 2012, she had sent me an e-mail before her first kinda-sorta date with Chris - a weekday lunch with a group of people, but the one that had her heart racing was Chris.

"Do we ever stop being 17?" she wrote. "Why 17? Because I’m so nervous I’m nauseous. And just thinking about it I’m blushing. AT 49!!! It’s just lunch! And thank heaven, too, given the state I appear to be in."

She was beautiful, wasn't she? She always had been.

K.B., me, my cousin Ruth

She was fearless, witty, sharp as a tack, and so very, very generous and kind. In high school, when she slept over at my house, we sometimes snuck out to Tim Horton's for donuts. We double-dated and played endless hours of Euchre.

I have to elaborate on the "generous" adjective. Generosity is one of my deepest values and K.B. knew how to give like no one else I've known. And I don't mean in big, flashy ways. Her best gifts were rarely expensive (as a single mom, she watched every dime), but were always surprising. One time, in late winter, when it felt like the sun had abandoned us forever, she gave me a styrofoam cup in which she had sprouted some tiny blades of grass: spring is coming.

She even gave (well shared) her [other best] friend with me. After K.B.'s wedding Bronwyn (who blogs over at I, Mayb)  and I connected over social media through a shared interest in writing and humour.

I originally titled this post "Proudly Flying Her Freak Flag" because she was one of those people who was brave and saucy about doing things just a little differently.

Yup. Barefoot. At her wedding. At first I thought she didn't like her shoes or her feet were sore, but, no. She just wanted to be barefoot. And why not? She had adorable tiny feet.

That same quirky and wonderful spirit passed to her daughter. As a wedding gift, she gave the happy couple a star. How amazing is that?

I'm going to share a few more of the pictures I took at her wedding, the last time I saw her.

K.B. with her son Alec and her daughter Maddy

K.B. and her husband Chris, and his two children

K.B.'s sister Susan and their father, Mr. Sterling (I can't bring myself to even type his first name.)

That picture is heartbreaking because two important people are not in it: K.B.'s mother, Joan, who died of Parkinson's, and her brother, Cullen, who died in his teens, of cancer.

But this is my favourite picture of that day, possibly even of all time.

Just a little girl, basking in her daddy's love.

Goodbye, K.B. I miss you already.

A loss

Our Lady of the Wayside, Ireland [Photo copyright Wynn Anne Sibbald]

Have you ever noticed that, the more profound your feelings are, the more trite your sentiments sound when you try to put them into words?