To The Kids Who Are Silently Drowning

This post is going to look a little different than my usual ones. Normally, I try and focus on a clear point I want to raise awareness about. But today, I have a different goal.

My son is thirteen years old and goes to a normal, public school. He has a lot of friends, gets along well with others. But more importantly, he’s an empath like his mother. He cares deeply about the suffering of others and carries their pain with them whenever he can. He notices the kids that are struggling to plaster fake smiles on their faces or to sit through an entire day of school, all the while they are silently drowning – alone, isolated, surrounded by friends.

He carries this with him and he brings it to me so I can help him carry it when the weight of his compassion starts to wear him down. He trusts that there is nothing he can bring me that I won't accept fully, and he knows that he isn't supposed to be able to navigate everything on his own.

My son isn’t perfect little angel (trust me, we all have our days). He isn’t a better kid than anyone around him. But he is sensitive to things because of what I’ve taught him about grief, mental health, and because I’ve taught him to look past the surface of everyday behaviour.

Some kids, he says, need help. And that they have nowhere to turn, despite having friends and family, despite having a school counsellor and loving teachers.

This hits me in my core, because the loneliness and hopelessness he sees in some of the kids at his school – that was my hell when I was his age.

Despite what many of you may think, the root of my passion for grief care doesn’t come from my work as a Funeral Director. Certainly, my career is the path by which I arrived here, but the empathy I feel so immensely for others grew out of a different kind of loss.

No one died in my grief.

My grief formed when I lost trust in everyone who was supposed to protect me and guide me.

My grief grew when I lost all sense of safety, of security, of stability.

My grief calcified when I looked around at my friends, my family, my teachers, my counsellors, and I saw a staggering rift between where I was and where they needed me to meet them in order to get help.

My grief became a part of me when my pain and my wild, uncontrollable, cascading emotional turmoil was too much for anyone in my life to handle.

My grief defined me when I turned to addiction in order to silence the thoughts I had: that nobody saw about me, that nobody understood me, and that nobody cared enough to face their own fear of my experiences and my emotions.

My grief nearly killed me when I gave up on caring about myself in the hopeless acceptance that I would never find a safe harbor.

I drowned under my grief.

All I needed was someone that could handle my pain, when I was too young to handle it myself.

I needed someone to help me learn to see life as inherently good again, instead of inherently ruthless and cruel.

I needed someone to prove to me that my broken, angry, whirlwind of an existence wasn’t too much to come back from.

I needed someone to tell me “Hey, I can carry everything you’re holding inside of you.”

I needed someone to tell me that I should live because I had inherent value and that the world was better with my light and my kindness and my love and my compassion.

I was 13 years old when my grief consumed my life.

I was 16 years old when I threw my life away and almost lost my chance to grow up and to heal.

I was 19 years old when I became a single mother to my eldest son and decided I was going to be the person I needed as a child.

I was 28 years old when I started to face my grief.

I was 31 years old when I decided I was going to help others face theirs.

Grief isn’t just losing someone. It’s also losing yourself. It’s losing your faith in humanity. It’s losing trust in the human connection. It’s losing hope and identity and certainty and optimism and losing the belief that you are not alone.

It’s losing yourself and staring at the faces of everyone who loves you, knowing they aren’t really seeing you anymore because the person they think you are is dead and you are empty and void.

I was 13 years old when my grief consumed my life.

Today, I am the person I needed so desperately.

Today, I am raising my sons to see the emptiness and disconnection and hopelessness that unresolved grief causes and not fear it.

Today, I am teaching everyone who will listen, how to embrace grief in themselves and in others. To approach it without fear or judgement. To live fully immersed in the “uglier” side of humanity, for it is just as powerful of a human experience as joy and pride and love.

To the kids who feel hopeless and lost and who have lost faith in the ability for others to understand you: don’t give up.

You are beautiful and vibrant and the person you are is whole and perfect.

You are facing the most challenging years of your life and it doesn’t matter how easy or perfect your life might look.

Your humanity is inside of you.

Your experiences - not your forced smiles or social media selfies - are what make you real and valuable and whole.

And even when you feel like there’s nothing left inside: it’s there.

Your spark will never die if you can keep fighting long enough to see the sun break through the storm clouds.

It might feel like this storm is eternal, or that you’re not strong enough to keep pushing through, or that you’re not worth the effort, but I promise you: there are people who see you and will never give up on you.

You are not alone. Keep searching for that one person that sees you. Don't give up on the belief that adults are supposed to guide you and help you and protect you - THEY ARE.

Don't hate yourself because your caregivers are failing you - often times they were never taught how to handle their own grief, let alone yours.

If you are silently drowning - please reach out.

Children's Help Phone: Text "CONNECT" to 686868 or click here to message online. You can also visit https://peertopeer.kidshelpphone.ca/ for peer-to-peer support.

Yours,

Jes Knoop

Founder

To the adults who are caring for children in any capacity: I invite you to reach out for resources that will help teach you how to embrace grief, how to become a good listener, and how to become fearless in the face of all the wild, crazy, scary things our children are experiencing today.