After she lost her mother to cancer last year, Olivia Hahn, 16, read about the five stages of grief, imagining an orderly transition from denial, anger and bargaining, to depression and acceptance.
Her mourning, however, was not like that.
“What I’ve learned through this is that it’s more of a rollercoaster — that there’s always ups and downs and it’s super messy,” said Olivia.
The Grade 11 Reynolds Secondary student has written a self-published book on grief entitled Healing Our Wounded Hearts: A Real Life Story About Loss in the Voice of a Teenager. She first put pen to paper to heal herself, only to realize she could maybe help others.
“I just want other teens to know that it’s not like there’s an order to grief,” said Olivia.
“You don’t know when you’re going to feel things. But I want teens to know that it’s OK to feel those feelings when you do.”
Child psychologist Jillian Roberts said Olivia’s experience is common. The five stages of grief, as defined by Swiss-Amercian psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, are for most people not linear and a person may “circle back, in, and around, go from anger to denial and back again,” Roberts said.
When someone firmly gets into the stage of acceptance, when the weight of grief is not all-consuming and they can speak about their loved one without crumbling, there is healing, said Roberts, a University of Victoria professor.
“That’s when I know that a child or teenager is finished grief therapy,” said Roberts, describing a person who can talk about a loved one with possibly a smile or acknowledgment of the beauty in that person or those moments without breaking down.
In writing her book, Olivia got to relive many happy moments and memories of her mother, Patricia Kilshaw. She remembers her as wise and compassionate and resilient.
“She always seemed to know what to do, she was very strong and showed empathy and kindness all the way to the end of her cancer journey — which is amazing,” said Olivia.
She also laughed at the silliest events and her giggle was infectious: “Her laugh was crazy and it made me laugh.”
Born on March 16, 1972, Kilshaw last worked at the B.C. Pension Corporation. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018 and, by November 2021, it had spread to her brain. She died on Jan. 21, 2022 at 49. Olivia was 15.
“I always looked up to her,” said Olivia. “She has the most kind heart” and a warmth that blanketed those around her.
When Olivia and her brother Lukas, 13, faced challenges, it was their mother’s advice that often saw them through.
Olivia’s fondest memories are of drinking tea while watching television with her mother in the evenings and enjoying the conversations that flowed from that. They spent as much time as possible with one another in her mother’s final months.
After her mother’s death, Olivia said, she retreated to her room. She didn’t want to hug her father. She felt there was no one with whom she could relate. Even with her brother and father around, the family home felt empty.
“I didn’t know anyone who lost a parent who was my age,” said Olivia. Friends always seemed to be talking about their mothers “and I would just sit there and nod.”
Mornings were different. Olivia and her brother now realized what their mother had done to prepare them for their days — “all those little things that you didn’t really realize she did until it is taken away from you.”
Olivia looked for resources on grief for teenagers. When she didn’t find anything that satisfied her needs, she set out to write her own book, pouring out her pain through creative prose and poetry, she said.
One work is Grief is Like: Poem. In it, Olivia remembers her mother’s last breath as if “you were just giving your air to me to keep me from suffocating.”
Her book is in the library at Oak Bay High School and she hopes to get it onto more school shelves to help others. It’s on sale on Amazon, with partial proceeds going to local palliative care.
Olivia said the feedback from youth and even adults has been healing and putting her feelings on the page was cathartic.
Now, she can again hug her father, John Hahn, who says he’s immensely proud of his daughter and acts as her cheerleader.
Roberts, founder of MindKey Health in Victoria, West Shore and Sidney, said it’s important to remember that grief is a normal part of the range of human emotions and each of us will experience it.
Most important, she said, is to experience those feelings as a way to process grief. Individuals and different cultures will do this in unique ways, but facing emotions head-on — she supports children and youth attending funerals, for example — is an important “human experience.”
Trying to protect children and youth — or anyone else — from grief is not helpful, she said.
Roberts said grief was once explained to her as the experience of travelling the Grand Canyon, descending into the valley to come up the other side. One can’t jump from one bank to the other.
“There’s no short cuts,” she said. “You have to do the work, you have to process those emotions in a healthy way before you’re able to make your way back up.”
If grief isn’t experienced and processed, it rears its head later in life, Roberts said. “We need to honour those emotions.”
MindKey offers online courses on grief at courses.mindkeyhealth.com/collections. Roberts said readers could use the code CLINIC100 to access the reading materials and resources.
Other resources
- B.C. Children’s Hospital — Grief and Loss for teens
- HealthLinkBC — Helping Teens With Grief
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