Keep Playing

To give you some context, we do this thing at Fairway Mortgage called #KeepPlaying, a daily email with a story from an employee about finding beauty in the face of adversity and how to keep playing when the going gets tough. The following is my response to a recent #KeepPlaying email that fortuitously brightened my day.

Hi Jason,

I read your #KeepPlaying story last week and found it inspiring. But the reason I'm reaching out today is because September 17th, 2023 is the two year anniversary of my aunt Kim's death. We were 12 years apart, I grew up with her like she was my big sister and like a mom in many ways. She was 40 when she died unexpectedly. Kimmy was always one of the most important people in my life, and I was her favorite person in the whole world.

Kim said I was her favorite person all the time, but when I visited her home in Santa Fe, NM to collect some of her belongings after she passed on, I observed all of the framed pictures of me and us  displayed in almost every room. I had hardly noticed them before although they had always been there. I really was her favorite person.

Kimmy was so good with kids, I remember that from when I was a toddler and she was a teenager and as I grew up. She had this maternal energy, a special kind of comfort and ease with kids. She wanted to be a mom so badly and she had suffered a miscarriage only a couple years before she passed away. We lost her due to liver failure, but I believe the grief she suffered through the miscarriage took its toll and wore down her will to fight. I wish I had been there for her in a bigger way.

I suppose we all experience survivor’s guilt after losing a loved one. I often think about how unfair it is that I continue on with my life after hers ended, that we’re trying to start a family when she didn’t get to have children of her own. 

I despise myself for not grieving her loss in more apparent ways or not letting it affect me more deeply, even though I think of her and miss her every single day. Sometimes I wonder if she peers at me through the veil of the spirit world, with the same disdain I have for myself. But then I remember how much she loves me, and that my self-loathing is merely a manifestation of my unprocessed grief.

You may be wondering what any of this has to do with your #KeepPlaying story about the buffalo charging the storm. While your story resonated with me in remembrance of those who had fallen and given their lives trying to save others in the catastrophic events of 9/11, it took on a new meaning for me this morning. I haven’t been reading the #KeepPlaying stories every day but something told me to read yours about one week ago. I’m reading a book called “Finding Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief” by David Kessler, which was lent to me by a close friend and client. I just picked it up this morning and started reading chapter twelve, only to be stopped in my tracks…

Finding meaning in my aunt Kim’s death has been difficult to say the least. I grieved intensely during and after the initial shock of her loss, and sometimes I dream vividly of seeing her again. Nowadays I tend compartmentalize the grief in effort to avoid the pain.

I want to keep my memories of Kim alive, and create meaning from her time here on earth. Snowboarding was a big part of her life, she taught me when I was 13 and I’ve been going ever since. My family & I plan to start a nonprofit in her name to sponsor youth to attend ski school who wouldn’t otherwise have the means to do so. 

I know that I will need to charge the storm just like the buffalo, to find her love on the other side of the pain and share it with others. Thank you for reminding me to #KeepPlaying. ❤️